West Sussex County Council has stayed tight-lipped over calls for clarity after it emerged it is currently without the services of its chief executive. Following multiple requests from More Radio since the news originally emerged on Friday (September, 27), the local authority has issued only a short statement about Nathan Elvery, who joined in 2016: "The chief executive of West Sussex County Council is currently away from duties and in the meantime, Lee Harris, the executive director for place services is covering." Today (October, 1), the council's opposition leader, LibDem Dr. James Walsh, added his voice to calls for more information. He said: "The leader of the county council, Louise Goldsmith, must come clean over the suspension of the chief executive and the real reason for his 'not being at work'. "The council leader has a duty to taxpayers and the electorate to explain exactly why he has been suspended, presumably on full pay, and an interim CEO appointed." It also became clear that the Twitter profile in Mr Elvery's name had been changed to remove his job title at the council, 'CEO WSCC', as shown in the screengrabs at the top of this story. Mr Elvery's time at County Hall has coincided with two of the county council's most visible public services receiving highly critical reports from official inspectors. An assessment of the authority's children's services by Ofsted, published in May 2019, described all four areas examined as 'inadequate'. Then, in June, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies and Fire and Rescue Services also brought out a report full of criticism for West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service. After the reports, the county council instituted a set of budget increases and improvement measures across the two services, including the appointment of a new Chief Fire Officer. There was also controversy when County Hall gave an expenses payment of £47,500 to Mr. Elvery to permit him to relocate at the start of his work for West Sussex—but he did not fully relocate to West Sussex. Dr. Walsh went on: "The grounds for suspension were clearly of sufficient weight to convince the leader and Cabinet that suspension was justified. "The leader has chosen not to share those reasons with myself and the minority Labour group leader, which is unusual in these circumstances, and goes against the usual sharing of confidential information." More Radio is continuing to follow this developing story.
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