There can have been few bigger challenges than the one facing Colin Moore on I January 2000. That was the day he took over as chief executive of Redcar and Cleveland BC, which, in his own words, was 'one of the worst-performing councils in the country'. The authority, nestling on the North East coast, was facing financial meltdown, with the second-highest council tax in the country, dangerously low reserves, and frontline services which had been cut to the bone. Not surprisingly, there had been a change in the political regime at the council, and the new leader, albeit with a wafer-thin majority, was determined to give the new chief executive a free rein.
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