Whilst pottering around this morning, shamelessly listening to Terry Wogan, my attention was snagged by the news report about the Care Quality Commission report into adult care in the UK. Speaking on behalf of Southwark  Council was one Annie Shepperd, who was protesting that the comission were wrong and all was clearly hunky-dory. You know the kind of thing – the sun rises in the south, bears defecate in the open, the Pope’s a Hindu, everything’s just fine, they’re all misguided. Typical local authority denial-speak. You can watch the BBC video report by clicking on the image below.

Late of this parish: worth £160,000 of anyone's money... Annie, we're so glad to see your back.

Local readers with long memories will remember Annie as being the Chief Executive of Walsall Council, who wandered off to Southwark back in 2006. Charged with restoring the image of Walsall as a fine, upstanding authority for a mere £160,000 pa, I’ll let you decide if she did a good job or not. However, this piece shows Annie yet again defending a lacklustre council – only the truly cruel would suggest there might be a pattern emerging here. The salary for Southwark Council’s Chief Executive was listed as being just £5 shy of £187,000 just before Annie joined them in 2005-6 (Taxpayer’s Alliance Rich list, 2008. PDF file, Adobe Reader required). Which is nice.

One thing’s for sure: on the kind of money she’s trousering for this particular old rope, she’ll never need to rely on local authority social care services, which could come as some relief, all things considered.