From Insight - October 2016 :
A proud Teessider with
almost four decades of service in local government, Ian Ferguson is the
next President of the IRRV. His mission is to promote education and membership
during his year of office. Lester Dinnie reports :
As a youngster who
started work with his Stockton-on-Tees local authority in 1975 at the tender
age of 16, Ian Ferguson soon discovered that more education was the key to
success.
His early experience
of the then Rating and Valuation Association examinations convinced him that
the standards, fellowship and practical advantages of membership were going to
play a major part in his career.
Studying via distance
learning in the pre-digital age was not, of course, quite the efficient process
that it is today. However, when Barry Smith took him on at Chester City Council
in 1980 he was able to undertake a course of study at Preston Polytechnic. This
was the real kick-start to his future and to a number of lifelong friendships
along the way, meeting and being influenced by the likes of Gil Young, Allen
Shaw, Peter Fairhurst and Alf Alker, some of whom went on to become Presidents
of the IRRV themselves.
It was at the
Lancashire and Cheshire branch of the IRRV that he met a certain Mr J C
Roberts, another President-in-the-making, who was destined to become a regular
room-mate at Annual Conferences in the heady days of room-sharing at seaside B
and Bs. Readers of Insight will, no doubt, judge whether this was, for
Ian, a series of inspirational interludes or merely a valuable exercise in
dealing with life’s challenges. Whatever the conclusions, according to Ian much
was done by discussion into the early hours on how to put the world to rights.
Together these two
‘young guns’ would regularly invite themselves to conference drinks reception,
no doubt in pursuit of professional networking rather than free alcohol. These
days the two are still regularly in touch with Ian as a contributor of articles
for Insight magazine.
The Lancashire and
Cheshire branch has been a rich source of camaraderie and professional support
for Ian over the years, notably from Linda Price, Ann Sizer (Penn), Ray Dart
and Richard Mason.
As a sports fan from
the Teesside area it’s no surprise to find that Ian is a lifelong Middlesbrough
supporter, now a family tradition with his 16-year-old son following him as a
season ticket holder. Ian is still a regular at ‘Boro’s’ home games, these days
in the magnificent environs of the Riverside Stadium. He points out that
amongst all the exotic owners of English football clubs, from Russian Oligarchs
to Middle Eastern Royalty, Middlesbrough’s owner is former local authority
accountant Steve Gibson.
With the club
currently sitting proudly in the Premiership, maybe there are hints of further
success this season following recent promotion. Ian talks, slightly wistfully,
of the days when his club was managed by ex-England and Manchester United
captain Bryan Robson and the blandishments (climate?) of Teesside brought the
likes of Italian international Ravenelli and Brazilian legend Juninho to the
club.
Looking back in the
world of work, by 1983 Ian had moved on to what is now Redcar and Cleveland
authority as a senior Rating Assistant, thence to Gateshead as Principal Rating
Officer and by 1988 was Revenues Manager at Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough
Council. Like everyone who served in local government but most particularly
those involved with revenues and benefits, this is the time best remembered, or
perhaps most easily remembered, for the introduction of the Poll Tax! First in
Scotland in 1989 and then in England in 1990.
Quite apart from the
intense political atmosphere and the practical need to recruit more staff,
Ian’s experience at Nuneaton and Bedworth has a darkly humorous aspect to it.
With a Labour-controlled council fiercely opposed to the tax, the entire team
was moved out of its offices in the Council House to a building opposite. With
barely concealed irony the building was christened ‘Poll Tax House’, presumably
to focus attention on it and to literally distance it from the rest of the
council’s business.
As Ian puts it “The
council didn’t want to know us and the public didn’t want to know us either!”.
What he also recalls,
however, is the camaraderie amongst the hard-pressed occupants of Poll Tax
House, particularly among those who shared IRRV membership.
In fact, throughout
the whole of this period the IRRV’s next president was developing his passion
for education as part of the Institute’s mission and values. Now on the brink
of the highest office in the Institute’s governance, he has a distinguished
history of contribution to this aspect of the IRRV’s work. He is currently both
secretary and education liaison officer for the Northern Counties Association,
has tutored in Revenues Administration, Council Tax Law, Non-Domestic Rating
Law and Benefits Administration at certificate (previously technician) level,
Diploma level Administration and Management and Revenues Administration at
Level 2. He has also taught at both Dudley and Catterick courses as well as the
pre-exam revision course at Caerleon and Keele University.
By 2003 he was much
travelled in local authority terms and now decided to return to the north east
with Derwentside Council as Revenues and Benefits Manager. Itself the product
of a reorganisation under the Local Government Act of 1972 which merged Consett
Urban District, Stanley Urban District and Lanchester Rural District,
Derwentside was one of seven District Councils which merged with Durham County
Council in 2009, which presented Ian with his next challenge in the
geographically large and diverse authority.
As Revenues and
Benefits Manager of England’s fifth biggest authority, he found himself
responsible for a department of 300 staff and a remit covering 220,000
properties compared to 40,000 on his previous ‘watch’.
“County Durham”, he says, “is a big, largely rural area with
a population of half a million and thirteen modest sized towns but no major
urban centre. Durham itself is beautiful but by no means big. The Revenues and
Benefits offices were located in Spennymoor, which meant the vast majority of
staff having to travel, some of them quite long commutes. In addition, we were
losing a lot of senior managers with many key functions only needing one head
rather than eight. As with all major restructures there were significant
changes to people and processes, while the pressure was on to improve
performance and efficiency.”
As before, he found
that the IRRV was a unifying factor in all of this for those staff who were
members, with both ‘unofficial’ mentoring and the structures of the Institute
providing a professional level of support.
The final instalment
of Ian’s local authority career ended when he left Durham County Council on
31st March 2016. He ruefully reveals that the final four weeks of his long
sojourn in the public sector was spent laid up with a snapped achilles tendon.
“I have to confess
it was a battle scar of a lunchtime five-a-side football match with some work
colleagues”, he says “definitely
a life experience which can be filed in the ‘you should have known better’
drawer, but at least I can say my footballing activities died with their boots
on.”
As a youngster he had
been a pacey outside right and enforced retirement through injury, as all
enthusiastic amateurs will agree, is a hard pill to swallow. Now his very
occasional golf is something of a consolation although he is mysteriously vague
about whether any IRRV golf trophy carries his name.
His other major form
of ‘relaxation’ is in the field of popular music. Particularly, but not
exclusively, a fan of the 80s genres, his interest is far from being sedentary,
with a diary list of live gigs from Lloyd Cole to Bryan Ferry and China Crisis
to the Kaiser Chiefs. ‘Being there’ is all part of the experience, not just
listening to.
Now, looking forward
to a year in office travelling, meeting up with old friends and colleagues, he
is far from being ‘retiring’ about the task ahead for the Institute.
In addition to his
other duties he has been Chair of the IRRV’s Commercial Services Committee in
recent times, so has a good fix on priorities.
“Education and
membership are the life blood of any professional institute”, he says “and this of course needs to be
supported by a strong income stream from commercial activities.
The public sector
is under pressure on costs, which directly affects the resources of local
authorities to fund training and education, while private sector providers find
local authority spending is down, which influences their involvement in our
events.
However, with
issues such as the introduction of Universal Credit, our profession will
continue to have a focus on its activities and performance. This is something
we can turn to our advantage by stressing the need for highly qualified
specialists who can implement new policy, procedures and performance targets.
If we can’t convince them of the value of Institute membership and
qualifications, then many authorities are heading for an implementation
disaster.”
In Ian Ferguson, the
IRRV has an ambassador for its programme with a wealth of experience to draw
on. Not only is this the case with his time in a number of local authorities,
but also in his grasp of both revenues and benefits roles, where they overlap
and where they divide. In addition, he has served with a number of
Associations; Northern Counties; Lancashire and Cheshire and the West Midlands,
where he was President, and has also been a regular attendee of East Midlands
meetings and with IRRV in Scotland.
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| Ian and his son, supporting The 'Boro at Wembley |
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