Somerset's £300k Finance Chief: A Reckless Sticking Plaster, Not a Star Striker

Somerset Council Leader Bill Revans recently took to the press to defend paying an interim finance officer nearly £300,000 a year for a four day week. In a staggering piece of political spin, he actually compared the consultant, Clive Heaphy, to Manchester City superstar Erling Haaland.

But taxpayers are not foolish, and we need to call out this PR fluff for what it is.

If a council is going to pay someone £300,000 while simultaneously hiking council tax by the maximum 4.99% and slashing local services, that person needs a flawless track record of saving sinking ships. But Heaphy is not the Erling Haaland of local government. He is more like a lower league journeyman striker brought in on a short term contract when a team is already facing relegation.

Revans conveniently ignored how things actually ended where Heaphy has worked before. He was the acting Chief Executive and finance boss at Birmingham City Council. Today, Birmingham is completely bankrupt, residents are suffering a massive 21% tax hike over two years, and the council is holding a desperate fire sale of local assets just to keep the bins emptied. Nottingham City Council also went bankrupt after his stint there.

And what about Middlesbrough, the other council that was supposedly fixed during his time as interim Chief Executive? They only avoided a formal bankruptcy declaration because they begged the government for a massive Exceptional Financial Support loan. That was not a magic cure — it was a bailout that simply allowed them to pile on millions more in expensive long term debt and sell off public car parks and community buildings just to cover their daily bills. Their underlying debt is still growing, and their residents are being punished with maximum legal tax rises and fee hikes to fund it.

Parachuting in highly paid consultants who rely on massive government bailouts and asset stripping is not a strategy for long term recovery. It is a reckless expenditure.

The reality on the ground in Somerset is identical. The Lib Dem administration claims they are on the road to recovery, but the truth is they are surviving on the exact same Exceptional Financial Support loans as Middlesbrough. They are borrowing millions in expensive debt and stripping the county of its assets just to keep the lights on for another month.

So why pay an external consultant £300,000? Because the council leadership is desperate to buy time and shift the blame.

They do not have a permanent fix for the structural deficit; they just need to avoid a formal Section 114 bankruptcy declaration until after the local elections in May 2027. By bringing in an expensive troubleshooter, the politicians get a convenient human shield. When the brutal, unavoidable cuts to adult social care and community services finally hit, the administration can simply point at the consultant and claim they were just following professional advice.

Somerset residents are being forced to foot the bill for both a broken council and the expensive consultants hired to mask the damage. This is not a masterstroke to save the county — it is a £300,000 sticking plaster designed to protect the administration from the ballot box.