His Royal Mayorness George the First has announced that his newbie temporary Corporate Services Director ANGIE ‘PAIDWELL’ RIDGWELL, who only arrived in January, is to take over from Chief Exec Graham Sims in the new post of interim City Director.
Ms Paidwell has an intriguing past including a spell in 2006-08 2008-10 as Chief Exec at Thurrock Council, where she was unceremoniously dumped by the Tory administration there for a series of blunders including delivering late and incomplete accounts for the authority and getting the council threatened with a COSTLY LEGAL ACTION by big beast quango, the Thurrock Thames Gateway Development Corporation.
Picking up a secrecy-shrouded pay-off of £330k for her trouble at Thurrock, Ms Paidwell reemerged at the London Development Agency running corporate accountants KPMG’s £1.8m project to restructure the accounts of the quango shortly before it was scrapped.
Two more years down the line and Ms Paidwell reemerges in Bristol in the top job with a council press release optimistically talking up her innovative relationship with ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm KPMG. Ms Paidwell, meanwhile, describes herself as “very effective in delivery transformation in challenging and heavily unionised environments.”
In other words she’s good at sacking people.