Management

Chief Executive

As from 22 March 2010, Mark Williams has been appointed as the joint Chief Executive of South Somerset District Council and East Devon District Council at a basic salary of £121,000.  His salary is paid by both authorities, split 50/50.

See the Corporate Management Structure chart

Strategic Director: Place and Performance

Rina Singh is our Strategic Director for Place and Performance and is responsible for Corporate Performance, Communications, Sustainable Communities, Strategic Partnerships, Planning, Regeneration, Economic Development, Strategic Housing, Community Safety and Community Empowerment. Rina has experience of working in a range of organisations, including county, unitary and district councils, the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

For the last 15 years, she has worked in corporate roles largely in the area of performance, research, policy and strategy. However, her local government career began in a professional capacity, managing frontline service provision, for a county council.

She has successfully led a number of change and other projects in the areas of Best Value, Performance Management, Strategic Human Resources, Job Evaluation, Scrutiny, Transformational Government, Community Cohesion (achievement of Beacon status), and Process Re-engineering.

During her time with us, she has taken forward the our 'lean' agenda generating efficiency savings in excess of £500,000, implementating the Single Status job evaluation scheme and made significant contribution to the our achievements in Community Safety and Empowerment and strategic and corporate management (specifically in the areas of Corporate Performance Assessment, which has moved the council's score in the independent assessment by the Audit Commission from 'Fair' to 'Good').

In the most recent Organisational Assessment by the Audit Commission, we emerged as the highest performing district council in the South West. In fact, we were the only district council to score three out of four in each one of the five scored categories set by the Audit Commission. The inspection was the first of the new tougher CAA regime and only five of the 42 councils in the South West achieved this. Of the five, three were county councils, one was a unitary with the only district council being South Somerset.

Rina is a qualified Prince 2 Practitioner and European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Assessor. She holds a Masters in Business Administration with Distinction, a Masters in Information Science (MSc) and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD). She has published conference and professional press papers and carried out peer reviews for other authorities.

The basic salary, as set by Full Council, for 2009/10 is £97,013.

See the Place and Performance Structure chart

Strategic Director: Operations and Customer Focus

Vega Sturgess is our Strategic Director for Operations and Customer Focus and is responsible for Customer Focus and Support, Building Control, Engineering and Property Services, Environmental Health, Streetscene, Licensing, Civil Contingencies, Housing and Welfare, Community Health and Leisure, Arts and Entertainment, Sport and Leisure and Countryside. Vega Sturgess has an extensive range of operational service experience. Working in community and regeneration projects she brought in several million pounds of external funding over her first five years at South Somerset. Since then she has worked to improving performance in services that matter most to the resident such as waste and streetscene while significantly cutting costs.

The basic salary as agreed by Full Council for 2009/10 is £93,279.

See the Operations and Customer Focus Structure chart