Jill Barrow

Jill Barrow
Born
Jill Helen Barrow

(1951-04-26) 26 April 1951

Jill Helen Barrow (born 26 April 1951) is a British company director and former public administrator. She was the chief executive of Lincolnshire County Council from 1995 to 1997, and the first woman to be chief executive of any county council in England.

Early life

Jill Helen Barrow was born in Hertfordshire[1] on 26 April 1951, the daughter of Philip Eric Horwood and Mavis Mary, née Handscombe.[2] She received a Certificate of Education from the University of Durham in 1972, and then completed a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree at the Open University in 1980, before returning to Durham and completed a Master of Education (MEd) course in 1983.[1][2]

Career

Barrow was a teacher in secondary schools and further education colleges between 1972 and 1986, when she began working in education management and inspection, finally as Head of Policy and Planning at Cumbria County Council's Department of Education.[1][3] In January 1991, she took up the post of Deputy Director of Education at Essex County Council,[1][3] serving until 1993. In 1993, she was appointed Director of Education at Surrey County Council.[1][4][5] There, she managed a department of 10,000 staff and a £314m budget (£665.8m in March 2025 prices), at a time when the county council were implementing changes to the Age of Transfer, which threatened the viability of several small village schools.[6][7]

Lincolnshire County Council

In 1995, Barrow was appointed Chief Executive of Lincolnshire County Council; she was the first woman to become the chief executive of a county council in England.[1][8][9] She was appointed by the Labour–Liberal Democrat coalition that had controlled the county council since 1993.[10] Her appointment coincided with a wider reorganisation of officials instigated by he county council's leader, Rob Parker of the Labour Party, which, in the words of the academics Steve Leach and David Wilson, was to "redesign the organisation to respond to the reordered priorities [of the new coalition] and  ... ensure that top staff were in post who were in tune with the new political agenda."Parker considered Barrow to be a "successful" appointment. She held regular meetings with Parker while also maintaining the relationship between the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups.[11]

The Conservatives took control of the county council in the 1997 local election.[10] Barrow left her role in December 1997,[12] in a move which was reported to have "surprised" staff and many councillors.[13] In a statement drafted jointly with the council, she said she was leaving to pursue consultancy work.[13] The move was "controversial", according to the Lincolnshire Echo;[12] the leader of the Liberal Democrat Group raised concerns about the reasons for her sudden departure and the potential cost of severance payments, while one Labour councillor called for an inquiry.[14] According to Parker, who remained the leader of the Labour group on the council, the Conservative leadership, headed by Jim Speechley, began a "scorched earth" policy of removing coalition appointees from the council's executive.[10] At the time of her departure, the cost of Barrow's departure was kept secret[13] but it was later revealed that Barrow was given a severance payment amounting to £160,000.[15] Auditors later found this payment to be unlawful,[10] also commenting on the "absence of justification for payments of such magnitude".[15] Speechley was forced to resign as leader in 2002 and was jailed in 2004 over a separate incident,[16][17] while his successor as leader, Ian Croft, was later found to have "breached the code of conduct for people in public office" over his relations with Barrow's successor as chief executive, David Bowles, who had been a whistleblower in the Speechley scandal.[18]

Later career

After Barrow left Lincolnshire CC, she worked as an associate fellow at Warwick University Business School.[19][20][21] She was appointed Chief Executive of the South-West of England Regional Development Agency,[19][20][21] serving between 1999 and 2001.[22] She was a Board Member for England on the National-Lottery-funded New Opportunities Fund from 1999 to 2004. Barrow was then a director at the consultancy firm GatenbySanderson until 2006, when she took up a directorship at the leadership consultancy company Big Blue Experience.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f "Woman in chief job at council". Skegness Standard. 4 August 1995. p. 6. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  2. ^ a b "Barrow, Jill Helen", Who's Who 2017 (A & C Black; online edition, Oxford University Press, November 2016). Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  3. ^ a b "News in Brief", Herts and Essex Observer, 22 November 1990, p. 12.
  4. ^ "Jill Is New Schools Chief", Staines and Edgham News, 25 March 1993, p. 24.
  5. ^ "New School Chief". West Sussex County Times. 9 April 1993. p. 8. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  6. ^ "New School Chief", West Sussex County Times, 9 April 1993, p. 8.
  7. ^ For the price adjustment, see "Inflation Calculator", Bank of England. Retrieved 14 May 2025.
  8. ^ "People", Times Educational Supplement, 18 August 1995. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  9. ^ Bonner, Mary "Meet Our Record Maker", Lincolnshire Echo, 2 August 1995, p. 8.
  10. ^ a b c d Peter Hetherington, "Lincolnshire Tories in disarray", The Guardian, 6 October 2004. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  11. ^ Leach, Steve; Wilson, David (2000). Local Political Leadership]. Policy Press. pp. 153–154. ISBN 978-1-86134-206-5.
  12. ^ a b "Top Role Is Advertised", Lincolnshire Echo, 7 September 1998, p. 2.
  13. ^ a b c "Council Boss 'Secret Deal'", Lincolnshire Echo, 3 January 1998, p. 2
  14. ^ "'Why Can't We Ask Why County Boss Left?'", Lincolnshire Standard and Boston Guardian, 22 January 1998, p. 7.
  15. ^ a b KPMG, "Misuse of severance powers" Archived 14 November 2017 at the Wayback Machine, Lincolnshire County Council: Report in the Public Interest (KPMG, 2 May 2002), p. 11. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  16. ^ "Council leader resigns", BBC News, 13 September 2002. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  17. ^ "Former council leader is jailed", BBC News, 2 April 2004. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  18. ^ "Ex-leader banned from authority", BBC News, 31 March 2006. Retrieved 12 November 2017.
  19. ^ a b Onions, Ian (8 December 1998). "Jill takes helm of a new ship". Evening Post. Bristol, Avon, England. p. 8. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  20. ^ a b "Jill named as West supremo". Evening Post. Bristol, Avon, England. 28 November 1998. p. 8. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  21. ^ a b Shorney, Jonathan (28 November 1998). "'Outsider' is new West chief". Western Daily Press. Bristol, Avon, England. p. 2. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
  22. ^ Peake, Rob (10 July 2001). "RDA chief announces departure". Dorset Echo. Weymouth, Dorset, England. p. 30. Retrieved 24 May 2025.
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