The former leader of Birmingham City Council from 1984-1993, Sir Richard Knowles, died at the age of 90 last week after a 27-year career in West Midlands local government that ended in 2000. Here Roger Taylor, the former chief executive of Birmingham, who worked with him for six years describes Sir Richard’s skills as a city leader
Dick’s skill in leading Birmingham through its late 20thC renaissance lay, as good leadership always does, in his quality as a man. Aspiring leaders and mayors not to mention inspectors can learn much from him!
He was a superb political organiser managing the always tricky and often venal politics of the controlling Labour group. He was a relaxed chair of the Labour group executive and the council’s policy committee. Never threatened he was able to value and capture the talents of his colleagues and apply them to Birmingham’s renewal. With no appetite for detail he was relaxed in giving others, both politicians and officials, the authority and credit they needed.
In public he was the highly visible and approachable face of the city council; to go to any meeting or walk down any street with him was to witness the art of real politics, he could not go a step without being stopped and talked to by his fellow citizens and he never ignored anyone.
His critics sometimes portrayed him as a plain speaking man of the people but in truth he was a most cultured, well read and thoughtful man, at ease in discussing Gramsci, sharing reflections with the legendary Mayor of Barcelona, Pascal Maragal or listening to baroque chamber music.
Perhaps most important of all were his personal beliefs: faith in God and the founding principles of the Labour Party. Both were constantly apparent in his commitment to the people of the city.
These beliefs would surface passionately on occasions; his refusal to accept that the NEC should become home to arms trade exhibitions; his remorseless campaign to try to recover for the people of Birmingham the value of their public assets that were transferred to the private sector in water privatisation; his championing of the memorial garden to the International Brigade.
On occasion his beliefs also led him to display great personal courage. His refusal to ‘lend’ Birmingham’s capital allocations to Derek Hatton’s Liverpool City Council incurred the wrath of the Labour left while he refused to trade the support of some of his colleagues for the council’s budget for the banning of ‘Satanic Verses’ from the council’s libraries.
This was the man with whom as chief executive I had the privilege of working for six years until he stood down in 1993. It is impossible to overstate the value to a chief executive of the support and stability which a leader like Dick gives. It gave me the power and freedom to bend the whole organisation to our shared ambition.
In our close working relationship we eschewed ‘1-2-1s’ preferring instead a daily chat to review the problems and risks we both faced. Likening himself in an interview to the captain I was his chief engineer. We respected each other’s roles, enjoyed each others company and never had a cross word! The outcomes for the city are plain to see.
Roger Taylor was chief executive, Birmingham City Council, 1988 – 1994 and is currently interim chief executive at Waltham Forest LBC and a director at Pinnacle
