Swindon Borough Council’s chief executive Gavin Jones is to leave the authority after being appointed to the same role at Essex County Council, one of the UK’s largest councils.
Gavin, pictured, will take up his new role in the New Year. He has served as chief executive at Swindon since July 2006, having joined the council two years earlier, and is credited with turning around the previously poorly performing authority. 
His new appointment was approved at a meeting of Essex’s full council last week. Swindon Council has now started the search for a new chief executive.
He said: “I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at Swindon Borough Council and it has been a privilege to serve as the chief executive in the town where I grew up.
“I am proud of what has been achieved by everyone in my time here. However, the challenge offered by Essex County Council was too great for me to ignore and I am very pleased to have been entrusted with taking that council forward.”
Gavin, 54, joined Swindon Borough Council after working in a variety of private sector organisations.
For the past two years he has taken a voluntary pay cut of 7% and more recently, 3% on his basic salary, reducing it to £161,003 a year.
And while the council allows him to earn an additional 15% of his salary as part of a performance-related scheme, he has chosen not to take advantage of the scheme since 2008.
He was listed as one of the top 50 ‘New Radicals’ in the Observer newspaper’s national campaign for Britain’s most innovative leaders, and voted one of the most influential leaders in local government.
He is a board member of the national think tank the New Local Government Network (NLGN), a trustee of the Prospect Hospice, and a board director of Solace in Business, formerly Solace Enterprises, a consultancy specialising in supporting the public sector owned by SOLACE (the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers).
Swindon Borough Council leader David Renard said: “Gavin has been an integral part in turning Swindon council into a high-performing local authority from the point, not long before he took over, when it was failing. This has been of immense benefit to everyone who lives here.
“He has pioneered partnership working with other organisations which has delivered so much in terms of efficiencies. He has shown great personal drive and determination in his commitment to Swindon and its cause, and he has done all this with an unfailing sense of humour. I wish him well in his new role.
“We will now start the process of finding his successor, in consultation with my colleagues.”
Essex County Council is one of the biggest local authorities in the country, employing more than 7,000 people and managing a gross budget of £1.78bn. The county has 1.4m residents – nearly seven times the population of Swindon. The council is currently undertaking the biggest transformation programme in its history.
It has frozen council tax since 2010/11 whilst delivering savings of over £450m, and further budgeted savings of £107m by the end of the current year. Over the next three years, it needs to find an additional £235m in savings.
