George Garlick had already steered one authority through local government reorganisation before taking on the top job at Durham CC. He talks to Michael Burton about efficiency, plans for the county, Total Place – and how he nearly became an academic

Everyone knows Durham for its cathedral and its countryside. Fewer know the county includes many former mining communities, is the home of the famous Durham Miners’ Gala, and was where former PM Tony Blair was brought up, and which he later represented as MP for Sedgefield.
The county council also has another claim to fame, being one of the crop of new unitaries launched last year, merging seven districts and the county into one. Its chief executive, George Garlick sees one of his biggest targets as widening Durham’s appeal for tourism and boosting its profile, and has submitted a bid to be City of Culture, 2013.
George was brought up in the Peak District until he was 14, then Devon, where his father was a park warden. He was educated at the Dartington Hall School, famous for its experimental libertarian teaching, and since closed. Another ex-pupil, though not a contemporary, was Lucy De Groot, until recently head of the IdeA.
After A-levels, he attended Hull University to study philosophy, his specialist area being Wittgenstein and Marx. He was poised for an academic career, since he after gaining his degree he was accepted by Kent University to study for a doctorate when fate intervened in the form of Margaret Thatcher’s election victory in 1979.
Funding for the course was promptly cut, so instead, he took a teaching qualification and went to Riyadh in Saudi Arabia to teach English for two years.
Once back in the UK, he decided to abandon any thought of academia, and instead studied law for two years, qualified as a solicitor, and took articles at Wirral MBC. From there, he embarked on a career as a council lawyer via Cornwall CC, Bolton MBC and, from 1989-93, Humberside CC, where he became assistant chief executive.
The council was abolished during the 1990s reorganisation and he became assistant chief executive at Cumbria CC. He had always envisaged eventually rising to the top job, and in 1995, became chief executive at Stockton BC.
The council was then a district, but was earmarked to be a unitary in 1996, and he steered it into its new status, subsequently spending 13 years there.
The experience was to stand him in good stead when, in the most recent reorganisation, the seven districts and one county in Durham were amalgamated into a new unitary.
George was instantly attracted by the Durham post.
He says: ‘I was committed to the North East, having lived in it for so long, and didn’t want to leave. It was also a huge opportunity to take on a big unitary with so much potential.’
He began the new job in 2008, and faced immediate challenge, not least of which was the task of merging eight organisations in a tight timeframe. Of his top team, the county’s posts of directors of adult care and of children’s services were ring-fenced and remained.
Three others were recruited externally, and only one other county director carried over into the new council. In contrast, of the 35 heads of service posts, most were ex-district or ex-county managers. By popular demand, the new unitary, launched last April, retained its county title.
Of the 126 members elected to the new Labour-controlled authority, only 38 had previously served on the county and 63 on the districts. ‘We were all clear that this was a new entity, with a new culture, not a continuation,’ he says.
Although the unitary has met its promised target of £22m savings, and top managements costs are some £1.7m less than those of the eight predecessor authorities, the public sector downturn means further efficiency savings.
The council’s medium-term financial strategy envisages reducing the budget by £58m over the next three years. It estimates that 2011/12 and 2012/13 will see real-term cuts of 5% in central government grant.
He believes reorganisation still offers more scope for savings – the cabinet recently agreed a plan to scale down the number of civic offices it now owns. ‘We’re a big organisation, and there is potential for economies of scale and scope for efficiencies,’ he says.
George is also aware of the dangers of public sector cuts leading to a double-dip recession.
The North East has a higher-than-national average proportion of public sector employment.
In the county itself, while Durham is a prosperous cathedral and university city, there remain ex-mining areas with severe social and economic deprivation. But the council is still planning a £90m capital spending programme on regeneration which will offset the reduction in revenue spend.
Nationally, he believes the next government will introduce cuts in public spending which will be sharper than previous recessions of the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time, because the last decade has seen above-inflation grant settlements and ‘we’re starting from a much higher base level.’ He adds: ‘There has also been a lot of investment in the built environment recently.
And local government is now more flexible and efficient.’
As for the parties’ localism agenda he adds: ‘Every party in opposition is devolutionist and in government, centralist.’ Durham is also a Total Place pilot with a housing theme.
The council is already a ‘single conversation’ pathfinder for the Homes and Communities Agency, and being a pilot was a logical extension. Its studies have already shown the multiplicity of overlapping housing bodies, and he believes there is big scope for better joint working and efficiency savings in this area.
Does he believe that nationally, the Total Place programme will continue. ‘It’s difficult after all the work done by the pilots for an incoming government not to give it a crack,’ he replies.