THE new boss of Scotland's capital has taken up his post, taking the council's hotseat as the city faces major financial pressures.
Andrew Kerr joins Edinburgh City Council as chief executive from Cornwall Council, succeeding Dame Sue Bruce who retired last week following 40 years in the public sector.
Councillors unanimously approved his appointment in May.
With local government heading into a period of multi-million pound cuts, Mr Kerr comes with a reputation of delivering significant savings for past employers.
He was appointed chief operating officer of Cardiff Council in March 2012 where he delivered a £900m joint venture in waste management.
He has led programmes in his last three authorities, delivering more than £100m worth of savings. In his most recent post with Cornwall Council he led a scheme planned to deliver £196m savings in the next four years.
He said today: “This is a tremendous opportunity to lead one of the most high profile local authorities in the UK.
“There are undoubtedly major challenges ahead with increasing demands for council services and reducing budgets but I will do my utmost to ensure that the Council continues to work hard for the city and everyone who lives, works, visits and invests here.
“Of course, on a personal level, it is also great to return home, particularly when I still have family, including my parents, based here in Scotland.”
Earlier this month, he successfully negotiating a Devolution Deal for Cornwall, the first rural authority in England to be offered one.
Edinburgh is currently working with its five neighbouring local authorities to pursue a similar deal for the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region.
Council Leader Andrew Burns said: “Andrew brings significant experience of leading and delivering change in the public sector and has achieved recent success in securing a Devolution Deal for Cornwall, all of which is very encouraging as he moves into his new role. I’m sure he’ll hit the ground running.”
.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel