Northamptonshire Children’s Trust appoints interim chief executive

A former acting chief executive of Birmingham City Council has been appointed as interim chief executive of Northamptonshire County Council’s Children’s Trust.

Clive Heaphy, who resigned from Birmingham City Council in March, brings with him a wealth of experience in local services, as a high performing, influential and successful public sector leader.

Mr Heaphy has extensive partnering, delivery and commercial skills that have been gained in a wide range of private, public and third sector organisations, including HS2 Ltd and Ofsted.

He has also committed himself to extensive voluntary work, including eight years as a non-executive director of the Institute of Cancer Research.

‘I am thrilled to be joining Northamptonshire Children’s Trust and am eager to work with everyone at the Council to make a difference for children and young people in the area,’ he said.

‘We are living in difficult times at the moment, but the launch of the Trust is a key priority – one that will allow us to provide the highest quality of services in our community.’

Plans to develop a Children’s Trust for Northamptonshire were announced by the government in May 2019 to drive improvement in children’s services in the county.

Northamptonshire’s cabinet member for children’s services, Cllr Fiona Baker, added: ‘The launch of the Trust remains a key component of our improvement programme and Clive possesses the wealth of experience needed to help drive forward progress of the establishment of the Trust.

‘In turn, this will be essential in helping us move towards a position where we can serve the two new unitary authorities in March 2021. We are very much looking forward to welcoming Clive to the team.’

Ian Curryer, the chair of the Children’s Trust Board said: ‘I am looking forward to working with Clive when he takes up his post later this month. Clive will bring experience and skills that will be essential over the comings months as we work towards the Trust going live.

‘Clive will build upon the hard work of the dedicated team that are already in place and have been leading the improvements we have started to see in children’s services in Northamptonshire.’

Photo Credit – Geralt (Pixabay)