Wandsworth and Richmond councils have named Ana Popovici, currently Deputy Chief Executive, as their new Chief Executive, effective from 25 July on a salary of £294,120 a year.
It’s a role that has topped England’s highest-paid council job table for years, but whose appointment has been marred by excessive secrecy and a flawed recruitment process that failed twice to find an external candidate.
Ms Popovici has been Deputy Chief Executive since October 2024, and was Director of Children’s Services before that. Wandsworth’s Children’s Services were rated Outstanding by Ofsted in every area this year, a result the council’s report credits to her leadership.
The appointment follows a 2024 open competition, run through recruitment firm Gatenby Sanderson, that failed to produce anyone at all. The Joint Staffing Committee (JSC), which handles senior staff appointments for both councils, brought in an interim chief executive, Andrew Travers, while it worked out what to do next. In June this year it chose a closed, internal-only process rather than running the search again in public.
Putney.news has written two letters to Peter Sass, the JSC’s secretary pointing to the council’s legal duty to keep a written summary of decisions taken behind closed doors, and to list the background papers behind its reports. Neither letter has had a reply.
How council chief exec searches are normally run
When the same job was filled in 2022, appointing Mike Jackson, the council disclosed a full account of how it got there: a six-candidate shortlist, technical interviews with an experienced chief executive and a search agent, psychometric assessments, and a panel that included five further Wandsworth members alongside partner representatives. Other councils go further.
This time, Wandsworth Council has been excessively secretive to the point of being misleading. It has consistently listed background papers to the process as “None” – which is either untrue, given that the appointment of a chief executive to a council – and the highest paid council seat in the country – typically comes with a slew of reports; or it has run a sub-standard process. The council so far has refused to even acknowledge our question on this point. We will continue asking.
What happens next
Wandsworth’s Full Council is due to confirm the appointment on 22 July at a meeting of full council, with Richmond confirming separately.
