Ilex director retained

Mr McCartney was originally brought in as a temporary replacement for Ilex Director of Development Brenda Fraser but will now be retained for a further six months despite Ms Fraser’s recent return to her post.

A spokesperson for Ilex told the Sentinel: “Tom was appointed interim Director of Development to cover a period of sick absence from March to August 2011.

“During the sickness period of the current job holder a number of developments/activities were re-phased so Ilex has retained this additional support from September 2011 to March 2012 to ensure these developments remain on track.”

A spokesperson told the Sentinel: “Remuneration is in line with Northern Ireland Civil Service Senior Civil Servant pay scales. Tom is a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and Project Manager and has held senior posts in regeneration companies in England and Scotland.”

Prior to his appointment as Interim Director of Development at Ilex Mr McCartney was Director of the Crown Street Project in Glasgow from 1997 to 2002 where he “embedded much of the thinking behind the Urban Task Force” according to his profile on the professional networking site LinkedIn.

He was then Chief Executive of the Sunderland ARC from 2002 to 2007 where his role was turning “around decades of industrial decline and re-positioning Sunderland.” His last job was as boss of the North Staffordshire Regeneration Partnership (NSRP) from 2007 until 2010 which was “one of the largest regeneration projects in the UK involving four local authorities, three government agencies, two major universities and the private sector the NSRP was charged with ending the economic decline of the last thirty years.”

In October 2009 a report by the Audit Commission on economic regeneration in Stoke-on-Trent agreed that since the establishment of NSRP in 2007 there had been a clear vision for regeneration in the city.

NSRP, the report stated “represented a significant step forward towards enabling major economic change in the sub-region.”

The report said the NSRP had “recently introduced a number of well targeted interventions to help local people access employment and to assist local building contractors bid for contracts.”

But the Audit Commission went on to warn that “access to the range of regeneration services such as business and employment advice although improving is underdeveloped and it is too soon to assess whether the NSRP is delivering value for money.”

A report to Staffordshire Moorlands Council - a member of NSRP - in August 2010 complained that “over recent years investment in the Staffordshire Moorlands through the NSRP has been very limited, particularly if viewed as a proportion of the significant investment directed to projects in Stoke-on-Trent and to a lesser extent Newcastle-under-Lyme.”

The report states: “Recently Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council withdrew from the NSRP which casts further doubt over its ongoing viability.”

“For these reasons it is recommended that the Council withdraws from the NSRP and works with other authorities, including Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council and Staff or dshire council, to establish a Local Enterprise Partnership.”

Mr McCartney shortly afterwards resigned from the NSRP.