Alton Towers boss chosen as Reform council's next CEO

Derbyshire County Council has chosen a senior leader from Alton Towers to be its new chief executive.

Neil Crittenden is currently the interim vice-president at the theme park and has spent more than sixteen years working for its parent company, Merlin.

The county council's Reform UK leader Alan Graves said appointing someone from outside local government could make a real difference.

"Within the organisation of Merlin, his main role was transformation and making sure that the customer experience was high on his list. I see the customers as the residents of Derbyshire," Graves said.

Mr Crittenden is set to replace Emma Alexander, who left to join Tameside Council last month.

He said: "I'm particularly looking forward to meeting and working with great colleagues across the council and doing my best for the residents of Derbyshire."

Simon Stevens, the council's head of adult care and health had been serving as interim CEO, but resigned from that role earlier this week.

The new chief executive will have to be confirmed by the full council next week, but Reform UK has a comfortable majority and the process is expected to be a formality.

Graves said the county had 43 applications for the role and interviewed nine candidates.

He said by appointing someone from the world of business he was trying to address problems in local government.

"If it's not a first, it's highly unusual ... we need to start thinking differently and this is definitely an opportunity to think differently.

"We have a very good structure that he will fit into. His job will be to direct the council in a particular way and I think that this will be different to all the other candidates that we had," Graves said.

Many of Derbyshire's Reform UK councillors were elected on pledges to reduce the pay of the authority's chief executive.

Graves said Mr Crittenden would be paid at the very bottom of the national pay scales for the job - currently £181,018 a year - with the opportunity to earn bonuses for good performance.

The authority said arrangements were being put in place to cover the gap between the resignation of Mr Stevens and the new chief executive taking up his post early next year.

By Colin Hazelden, Derby political reporter

Local government can definitely be a rollercoaster, so the new chief executive will be well prepared by his current job when he makes a splash landing at County Hall next year.

What the new Reform UK leadership are hoping for with this highly unusual appointment is to get away from the traditional way of doing things, which much of Derbyshire's new cabinet has found frustrating in their first few months in charge.

Doing that will be difficult. The vast majority of what a local authority does are called "statutory" services – things they have to do by law.

This means there is not always much room to make radical change because of the danger of creating a black hole in the finances, but the council leader is convinced that Mr Crittenden's customer and staff focus will prevent this from being the case.