Jenny Rowlands and Jon Rowney

CAMDEN Council’s new chief executive may have been promoted to the most senior role in the Town Hall – but he told this week his winding journey to the top had seen frontline work.

Jon Rowney, who has led the council’s finance department for several years, has been chosen to step up to succeed the departing Jenny Rowlands.

But in an interview with the New Journal this week, he told how he had worked as temp for Croydon Council as a younger man and when he was trying to raise money for his studies.

“You could be six weeks in one place, then somewhere else,” he said.

“I was like a caretaker, I swept the streets, I made blue badges, I was on the front desk of the occupational therapists.”

Ms Rowlands said it was his “superpower” to have worked jobs like this rather than come through the “corporate services” route, adding: “He looks like a very nice, kind man but he can smell b*******.”

Mr Rowney said: “There is a privilege to working in the public sector where you’re in the background of people’s lives from the moment they join, to the moment they leave – sometimes we’re there in the background, but sometimes we are there at their most vulnerable. That’s a huge responsibility and we take it seriously.”

His own life experiences of seeing domestic abuse first hand inspired him to join the trustees at the charity Refuge and help Camden push awareness to reach more potential victims suffering in silence.

“When I kind of reflect back on it, it robs people of their dignity and often at various points you don’t feel you have control over your life,” he said.

“You kind of feel unseen and unheard, and it’s taken me a long to time to kind of stare that in its face and then move on.

“Then you realise in a leadership position, you have the ability to support others and some of the best work I’ve done has been with Refuge. It’s about listening with compassion and believing the person who is telling you their story.”

As a finance man, he says Camden is nowhere near going bankrupt, the fate of other local authorities in these tough conditions.

He said he was on board with getting the best opportunities – particularly for young people in Camden – from the big companies that have made the borough their home in recent years.

With the housing crisis showing little sign of slowing and the rising bill for temporary accommodation, some feel councils face an impossible job to find the resources to both place people in homes and keep them maintained.

“I don’t think it’s an impossible job. I’m hopeful and optimistic about the future for the public sector. That’s not to say it’s straightforward and easy,” Mr Rowney said.

“We’ve got strong members, a strong leadership and our staff are amazing – and when you go out into the community you see how we’ve all come together in difficult moments to take care of each other.”

. IF Jon Rowney stays as chief executive as long as his recent predecessors, he will be in charge as the predicted AI revolution takes hold. The New Journal asked him whether the council workforce will one day just be him and robot workers. “I don’t think you can just jump in with two feet, you have to be very intentional how you are going to use it,” he said. “You have to introduce a balance into these conversations. There are opportunities in terms of making some of our services more efficient, more streamlined – but that won’t ever replace the kind of relational focus that we as an organisation want. We still have to put residents and communities at the centre of what we do.”