Council hiring issues, and Streatham

We’ve lost our Town Centre Manager already. The TCM was in post for about 10 weeks then abruptly left. There are many reasons for this but I wanted to point out what I believe to be the biggest reason from an insider’s standpoint - weak and frankly amateurish council policies that just don’t stand up to scrutiny in the real world by business people.
So why make such a big deal about it? Our town centre committee met last week and gave one of our number a mandate to sit on the selection panel to give input into the hiring process. We were given a description of the hiring process, and its limitations, which left us with little doubt that we would have little scope of ensuring we’ll get the kind of person we want. It’s not that we don’t know what we want; we do! It’s just that the process doesn’t work in our (or your!) favour.
Here’s why (in chronological order): firstly we have no input into which applicants are eliminated by the shortlisting process. There may be perfectly good and robust procedures for elimination but given the weaknesses further down the line, this can’t be assumed. And, as the process isn’t transparent (to the extent of our knowledge), it’s entirely possible that perfectly good candidates may be excluded from being shortlisted for an interview. They may be good reasons; they may be nefarious - we just don’t know, and given the weaknesses in the rest of the process we can’t give the council the benefit of the doubt.
Secondly, the town centre manager will be hired on the basis of one, and only one, interview. That’s all! For a position that pays at least £42k per year, for life if the person chooses to stay in local government (with platinum-plated final salary pension, etc) they have to perform well in one (1!) interview. There is at least one fast-food shop in Streatham that requires a candidate to attend and perform well in two interviews. Apparently the town centre manager we lost performed superbly in the interview. It’s very difficult, though, to do so for two interviews, and almost impossible to do so for three (an average number for middle management posts elsewhere). Why the council doesn’t use multiple interviews isn’t clear.
Thirdly, to carry on in this vein, the interview itself is composed of the panel asking eight pre-set questions and rating the candidates on the answers given. There is no opportunity to put follow-up probing questions to the candidates or to use other techniques to test the candidates know-how and poise thoroughly. Furthermore, instead of requiring all candidates to familiarise themselves with the council HR polices and procedures, and being bound to them in the event they are successful and are appointed, two of the questions are wasted by querying the candidates views about Lambeth’s internal policies and have nothing to do with the actual doing of the job. This leaves the answers to 6 questions the primary differentiation between a good candidate and mediocre or poor ones.
Now I’m sure that neither Sainsburys, nor the banks, nor any other reasonably sized operation on the Streatham High Road would hire a graduate management trainee, to say nothing of a store or bank manager on the strength of six questions in one interview. Why does the council do this? It can’t be a cost issue if successful, profitable businesses see value in doing things differently. There can’t be any law forcing councils to utilise one, and only one, interview to hire; businesses would surely be subject to the same rigour. That leaves internal Lambeth policy and that’s what worries me as another group of candidates enter the interview room tomorrow. Why would successful business people continue to work with the council on the town centre initiative if the council really hasn’t got the management nous to oversee its own efforts?
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