From newspaper seller to chief executive of Renfrewshire Council, Alan Russell has been on some career journey to reach the top of the local authority tree. The Local Democracy Reporting Service sat down with him to talk about his new role, the coronavirus pandemic and the future of the council and local government.
As soon as he stepped into the world of work selling newspapers to employees at the Caterpillar factory in Uddingston it was clear Alan Russell, now top dog at Renfrewshire Council, was a glass-half-full sort of person.
Glasgow's local paper at the time cost a mere 9p but Alan had a business initiative going right from the off.
Tons of workers would file out en masse and chuck their 10ps at him for their dose of daily news and he'd walk away grinning at the sneaky profit he'd made.
"It was a brilliant job. Thousands of guys would pile out and throw you 10p and you would get the 1p tip because they didn’t want the change. But then my business model collapsed when the paper went up to 10p," said Alan.
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That may have been his first job, but he has continued to carry a positive mindset into his new role as chief executive of the council he has been devoted to since 1998.
After coming through the NHS national finance training scheme, he worked for the health service for a couple of years before heading to Renfrewshire House, where he was most recently director of finance before taking up his current post in place of the retired Sandra Black.
The role of finance boss has been an unenviable one of late with the council having to balance the books at the same time as ensuring communities are supported during the covid pandemic.
But tough days at the office don't seem to have had any negative effect on Alan who is continuing to urge employees and elected members to look beyond the immediate crisis where there are plenty of exciting projects, events and initiatives lined up.
Alan said: "The pandemic is not over and it is important we remain alert to that.
"It’s disappointing things have changed so quickly, so continuing to make sure the council has all the supports it had before has been the focus for me in the first few weeks.
"But I have also talked about the importance of the organisation needing to see beyond the pandemic.
"I firmly believe we will get on top of this and we need to plan for coming out of the pandemic and supporting our recovery processes. What I’ve tried to talk about a lot is about building a sense of optimism for the future. It’s important for the area and the workforce.
"I want to begin to plan how we shift the council’s focus from managing the immediate challenges of the covid response and back to the strategic agenda and how we move that forward over the coming years so we can hit the ground running."
The council has much to look forward to in the coming years, such as the completion of the £22 million transformation of Paisley Town Hall and work to turn the town's museum into a world-class visitor destination.
Alan added: "Keeping some of our big projects going has been a big focus and hopefully that will be visible to people. They’re important because they are a big contributor to the local economic activity but also, once these investments come to fruition, they will have a huge impact on Renfrewshire."
Keeping the optimism levels topped up will surely have been key in the council holding itself together through the biggest challenge it has ever faced.
It is anticipated the council will be faced with a funding gap of approximately £26 million between now and 2025 prior to any decisions on council tax, according to the latest documents, and Alan believes financial puzzles are going to stick around for some time.
But he insists it is vital councillors - including the new cohort in May - and employees are supported and encouraged to see the positives in what may seem a bleak future in the medium-term and hopes there will be changes in the way local government is funded.
He said: "The Scottish Government budget was announced just a couple of weeks ago and I think that presents a continuation of a real financial challenge for local government.
"There’s more resource put into local government but those are linked to new priorities as part of that budget settlement so the financial challenge in terms of the need to continue to deliver significant savings and continue to transform the organisation to ensure we are financially sustainable, that is likely to remain over the medium-term.
"The budget that was announced is a single-year settlement again but there is an expectation we will move to multi-year budgets soon so that will help.
"There will be other challenges too for the new councillors. The climate agenda is obviously a huge challenge and supporting young people and education recovery.
"But as much as it’s been challenging [the pandemic] there are opportunities all over it. I think there’s a huge opportunity for us to capitalise on the positive community response in order to develop how we engage with them and how they can shape how our services look in the future.
"The commitment shown by staff over the last 20 months has been remarkable, however, I am also aware of the impact on our workforce.
"In the coming weeks I’ll be meeting staff direct and I’m looking forward to working with them to continue to improve how we serve our communities.”
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