Two former chief officers at Norfolk councils have landed new roles - helping to lead the workforce when almost 400 staff switch from Norse to Norwich City Council.

Eastern Daily Press: Anne Gibson. Picture: Denise BradleyAnne Gibson. Picture: Denise Bradley (Image: Archant)

In 2018, the city council announced it wanted to bring four contracts outsourced to Norfolk County Council-owned Norse back in-house.

Those contracts, worth £20m, include ones for the repair and maintenance of council homes, of other council properties, for surveying services and an environmental services one for keeping streets and parks clean.

To manage them, the council has set up a wholly-owned limited company - Norwich City Services - and has announced the appointments to its board.

The managing director, with a salary between £94,395 to £101,695 a year, will be Hannah Leys, currently operations director of Norwich Norse Environmental.

Eastern Daily Press: Alan Waters, leader of Norwich City Council. Pic: Jeff Taylor.Alan Waters, leader of Norwich City Council. Pic: Jeff Taylor. (Image: Archant)

Anne Gibson, who was acting managing director of Norfolk County Council from April 2013 until August 2014, will be the chair of Norwich City Services - which has a salary of £10,000 a year.

And Anna Graves, who recently stepped down as joint chief executive of Breckland and South Holland councils, will be the non-executive director, paid £5,000 a year.

Alan Waters, city council leader, said: “We’ve thought long and hard about the best solution to bring this workforce back under more direct council control.

“Thankfully, most of that thinking has been done which means we can now properly focus on the important business ahead – providing essential services to our residents and bringing back the services in a phased way, starting from next April, so the transfer is as smooth and seamless as possible.

“Our three new board members – all of who are eminently qualified for their new roles – will be key in driving forward our ambitious agenda to modernise the council and re-imagine local services: one of the themes identified in our Covid-19 recovery plan.

“I very much look forward to welcoming them to the council and working with them to use our ‘Norwich 2040 City Vision’ framework to guide us in our ambitions to be a dynamic, fair, connected and successful city.”

Norwich Norse Environmental will be the first service to return to city council control next year.