Executive Team - Career Profiles

Tameside Council Executive Team

Areas of Responsibility

April 2009

	Steven Pleasant Acting Chief Executive Steven is Acting Chief Executive at Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council. He has spent much of his local government career managing Corporate Services. His areas of lead responsibility included community safety, emergency planning, the local strategic partnership and LAA, community consultation and engagement, performance management and improvement, equalities, scrutiny and procurement. Steven has been involved in mentoring with a range of councils on such issues as performance management, local strategic partnerships, area assemblies, the operation of scrutiny and local public area agreements. He has performed a lead role in 5 successful Beacon awards. Steven was Lead Officer for the North West Centre of Excellence for 3 years and took a leading role in the development of the new Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP). He is now the chair of the North West e-Government Group (NWeGG) which has been successfully supporting public service improvement and transformation across the North West region for the last 9 years.
	Mirriam Lawton Acting Deputy Chief Executive Mirriam joined the council in April 1979. She sits on a number of regional and national bodies including the National People Management Forum; PPMA/Technical Advisor NW Employers Organisational HR Committee. Mirriam is Chair of the AGMA Organisational Development, AGMA Strategic HR Group; NW Strategic HR Group. Responsibilities include human resources; organisational development; occupational health and safety.
	Stephanie Butterworth Executive Director Community Services with responsibility for Adult Social Care, Health Improvement and Cultural and Customer Services Stephanie has worked at the Council since 2003 and has held a variety of roles within Social Care, most recently as Director of Adults Services. Before that she was employed in a Joint Post with the Council and Tameside and Glossop PCT. Stephanie started her career in Nursing and worked across a number of acute, community and public health settings, with adults and children. Stephanie is a member of the Association of Directors of Social Services and is Chair of the NW Personalisation Group leading on the implementation of Putting People First.
	Peter Morris Director of Pensions The Greater Manchester Pension Fund (GMPF) is administered by Tameside Council and Peter, an accountant by training and has worked within the Pension Fund for the last 20 years. As manager of the Fund he is responsible for both the pension administration and investment activities. The Greater Manchester Pension Fund has over 250,000 members and assets of around £8bn. Peter is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy; elected member of the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) Investment Council and a member of CLG's Policy Review Group that looks at major issues facing the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS).
	Megan Nurse Assistant Chief Executive, Performance and Change Megan joined Tameside Council in 2002 as Head of Policy before taking up her current role in 2006. Megan spent her early career at Hyndburn Council where she worked in a variety of policy roles, before becoming a Deputy Director at Greater Manchester Police. Megan has a BA in Politics from Leeds University, a PgDip in Journalism from City University - where she was sponsored by the Guardian Newspaper, and worked as a lecturer on the politics degree programme at Luton University while working on a PhD. She has completed the IDeA Top Managers Programme, and two years of an MBA at Manchester Metropolitan University. As Assistant Chief Executive for Performance and Change she is responsible for Policy and Partnerships, Corporate Performance and Scrutiny. Her role includes overseeing inspections, the Tameside Strategic Partnership, the Local Area Agreement, the Corporate Plan and Community Strategy, consultation and research, leading the Council’s approach to equalities and support to the scrutiny committees.
	Tim Rainey Assistant Chief Executive, Media, Marketing & Communications Tim Rainey has worked at Tameside Council for 20 years. Alongside Marketing, Media and Communications responsibilities he is also involved in the ongoing development of the council's customer services strategy. Tim is involved in a number of high-profile Government-funded projects including; Government Connect, where the council is working with partners including the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP), Cabinet Office (CO), Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and Department for Children, Families and Schools (DCSF) to develop a national secure infrastructure for Local Government. Face to Face work stream of the Delivery Council which Tameside along with IDEA, DWP and HMRC are looking to rationalise the government high street presence through the use of front office shared services Free Schools project which has looked to improve access to benefits, speeding up and simplifying the application process which in turn increases take-up, customer satisfaction and reduces transaction costs. Tim is also a local government representative on a number of national working groups including the Contact Council, ESD-Toolkit, the Local Government Delivery Council and the North West eGovernment Group (NWeGG)
	Sandra Stewart Assistant Chief Executive, Borough Solicitor Sandra has been the Council's Borough Solicitor and Statutory Monitoring Officer since 2003 and joined Tameside in 1994 as a trainee Solicitor. She has a BSc Joint Hons in Mathematics and Physics ( Manchester) and qualified as a Solicitor in September 1996. She is a member of the Law Society AGMA District Secretaries and the Association of Council Secretaries and Solicitors Sandra is the council's most senior lawyer, is the Council's Data Protection Officer and is the Solicitor to the Pension Fund. She is also responsible for the Registrar Service and Democratic Services.
	Jim Taylor Executive Director, Services for Children and Young People Jim Taylor is currently Tameside’s Director of Children’s Services. Jim joined local government in Tameside in 2004 as Assistant Executive Director for Lifelong Learning. Following the introduction of Children’s Services, Jim, as Director of Education had responsibility for all aspects of the strategic and operational education services in Tameside. He was appointed DCS in 2008. Prior to working in local government, Jim started his career as a Teacher of Mathematics and has since worked in 5 schools in five different LAs, holding various management responsibilities. Jim was a core member of the National Working Party to develop Standards for Headteachers and also piloted the NPQH during the development of the qualification. He was a Headteacher for seven years in an inner city High School in which time the school achieved Beacon status, School Achievement Awards and Science Specialist Status. Jim has a rich and varied history of working with young people (he has five of his own) and is committed to children achieving their potential.
	Pam Williams Assistant Chief Executive, Borough Treasurer Pam joined Tameside as Borough Treasurer in July 2007. Born and educated in Shropshire, she went on to university in Swansea, where she obtained an Honours degree in Economics. She began her local government career with North Shropshire District Council, where she studied for the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) qualification, in 1989. She then held various posts with Dover, Breckland and Burnley Councils, and latterly as Director of Corporate Services with Ellesmere Port and Neston Council. During this time she also achieved membership of the Chartered Management Institute and SOLACE (Society of Local Authority Chief Executives). As Borough Treasurer, Pam is responsible for the Council's Financial, Exchequer and ICT functions, specifically accountancy and treasury management, risk management/audit and insurance, Council Tax, Debtors, Creditors, Business Rates, Benefits, Benefit Investigations, Cashiers, Payroll, Procurement and ICT Development, Technical and Support Services.