Chief legal officer of Peterborough City “failing’ her six-month probation.

[Jimkana]

https://www.cambsnews.co.uk/news/peterborough-city-council-dismisses-110000-a-year-legal-chief/14500/

I saw this and wondered how many top civil servants fail probation. It's interesting that the quotation marks have been put on failing, as if insinuating that there are other reasons for her dismissal.

I have worked in places where junior employees are promoted from very lowly positions to VERY senior roles without even an additional certificate of participation in any field other than that they are favoured by those in seniour management.

And as much as I hate to say this, in all the cases I have seen, the favoured colleagues have been white, and those overlooked for promotion have been black. In some cases, some of these people have been promoted several rungs of seniority higher than even their senior colleagues.

So even if I'm not privy to the details of this case, I can't help wondering if Rochelle Tapping has been treated unfairly.

That aside, surely, it would make more sense to give her support during the probation period to ensure she succeeds rather than sack her? What do you think?

That article is a bit confusing.

I know nothing about local authorities or this persons background but £110k does not buy a top lawyer, not even close.

This is what probationary periods are for surely?

You're not a civil servant if you work for a local authority.

I think "the country's top lawyers" are on significantly more than £110k, for a start 😁
Plus, why shouldn't someone be let go in their probationary period, if they're not performing? That's the whole purpose of a probationary period.

It's quite an intriguing story for sure, although i guess the details will always have to be kept confidential.

In fairness it specifies that it's talking about a particular subset of lawyers: "one of the country’s top lawyers employed in local government".

This article is so weird, why would a local authority lawyer (chief or not) of one of the smallest local authorities in the country be one of the country's "top lawyers"?

As has been said she's not a civil servant.

It is interesting though, you don't imagine many people at that level fail probation.

@dodgygeezer I agree that's what probation periods are for. However, I would have thought that the recruitment process for a position worth 110k would have taken a while to fill and been expensive.

Why not support the person to succeed rather than get rid of them? It's not like it was their first job.

You don't know how much support they got. Or needed.

I'm not familiar with pay ranges for lawyers, but going by average salaries, £110k is pretty good in my book. She may not be a "top" lawyer but she did well to land herself the position. I wouldn't sniff at it

Why not support anyone to succeed rather than get rid of them? Why is she different to everyone else? Some times people just don't perform to the standard required.

I'm sure there's more to this story. These type of jobs aren't usually subject to probation periods - people are often headhunted for the role.

But are definitely moved on for non performance in the role.

I will not speculate. But I will point to the fact that the article says that this action was an alternative to taking disciplinary action against her. Taking disciplinary action - even considering it - against a chief officer is not something that councillors do lightly.

I should have also said that failing performance would not be a disciplinary matter. Its a capability issue.

Seems a bit harsh it makes the press to be honest. If I was getting sacked for being shit at my job at least I wouldn’t have to worry about that

This appears to be the report referenced in the article:

Appendix 2 - Peterborough City Council https://democracy.peterborough.gov.uk/documents/s50604/Item%204.%20Appendix%202%20Monitoring%20Officer%20s5%20Report%20Independent%20Panel.pdf?txtonly=1

Yeh I thought that, although the dismissal meeting was held in private at least as far as I can see.

If she's Director of Law and Governance, then she will also be a Monitoring Officer and largely responsible for ensuring that local elections are run correctly.

She will also be responsible for ensuring that decisions made by the council's cabinet or delegated to officers are made legally and correctly. She will have responsibility for standards and councillors, conduct complaints, registers service, and possibly even the council's corporate office.

The council's legal department will also be under her directorate, and they will include lawyers/solicitors who work with everything from employment/contract/procurement law to child and adult safeguarding.

The remit and responsibility of this job is pretty big, so it could be any multitude of things.

It could be a huge error with a contract, an issue during the last local election, or a mistake/failure in one of the departments in her remit, which she is taking the fall for. She could be unpopular 'politically' or within the senior leadership team. It can be a murky world.

I mean I know you can't be sacked for atrocious grammar but I am quite astonished how badly written that report is.

The "newsworthy" thing here probably stems from a few things.

Firstly it is incredibly unusual for a monitoring officer to be sacked (it is a very specific statutory position with particular protection).

Secondly she was fairly senior in a role in the local government lawyers organisation (although that isn't necessarily the marker of a good lawyer, just one who likes self promotion -but the press / council who recruited her might not have appreciated that).

Thirdly she must have done/not done something to have not passed promotion but of course its all confidential, so there's a chance there's a story the press can't talk about

As someone who works in HR, they are ! There are probationary clauses in most contracts even at director level .

The quote marks around 'failing' don't mean anything other than it is a quote, probably from the report or press release. There's various other phrases in the article that are more obviously quotes, with quote marks, in the same way.

Looking through that newsite, it sounds like she's come in and found the place in complete and utter shambles and somewhere along the line, they've realised she can't dig them out of the financial shitstorm they're in and are about to announce.

It wouldn't be her job to sort the finances though @NeverDropYourMooncup . She there to ensure good governance. And an independent panel plus cross party politicians decided she should go.

Yeah, she would never have been tasked with digging them out of a financial shitstorm.
You don't hire lawyers for that.