Just a handful of weeks ago Newham LBC's chief executive Althea Loderick was pondering the likely impact COVID-19 would have on the council.
When she met up with The MJ in her office overlooking London City Airport, ports around the world were already closing. This was holding up the delivery of technology earmarked for the Smarter Newham programme to transform the council's ICT and improve working conditions.
Back then, she saw the virus outbreak as just one unknown on the radar of local authority chief executives: ‘We don't know what the impact of coronavirus is going to be. We don't know what the impact of the exit from the EU will be with or without a deal. There are so many uncertainties.'
‘There's been a hiccup in the delivery of the kit', she adds. ‘That's a very minor thing and we've got contingencies. I'm not overly worried, but that's a little unexpected consequence that does have an impact.'
She says she was ‘not worried about our business continuity plans or our pandemic planning – all of those things are in place'.
Since then, in Newham and everywhere, society has been changed utterly. The biggest global public health crisis since 1918 continues to wreak growing havoc, with the death toll rising sharply in England just after the Easter weekend. By early last week (14 April) Newham had 775 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
Former Newham councillor and civic Mayor Abdul Karim Sheikh was among those who lost their lives. The borough is now the home of NHS Nightingale, the temporary hospital at ExCel, and the council has built an extra mortuary to accommodate the rising number of victims.
Back in Ms Loderick's office, during a time that seems in hindsight so unreal, we talked about that night's council meeting set to approve the three-year balanced Budget.
Based around directly-elected Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz's community wealth building vision, it is aimed at tackling poverty, inequality and climate change. It addresses a £45m funding gap over the three years which will be closed by £36.2m of savings, and additional income of £9.6m from an increase in council tax. The Budget was agreed that night.
Moving to the present, the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) has laid out a scenario of unemployment potentially hitting over two million, the UK economy shrinking by up to 35% in the coming months, and the worst recession in 300 years.
Newham's Mayor responded by telling residents that in line with its community wealth building priority the council was ‘doing all we can to help support businesses and protect jobs'. Her warning shot to central Government is that protecting the health of residents and defending living standards ‘can't be done on the cheap'.
Ms Loderick took over the head of paid service role in April 2019, just under a year after the arrival of the Mayor.
Before the health maelstrom hit, the chief executive tells The MJ that Newham's vision is to ‘maximise every penny it has for the benefit of our residents, citizens and our place'.
She adds: ‘That might sound like a statement of the blindingly obvious. But the challenge that comes with that is to take a forensic approach to examining how we were managing and planning our finances and our budget up until now.
‘It would be fair to say there were some areas that maybe had gone a bit awry, in that the planning and the control, the co-production and the joint building of our vision wasn't in place', she continues. ‘So the whole approach to this budget has been more thorough, more jointly created and more involving – not only of all of the services of the council. Most importantly, our citizens have had the opportunity to be part of that – all with a view to putting Newham on a solid footing.'
Her career background, including senior roles in policing, the National Offender Management Service and chief operating officer for Waltham Forest LBC and strategic director of resources at Brent LBC, have provided her with a huge range of experience of organisational development and delivering transformation.
How has this prepared her for her latest role? ‘If you were to say what equipped me most going into Waltham Forest, Brent and now Newham, I think it's that breadth of vision about what can be done, the ambition, and working across a range of people, stakeholders and organisations to deliver change.
‘And, albeit at different levels, that focus on how we can make life and the world better is crucial,' she adds. ‘I know that might sound fairytale-ish but it's real. For all of those large public services it's about an ambition to make the world better. The world in Newham will be better – we are all committed to that.'
Even if she is armoured by the new leadership team she has gathered – including corporate director for children and young people Tim Aldridge – some might argue her optimism is misplaced in the context of these dangerous times.
But it's worth a bet that if anyone has the steel to respond to this once-in-a-hundred-years' crisis, and work devotedly alongside the Mayor to protect the citizens of Newham, she is that person.
