The new figures have emerged in a response to a Freedom of Information request – they show that the Chief Minister, Senator Ian Gorst, and the States Chief Executive, John Richardson, are given four days coaching a year from an “external person”, at a cost of £273 per hour – any time they don’t use in those sessions is available for other departmental Chief Officers.
The response explains what happens like this:
“As part of the Chief Executive’s performance review and appraisal (PRA), an external person is employed twice a year to work with the Chief Minister and Chief Executive (CEO). This person is a qualified coach and any time remaining following the PRA is used to provide coaching opportunities to Members of the Corporate Management Board (CMB) subject to their availability on the specific day. Two Chief Officers have made use of this facility. The hourly rate (inclusive of travel) for the coach employed for the CEO and CMB is £273 per hour. The rate for the other Chief Officer is £225 per hour.”
A further response explains that the review & coaching happens over a two-day session, held twice a year, between January and March, and then between July and September.
The total cost for each two-day session is £4,366 (£8,732 a year), which includes £200 travel expenses for the coach, who the Chief Minister’s Department declined to name “due to commercial sensitivity.”
The exact nature of the coaching also hasn’t been revealed, but the response makes a distinction between “coaching” and “training.”
Mr Richardson is in overall charge of the States workforce, which according to a Statistics Unit report totalled 7,840 in June 2016, about 13% of the total local workforce of 60,320.