Shock as well-known sector figures lose their seats
County Councils Network members are reeling from news that their chair David Williams (Con) has been ousted from his Hertfordshire CC seat by just 41 votes, meaning he also lost his national chairmanship.
Elsewhere, other longstanding local government figures from both main parties have also been unseated or face leadership challenges locally.
Although the Conservatives secured a majority of 14 in Hertfordshire, their leader Cllr Williams, who has been CCN chair since 2019, was narrowly beaten by Liberal Democrat candidate Paul de Kort in his seat of Harpenden North East by 2,063 votes to 2,022.
CCN’s executive committee will now work with the Conservatives, which remain the network s largest political group, to put in place an interim leader ahead of an internal election. A new chairman elect will be formally confirmed in September.
Kate Josephs interviewed: From the White House to Steel City
After holding key roles in Washington DC and Whitehall, Kate Josephs’ new priority is to ‘shout louder about Sheffield’.
While some people dream of catapulting their local government career onwards to the national and even the international political stage, Kate Josephs, who took over as chief executive of Sheffield City Council in January, has done things the other way around.
The daughter of social workers from Doncaster, Ms Josephs joined Sheffield from the Cabinet Office, where she held the position of director general of the Covid-19 taskforce. As well as several other senior UK civil service roles, Ms Josephs’ career has also taken in the US system, including as executive director of the White House Performance Improvement Council.