“Anything that impacts negatively on Medway I feel quite personally”

Richard Hicks is the Chief Executive of Medway Council, having been promoted to the role last year. He is infectiously positive, both about life generally and Medway specifically. Steven met with him at Medway’s new Cozenton Park Sports Centre to discuss how he came to work at Medway Council, his role as a returning officer during elections and if there will be a City of Medway.

Where were you born?
Medway.

What brought your parents to the Medway towns?
My family, on both sides actually, have always been in Medway.

What job did your parents do growing up?
My mum was a school secretary. Her mum was head teacher at a local school. Her dad was a shopkeeper. My grandma on that side came from Wales but then moved into Medway. On my dad's side, my dad worked in the dockyard on the nuclear subs. His dad worked in Gillingham bus station, and his mum worked in Brompton barracks.

Did you enjoy school?
I loved school. I went to school in Medway all the way through. I went to Byron Road School. I went to Hillyfields. I went to Wakeley Road School and then Howard School and really enjoyed that. Howard School was quite a big school, but I really enjoyed my time there. I did A-levels in Latin, French and Economics. I had some great teachers, particularly my Latin and French teachers. I wasn't great at Economics, but I really like economics.

What did you study at university?
University was one of these kinds of modular degrees. I did lots of different subjects. I did French art, I did French, I did law, I did industrial relations, industrial psychology, comparative organisational studies. It was all about the study of organisations. I loved university as well.

Where did you study?
Lancaster. Having grown up in Medway, I wanted to do something where I was really establishing my own independence. I wanted to go a long way away, so I wasn't doing the thing about coming home at weekends to get your washing done.

What was your first full-time job?
My first job was in Kent County Council back in September 1990. I left university, took a year out, went travelling around South America, and then came back and wanted to get a job. I wanted to apply for the Foreign Office, and that's a very long, drawn-out, convoluted process. I remember sitting in a hall with about 200 people doing this entrance exam, and they whittled it down to 100, and then it was a smaller handful of us being interviewed in London. It took a long time, and I thought I need to get a job while I'm doing that. I applied for a job at Kent County Council and started off as an Emergency Planning Officer in Kent County Council. That role meant that I needed to understand exactly what a County Council does, what all its functions are, how it works, what all of the different departments do. I was at Kent County Council but I was employed in Canterbury City Council and Gillingham Borough Council. Then as the Emergency Planning Officer for Gillingham Borough Council, I had to understand exactly what the District Councils did, what Borough Councils did, and that was where I really fell in love with local government, the role that local government plays in shaping a place and delivering services for its community. I didn't get through in the Foreign Office and that was probably one of the best things that could have happened.

What first led you to work for Medway Council?
My last job at Kent County Council, the last 18 months I was there, I was on the local government reorganisation team. It was announced that there would be a new unitary authority in Kent that was going to be Medway. That was a bit like loss of empire for Kent County Council because it did run all the upper-tier services at the time. I was on the small local government reorganisation team. That was about disaggregating all of those county council services in the Medway area. I was working from Kent County Council on the establishment of Medway together with Gillingham Borough Council and Rochester City Council. We had these tripartite meetings. We were establishing a whole new organisation. I spent about 18 months working on that from a Kent County Council perspective. I saw the opportunity there was to have a unitary authority, a single authority that provides all local government services. It's open, it's transparent. You're able to pull together all the different levers at your disposal to do the right thing for your local area. I was absolutely convinced that I would want to work at the unitary. Then Medway's first Chief Executive, Judith Armitt, asked me whether I'd be interested in being her head of chief exec's office. So I went through the process to apply for that and then got that job. I worked directly to her as a kind of right-hand person. I remember the first day of Medway going live when we took on responsibility for delivering all of those services. It was fantastic.

Were you part of that team that lost Rochester city status?
I've been quite involved with bids for city status for Medway over time. Just before Medway Council went live and decision 11-92, I think, is of Rochester City Council. One of their committees made the decision not to renew the patent for their city status as Rochester. I think that was actually the right decision, because they said they wanted Medway to have the opportunity to apply for city status itself. Rochester City Council knowingly took that decision not to renew the patent for city status and that was why it was lost. I think maybe that's the misunderstanding that people have. When people see the word ‘lost’, they think it was some administrative blunder, but it wasn't. It was a conscious decision.

You were able to state the order from memory. Is it because this is a topic that comes up often, or do you just have a brain for remembering all the orders that have come through?
No, no. I'm just really interested in local governments. I'm interested in all that stuff anyway. But it did come up during two of the city status campaigns that I led on. I can't remember if it was 11-92, but it's certainly 11-90-something.

What are your thoughts regarding city status for Medway now?
We've applied on a number of occasions. I was leading on that, and people will have heard me talk about our bid for city status. I was very clear that was part of my vision for Medway. I've got two key things in terms of my vision for Medway. I want our residents to be proud or even more proud of Medway. Whether it's our green spaces, your school or university or the place where you live or that we're a welcoming place. I want people to be proud of Medway, and I want Medway to secure the recognition that it deserves because it is a great place. I know we've got a kind of strapline: ‘Medway is a great place to live, to work, to learn, and to visit.’ I came up with that years ago with previous colleagues that I worked with, but I'm absolutely clear that we can be proud of Medway and that Medway deserves recognition. When the opportunity for city status came up, which we ran at a relatively low cost, why would we not put our hat in the ring and apply for that?
What's my view now? Obviously, there's a political decision here, so actually it would be for Vince and the administration to decide if another opportunity came along, would we apply for city status? There is that thing about individual identities. I do recognise something as well, and that's something that Vince and his administration, his cabinet members have said as well, there are some negative connotations sometimes about the word ‘city’ too. If you think about Medway, half of our land mass is rural. The peninsula is amazing. My mum lives out on the peninsula. I will go out and be in the green space of the peninsula. For people that live there, the idea that it’s a city, I can understand that there's a kind of dissonance there. Ultimately, that would be a political decision to be taken. I would argue it's been worth it for the exposure that's given to Medway and the opportunity to talk about the amazing things that are going on in Medway.

What is your official occupation now?
I'm Chief Executive of Medway Council.

What does your average day entail?
What I like about my job as Chief Executive, and I've loved this throughout all of my roles at Medway, there's always loads of stuff going on. I might be at a council meeting in the evening until midnight, I could be advising the mayor on how the council meeting is being run, I could be in a cabinet meeting with our portfolio holders, I could be giving presentations to our teams. We've recently held a series of Our Medway live events. Over 900 staff came to three events. We just had an opportunity to set out the strategic direction for the organisation, our values and behaviours. That's something that's really important for me, the kind of organisation that we are. I could be speaking to external audiences about the work of the council. I have one-on-one discussions with each of the directors. I could be reading reports, clearing reports, getting ready to chair our corporate management team where we get together the top management team of the council where we're determining the shape of the future of the organisation.
I was preparing for inspections. We're a really regulated organisation. We've just come through our children's services inspection. That was a year ago, although time goes fast. Got a good rating there. We had our special educational needs inspection, did well through that too. We're about to have an inspection of adult social care. I was preparing for that as Chief Executive. I'll be interviewed around that. I'll be asked about the priorities that I give to adult social care. Where does that fit in the strategic landscape of Medway? We've also got the regulator of social housing coming in in September to inspect our housing service. I'll be getting ready for that.
My role is leader of the organisation, of the officer side of the organisation, but I'm a kind of cheerleader as well. I want to enthuse people. I want to empower people. I want people to know that they can get on and do stuff and deliver great services for the people of Medway. But sometimes, I need to be a bureaucrat, so I'm signing stuff off.
I'm a bit OCD. I like things to be clear and planned and programmed and choreographed. I spend a lot of time thinking about the future direction for the organisation and how do we get there and the steps we need to take so that we make the right decisions along the way, because we are custodians of public purse.

The council is facing severe budgetary issues, and the building itself has got the RAAC (Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) issues. Have you been in touch with the previous Chief Executive to thank him for your in-tray?
I saw Neil (Davies) not that long ago. I really love Neil. I worked very closely with him. A lot of my career is thanks to him as well. I've got nothing but praise for Neil. There were a number of challenges. I've been Chief Exec for just over a year now. The first thing I wanted to do was establish those values and behaviours, the way we work as an organisation, the kind of organisation that we are. That is really important to me. How we treat each other, so all of our staff teams right across the council, our residents, our partners. That is the first thing. The next thing I want to do is set out the strategic direction for the organisation over the next four years, and we've done that with our One Medway council plan. Then I needed to stabilise the finances because the budget was in a pretty challenged state. Now, you know, Medway is not the only one. Right the way across the local government sector and indeed across the public sector, finance is incredibly challenged. I had to move pretty fast to change the way that we develop our budgets. I wanted to get a more inclusive, collaborative approach around our budgets, to build greater ownership of those budgets rather than being something that's imposed. We established the financial sustainability of the council into the medium term, stabilised our finances. We then had this raft of inspections that are coming through.
The small matter of RAAC in Gun Wharf, now that was a really tough decision for us because it's quite an expensive proposition to be taking the roof off a grade-listed building. A lot of cost has gone into that but I was very clear, Vince was clear, the administration was clear. The provision of a decent quality headquarters for our staff was a really important thing. I want our teams to be able to come together to work collaboratively to develop their services and provide even better services for the people and place of Medway. I'm absolutely clear that the provision of a decent headquarters building is part of that. Now the administration is also very clear that we want to open it up more to our residents so we want to make our reception welcoming. We want our residents to feel that they can come into there. It's their Gun Wharf.

Do you have any additional roles paid or unpaid?
I've been on the board of University of Greenwich for about three years now. That is something that I've loved doing. One of Medway's biggest achievements is our university offer. University is really important for Medway. I love that there's the prospect of university education physically, but in terms of aspiration for Medway children, young people, by having university provision here in Medway. I appreciate University of Greenwich has three different campuses. University of Kent is based out of Canterbury as well, but having universities physically here in Medway is really important.
When I was going through my interview processes, I said I will be unashamedly Medway centric in my approach because I want to stand up for Medway. I want to ensure that we keep decent university provision here in Medway. I've got to say University of Greenwich is an excellent organisation, really well run. Challenging in terms of that wider higher education sector. That's been a useful insight as well because I can bring insights from how that organisation works into how we run Medway Council as well.

University in Medway has become slightly more troublesome. UCA has left, and University of Kent is shrinking provision here. How are you feeling about university in Medway moving forward?
That was a really challenging time actually when UCA announced their decision to move. They had a change of their vice-chancellor. He took a view. I disagreed with that view, but that was his view and clearly those institutions will take their own decisions and I did feel that quite personally. Anything that impacts negatively on Medway I feel quite personally.
One of our partners said to me, ‘No, if they've made their decision and they're going to move on, let's focus on the organisations and the institutions that are committed to Medway.’ We've subsequently adopted that One Medway approach. That's something I'm really proud of. Vince and I were both very keen that we work together collaboratively as One Medway bringing organisations together. We've now got the Medway School of Arts, which is very much a partnership. MidKent College established it at the dockyard to cover that space that UCA vacated.
The HE sector is challenged nationally. There's a thing about tuition fees, there's a whole thing about previous government views about international students, financial challenges right the way across the public sector, and of course, we're not immune from those either. University of Kent has gone through a series of reviews, they've sought to remedy some of their financial challenges. Yes, we were disappointed about a number of the courses that were having to be withdrawn. The university did speak with us about that informally in the run-up to taking that decision. We, of course, expressed disappointment about that, but ultimately, that's a decision for the institution to take. What I would say is I was involved in the inauguration of Universities at Medway back in the early 2000s. We're absolutely determined to do all that we can to support our universities here in Medway. Vince, Teresa Murray, and I met with the three vice-chancellors and Simon Cook at MidKent College just a couple of weeks ago where we're talking about how we can ensure there is a bright future for university provision in Medway. We're absolutely determined to work with them to secure that.

What is your role in ensuring a successful Local Plan?
A Local Plan sounds pretty prosaic. Actually, it's the blueprint for Medway's future over the next 15 years. The Local Plan is really, really important. I've been involved in all of the work that we've had, and local authorities charted the history of the Local Plan and that's been a rollercoaster ride. Over the years, we've struggled to get a Local Plan in place. I've always been clear about the importance of the Local Plan. We need the right homes in the right places, with the right infrastructure to support it.
We are all absolutely committed to driving forward that Local Plan. We've got unswerving support from the Labour administration, so Vince, Simon Curry in particular, but the whole of the Cabinet is absolutely behind the Local Plan, clear on the need to get a Local Plan in place. In terms of achieving the Local Plan, we've got to be absolutely in lockstep together and that's something that I've really welcomed from Vince. His approach is absolutely about us working together, and we will quite often talk about the team. I've got a corporate management team of 15 people. Vince has got a cabinet, including himself, of 10. We work together as a team of 25. The way that we work together is really open, it's really transparent, and we share a common ambition that we're all determined to deliver the Local Plan.

What is your explanation for why we don't have a Local Plan?
Yeah, you've charted that yourselves actually through Local Authority. More laterally, we were embroiled in some of the political challenges that there were. I'm not giving away any confidences here because Alan has said this publicly to you and in other places as well. There were challenges within the Conservative group, differences of views around the direction that the Local Plan was taking. Particular sites were becoming challenging. We had the Housing Infrastructure Fund, £170m of government funding. There were challenges within the Conservative group that would have been widely trailed. That resulted in almost getting the Local Plan to the council meeting. I remember that meeting coming up and I've got to say it's quite difficult to produce a Local Plan. You are mapping out the future for the next 15 years there's quite a challenging job.

You recently fulfilled the role of returning officer for your first General Election. What went well, and what could go better next time?
I love running elections, I'm really into elections. I’ve run a number of them since about 2000. In terms of this General Election, and thank you for Local Authority, you said ‘Nine things that we learnt about the General Election’. One of them is ‘Medway Council is quite good at running elections.’ I do think we did a fantastic job. There's a huge amount of work that goes on behind the scenes. My elections team, they are fantastic, led by Jane Ringham. Excellent officer, been with us for a very long time. They do a huge amount of work behind the scenes.
What people then see for the General Election is the count itself. That's almost where the theatre happens. Bob Diamond, excellent officer of the council as well, he and Paul Johnston set up the count for us in Medway Park. Obviously we’ve been there on many occasions for elections, and I think we ran a fantastic count. We brought in new innovations, we made a lot more use of computers rather than everything being done with paperwork. I think you even praised the screens that we had on where we get some of the results that were coming up. We sped up our processes. Postal votes went really well. We got a new system for ballot boxes coming into the hall. We fine-tuned, got a process of marginal gains about how we speed up the process. We ran it, it was open, it was transparent, it was accurate.
I think in terms of what could we do better, we always hold a review. When we do stuff, I like us to have a review after it. I like to celebrate success, but equally we've got to learn lessons about anywhere where we can kind of improve. We've got a wash-up meeting that is coming up in a couple of weeks’ time where we'd be going through and reviewing some of those processes. I do know some of our polling stations there were big queues getting in. Some of that was about voter ID, although at the polling stations that I visited on the day, it all seemed to go pretty well. I don't really see that as a reason for delays. We certainly want to address that. We always look for margin gain opportunities where they're just fine-tuning certain aspects.

Have you ever been a member of a political party?
No, no, no. I'm very interested in politics and particularly in my role, you've got to be very aware. In a lot of my roles I absolutely cannot be political. I need to be even-handed in my dealings with all politicians. I've never been on a ballot paper, never stood for election and not been a member of a political party.

Do you ever find yourself trapped by that? Being even-handed in our more fractious times?
Yeah, I've not struggled with that particularly around the change of political leadership at the council. I worked very closely with Alan Jarrett, with Rodney Chambers, with Howard Doe. Tremendous respect for those. Really enjoyed working with them. They were fantastic individuals, they had a particular political direction. Vince and his cabinet and his group have come in with energy, enthusiasm and drive. It's an absolute delight working with Vince. He's committed to Medway in the same way that I am. They've got great ideas for how we can take Medway forward. I'm really appreciating the group of members that we have, 59 councillors. Everyone is committed to taking Medway forward. You might have some different ideas and views about how we get there and the direction of travel, but what absolutely unites everyone is that we do want the best for Medway and we want Medway to do well. On that basis, I find it very easy to work across the political spectrum.

What is Medway Matters Live?
It was Vince's idea. Vince has always been very clear about the council being open and transparent, and accountable to our residents. It was an opportunity for us to set out what our vision is for Medway and set out what the council is doing. Then to give residents an opportunity to ask us anything that they want. It was a pretty wide-ranging set of questions that were being put to us, and I really enjoyed it. I loved Medway Matters Live. I think it's a great innovation. We were going to hold one out on the peninsula. Because of the General Election, we couldn't do that. We're going to be organising that in the New Year, but we've got the next one coming up in November at the Dockyard. We want to be out there, we want to be open with people, and we want to give people the opportunity to put their questions to us or just to raise issues or just to say stuff to us about how they feel about Medway.
It kind of builds on our Child Friendly Medway programme, all about children and young people being at the heart of our decision-making and our policy making and our plans for the future. We usually get about 200 children and young people coming along to each one. That will be an opportunity for our children and young people to ask me and Vince any questions that they've got, their views about Medway, and what we can do to make Medway better from their perspective. One of the asks was for a unicorn zoo. I couldn't quite do that, but it's great to have these ideas from children and young people.

Where do you like to go for dinner in Medway?
There's a number of places. So, I do like Kaya Meze in Rochester. I've been to Galata in Rainham. I quite like that one as well. I always loved the Conservancy building in Rochester. Nucleus is a brilliant organisation, but I enjoy that one. Pump Room in Copper Rivet Distillery. Great places. Conservancy building would probably be my favourite, but I like Turkish food. It's great stuff.

What do you like to do to wind down?
I love work, so I don't feel the need to be winding down a lot. I don't feel the stresses of work, I just love doing what I do. It is quite all consuming. So I've sort of worked quite long hours whatever, but then when I'm at home, I'm checking emails, reading reports, all of that kind of stuff. I quite often will have evening meetings. I'll usually have one evening meeting a week, sometimes two. But when I'm not doing that, I like to run around Great Lines Heritage Park. A bit of weight training, I'll do that once a week. I read. I tend to read the same books over and over. I try not to have meetings or be doing work stuff at weekends. I like to just relax, a bit of walking. Ranscombe Farm is one of my favourite places for walking at the moment.

Are you able to disconnect? Like on holidays? Is the email still on during the night?
Absolutely it is. I never want to disconnect. I'm very happy being connected. But I've got a great team of people. Corporate management team, our comms team are amazing. Our emergency planning team are amazing. I know that whatever happens, we will be able to respond to it, but I always like to be involved. I like to be engaged. I don't really feel the need to switch off. When I'm away outside of work, I've always got my mobile with me. That's always available, always on.

You constantly have positive energy. What is your secret?
(laughs) Lots of coffee, I think. Glad you've noticed that. I think most people that speak with me or know me would say I love what I do. I believe in local government. I believe in Medway Council, and I believe in Medway the place as well. When you love what you do, having that energy is kind of easy. I really enjoy it. I'm not just saying that I absolutely love my job. I've loved all the roles that I've had at Medway Council.

If there's a young person out there thinking one day about becoming a council Chief Executive, what advice would you have for them?
I would say local government isn't always necessarily going to be people's first choice of a career, but if you want a job where you can make a difference, and that's why I'm in local government, this is an opportunity for me to give something back to the community where I was born and where I grew up in, where I went to school in. You've got an opportunity to give something back to your local community. You've got an opportunity to make a difference in a place on a daily basis and there are so many varied careers that you could have. What I would say is, in terms of Medway Council, I'd encourage young people to think about it. We have a number of apprenticeship programmes that we run. We've got some great stories about apprentices actually. We've got a number of people that have risen through the ranks that have got pretty senior positions working their way through at Medway Council. Varied career, opportunity to make a difference. Absolutely give that serious consideration.

Footnotes

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You can read our previous interviews here, including with previous Medway Council Chief Executive Neil Davies.

If you have lived or worked in Medway and are planning an event or launch in 2024 or celebrating a significant anniversary and would be happy to talk about it here, or if you want to suggest ideas or send tips for people to interview, please email Steven.

Steven Keevil listened to no music whilst writing this but recommends reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis.