The runners and riders in the race for one of Manchester's top jobs

Joseph Timan
·3-min read
Manchester council is on the hunt for a new boss
-Credit: (Image: Mirrorpix)


It's only been a week since news broke that one of Manchester's most powerful people is set to leave the city. But rumours of who might replace her are already running rife.

The Manchester Evening News revealed on Wednesday (June 5) that Manchester council chief executive Joanne Roney CBE is leaving the town hall after seven years in post. She will be heading back to her hometown to head up Birmingham council later this year.

Ms Roney, who started her career as an apprentice in Birmingham council’s housing department at age 16, is the first woman to serve at the top of Manchester's town hall. She took over from Sir Howard Bernstein in 2017 while Sir Richard Leese was leading the council.

READ MORE: Manchester town hall confirms chief executive Joanne Roney is leaving to head up Birmingham council

The search for Ms Roney's replacement will officially begin on Friday (June 14) at a meeting of the council's personnel committee. A council report has revealed that the new chief executive will be paid a salary £220,982 a year - the same sum Ms Roney received.

The outgoing boss is set to remain in post for several months. But speculation over who might take her job has already started.

Several sources have suggested that Salford council chief executive Tom Stannard could be a contender. The London-born local government boss took the top job in Salford three years ago after serving - in less senior roles - at Wakefield and Oldham councils.

Tom Stannard (left), who will become Salford City Council's new chief executive on February 1, stood with City Mayor Paul Dennett at Salford Civic Centre
Salford council chief executive Tom Stannard -Credit:Salford City Council

He has worked closely with Manchester council leader Bev Craig, leading on the Economy, Business and Inclusive Growth portfolio at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA). Rochdale council chief executive Steve Rumblelow could also be in the running.

Two sources cast doubts over any internal promotions to the top job at Manchester council which has lost some of its most senior bosses recently. This includes deputy chief executive and city treasurer Carol Culley and director of public health David Regan.

One source suggested that Trafford council boss Sara Todd, who was Manchester council's deputy chief executive until 2019, would be suited to the job. However, it is unclear whether the Mancunian - who is in her fifties - would be interested in moving at this time.

Some have suggested that Manchester council might have to look further afield. Katherine Fairclough, who is the chief executive of the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, is said to be highly regarded in Greater Manchester and could be interested in the job.

There could also be interest from local government bosses in London where some councils are of a comparable size to Manchester. Some sources say that Manchester's size and stature leaves a small pool of potential candidates who would be qualified for the job.

Another factor that could tighten the talent pool is the timing. With polls suggesting that next month's general election will lead to a change in government, some of the top names in English councils could be looking for new opportunities in civil service departments.

The official search will begin with establishing a ‘sub-committee of [the] personnel committee to act as an appointment panel for the purposes of recruiting and appointing a chief executive’. The sub-committee’s first job will be ‘to appoint an executive search company with expertise in senior local government recruitment to assist the council to identify suitable candidates to apply for the role and to work alongside the council's HR team to manage aspects of the recruitment process’, a Manchester council report says.

After shortlisted candidates have completed a series of assessments and job interviews, the sub-committee will recommend a new chief executive who will need the approval of a majority of councillors to take up the job — but this is usually considered a formality.

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • CNN Data Reporter 'Speechless' By New Donald Trump-Joe Biden Poll: 'Holy Cow, Folks!'

    Harry Enten said it could point to "a historic moment" in American politics.

  • China is almost ready for its war with the West

    While Russian forces continued their thrust towards Kharkiv over the weekend, world leaders descended on the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock in attempts to work out what a peace deal should look like. Vladimir Putin, predictably, had no interest in attending, but the absence of another world leader was more significant. Even as the US gears up to pivot its military attention to the Indo-Pacific to confront an increasingly assertive China, Xi Jinping chose not to attend.

  • Angela Rayner is a threat to European security

    It has become trite to say that the world is now more dangerous than it has been since the end of the Cold War – or perhaps even the end of the Second World War. Trite but true.

  • Cameron, not Farage, destroyed the Conservatives

    David Cameron is back from outer space to tell us Nigel Farage wants to destroy the Conservative Party, that he’s playing “dog-whistle” politics and, we can infer, the Tories ought to run a mile from him. Thus the battle lines of the next leadership contest are drawn. Early advantage goes to elites who will say the party wandered too far to the Right – a view endorsed by a billion deadly dull podcasts made by people who think the Today programme is insufficiently subjective.

  • Farage claims Reform UK has been ‘stitched up’ over candidate vetting

    Nigel Farage said Reform had paid ‘a large sum of money’ to a firm to scrutinise its candidates but has been let down.

  • Britain shouldn’t wave the nuclear white flag. We could flatten Russia

    As Sir Keir Starmer and his Labour party move ever faster towards No 10, aided by the Conservative party’s penchant to fall on its sword with monotonous regularity, we will soon be forced to confront the nuclear-warhead-sized elephant in the room. Promises to grow the economy are all well and good, but the security of the country is of paramount importance, especially when our Russian enemy has made its hatred for us clear.

  • David Cameron is a disgrace to Britain

    Why would anybody trust the Conservative Party to make the big decisions about the future of Britain, when they can’t even agree on what to do about Nigel Farage?

  • Anthony Fauci Memoir Recalls His Last Conversation With Donald Trump: ‘That F**ker Biden’

    The then-president also reportedly made a bold prediction that didn't come true.

  • Jon Stewart Busts 'Right-Wing Motherf**kers' Like Trump Over 1 Huge Lie

    The "Daily Show" host tore into conservatives over a major hypocrisy on a key talking point.

  • One-Two Punch From the Skies Is a Massive Blow to Putin

    Ukraine’s military has spent the last two years chronically short of planes. Its prewar stocks were already small in number and mostly dated from the Soviet era. When NATO and other countries sent help, they focused on either sending the same older models or keeping existing aircraft in the air through maintenance and spare parts. Russia, meanwhile, has a larger and often more advanced air force.However, new planes are on the way to help Ukraine. For nearly a year, countries like the Netherlands

  • Putin sacks four deputy defence ministers and appoints relative

    Vladimir Putin has sacked four deputy defence ministers and appointed one of his relatives to the role as he carries out a sweeping purge of officials in charge during the botched invasion of Ukraine.

  • Britain is already at war, and nobody wants to admit it

    There are fewer than three weeks to go until polling day and, amid all the desperate campaigning and counter-campaigning, there is a dog that hasn’t barked – even though it is perhaps the most vital of all for our long-term survival.

  • What Labour and the Tories are offering pensioners in their manifestos

    The last week has seen a flurry of election manifestos outlining what the various parties will do should they win on 4 July.

  • Nigel Farage's Reform UK manifesto 'doesn't add up', warn economic experts

    Reform UK leader Farage is unveiling his party's manifesto - which he is calling a 'contract with the people'.

  • Drivers slam 'worst parking ever' after cars dumped on roundabout outside mosque

    Angry drivers have slammed 'Britain's worst parking' after cars were dangerously abandoned on a busy city roundabout outside one of the UK's biggest mosques. Thousands of Muslims descended on Central Jamia Mosque Ghamkol Sharif in Small Heath, Birmingham, after celebrating Eid-al-Adha on Monday (17/6). But shocking photos show how dozens of worshippers sparked traffic chaos by dumping their vehicles on one of the busiest roundabouts in the city. Onlookers said there was at least one collision and several near-misses as drivers attempted to reverse off the Poet's Corner roundabout into oncoming traffic. And despite the huge numbers of illegally parked cars, it's believed there were no parking fines issued throughout the morning. Simon Gutteridge, 40, who had been trying to get to work when he got stuck along the A45 Small Heath Highway, said it was a 'miracle nobody was badly hurt or killed'.

  • The British Army trains in Kenya. Many women say soldiers raped them and abandoned children they fathered

    Seventeen-year-old Marian Pannalossy cuts a striking figure wherever she goes in Archer’s Post, a small town 200 miles north of Nairobi. She lives alone and is light-skinned in a place where mixed-race people are a rarity and therefore ostracized.

  • Kellyanne Conway Massively Inflates Trump’s Church Crowd

    It appears crowdflation and alternative facts are once again tools in Trumpworld’s arsenal. Kellyanne Conway tried to draw some distinction between Donald Trump and Joe Biden during an appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures, noting that Trump was making outreaches to Black voters. “You got Donald Trump in Detroit talking to 8,000 people at a Black church,” she told Bartiromo. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your in

  • Bid to close Traveller site where 'guns have been hidden in toilet blocks'

    'We have now reached a point where it is no longer possible to safely maintain and run this site'

  • Joe Biden appears to freeze again at fundraiser as Barack Obama helps him off stage

    It is the latest in a series of incidents that have sparked concerns about the president’s health

  • How the Supreme Court could decide Trump’s blockbuster fight for immunity

    The Supreme Court’s most closely watched dispute this year – a case questioning whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from federal election subversion charges – also has the potential to be one of the hardest to parse for meaning in real time.