Education boss ‘Two Jobs Nick’ set to step down in the autumn

Cllr Nick Smith

CAMDEN’S schools chief Cllr Nick Smith has failed to attend nearly half his Town Hall meetings since taking a high powered Labour Party job in Brussels, the New Journal can reveal.
As Camden’s education department faced its biggest ever upheaval and anger over school dinners still simmered, Cllr Smith attended just seven of 13 public meetings this year; a record three times worse than any other member of the council’s ruling executive.
His attendance has deteriorated since January, when he became Secretary General of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.
No other executive member has missed more than two meetings this year. But Cllr Smith, who is paid £24,000 a year by Camden Council and an unspecified amount, thought to be in excess of £50,000, by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, insists he only agreed to carry on doing two jobs after senior colleagues asked him to. Speaking from Brussel, he said: “It’s true I have a new job and that it has put extra pressure on my home life and my job at the council.
“Having said that, I am working very hard for the executive and put in a lot of work behind the scenes; I was in Camden on Monday to sit in on interviews.
“I seriously considered standing down earlier this year but I’ve agreed with colleagues that I would carry on until the autumn to provide continuity during the restructuring.”
Cllr Lucy Anderson, widely tipped to replace Cllr Smith in August, added: “Nick was asked to stay on and is on top of his brief.”
Camden is merging its education and social services departments – a fraught process which has sparked outrage among staff and governors because only one official, social services chief Heather Schroeder, was interviewed for the new top job.
Privately, many Labour colleagues are understood to be annoyed that Cllr Smith has hung onto one of the most important jobs in Camden while devoting so much time to his new job in Brussels.
His first major political job was as Holborn and St Pancras MP Frank Dobson’s agent and he was elected to Camden Council in 1998.
He launched a failed bid for the deputy leadership of the party, while Chris Bryant, his successor as Mr Dobson’s agent, became an MP near his home town in the Rhondda Valley. His own efforts to secure a safe constituency have failed. He recently acted as agent for Emily Thornberry in her narrow Islington South victory in the General Election.
Tory group leader Cllr Pier Wauchope said: “I congratulate Nick Smith on his high-flying new position; it must be great eating all those chips with mayonnaise and chocolate in Brussels.
“But in the meantime he’s made a real hash of sorting out school dinners in Camden, putting it off for another year.”