January 2024 brought a shock to the system at the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA). The Tees Valley Review (TVR) into the Teesworks Joint venture issued a damning report. Two years on, the shockwaves continue.
The mayor responds
At the end of September 2024, Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen reported back to the ministry with the TVCA’s response to the TVR Report. Houchen’s response was published on the TVCA website. The response included a letter to the Secretary of State, Angela Rayner. The letter consisted of a few paragraphs advising Ms Rayner of the robust governance changes that were being made, followed by a page of boasts about the Teesworks project.
Happily ever after
So job done and trebles all round. But it wasn’t to be. Only weeks later, on 13 December 2024, the cracks started to show. Julie Gilhespie, the CEO of both the TVCA and the STDC, announced that she would be resigning from both positions. Ms Gilhespie also resigned as a director of Teesworks Ltd on the same day, but she remained at the helm of the TVCA and STDC until March 2025.
Conflicts of interest
The TVR had noted that “conflicts of interest are not routinely recorded or articulated, particularly in the case of the CEO and her role as a Director of Teesworks Limited.” As the eight-month TVR response period drew to a close, Gilhespie had made a half-hearted attempt to comply with “Recommendation 22” of the TVR, “to renegotiate a better settlement for taxpayers under the Teesworks Joint Venture (JV) Agreement”. In August 2024, Ms Gillespie had met with the JV partners, Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney, then had written to them three days later.
Driving a hard bargain
The partners had offered some makeweight concessions, but refused to budge on the sticking point, a dilution of their 90% share of the JV. This was an utter humiliation for Gilhespie, who had dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s on the JV Agreement in December 2021. As of January 2026, the STDC still hasn’t renegotiated the JV deal.
Something to remember me by
So, Julie Gilhespie was made redundant on 31 March 2025, with a cash payout of £54,546, plus a £152,661 contribution to her pension fund. Not long to wait for that, she was 60 years old at the time.
So was this a redundancy, or what?
On the same day that Gilhespie was made redundant, TVCA Director of Infrastructure Tom Bryant was promoted to interim CEO. Rule 101 of Employment Law states that that redundancy pay is only applicable when a post becomes redundant, so Gillespie’s pay-off was a bit confusing.
We’ve had enough of this nonsense
On 3 April 2025, only three days into his fantastic new temporary job, Bryant received an unwelcome letter from the MCHLG. In this letter, the new TVCA temp was informed that “ministers are concerned as to the authority’s capacity to comply with its best value duty under the Local Government Act 1999 and have therefore decided to issue TVCA with this best value notice (BVN)”
Omnishambles
The MCHLG letter noted “audit reports for TVCA and STDC, covering financial years 2021/22 and 2022/23 which “identify significant weaknesses in value for money (VFM) arrangements across financial sustainability, governance and improving economy, effectiveness and efficiency”. “Recommendation 28” of the TVR had warned Director of Finance and Resources, Gary Macdonald, to complete VFM work in relation to the 2021/22 accounts. But, 18 months later, this work was nowhere near complete. It still isn’t as of January 2026.
The sadness will last forever
The reports for 2023/24 identified “significant weaknesses in use of resources in relation to the TVR and capacity in the finance and risk & assurance teams and indicate that the auditor is considering issuing statutory recommendations in relation to these capacity issues”. My italics. This was serious.
But not that serious, obviously
The TVCA carried on regardless. Despite the pressures of the BVN process, Bryant continued to perform a dual role as both CEO and Director of Infrastructure, This arrangement would continue until he was confirmed as permanent CEO on 27 June 2025. The post of Director of Infrastructure was now vacant, but it wasn’t filled for another month.
Twin trouble
Then, finally, on 25 July 2025, the TVCA began to face reality. Two of the six-person TVCA Senior Management team left on the same day. Gary Macdonald, the Group Director of Finance and Resources, had failed to unravel the accounting errors going back to 2021. Emma Simson, the Group Chief Legal and Monitoring Officer, hadn’t made sufficient progress on governance. Both “left the organisation”, with no indication that they had been dismissed. And what was their pay-off? Time for a Freedom of Information request.
Why did Gary and Emma leave?
After a tortuous exchange of emails, the TVCA would reveal no more than than Simson has left the organisation. Macdonald, on the other hand, had left “to pursue new opportunities”. But the TVCA DID reveal that both had received a severance payment. However, the amount of these payments remains confidential. The full text of the FOI request and response can be found in “Further Reading” at the end of this article.
It’s all happening
On 25 July 2025, the same day that Emma Simson and Gary Macdonald left, Tom Bryant relinquished his role as Director of Infrastructure to concentrate on his CEO role. Bryant handed the infrastructure post over to Julie Hurley, but this was yet another interim appointment, as reported by Teesside Live. In addition to her salary Ms Hurley, a Sheffield resident, would be paid £850 per month accommodation allowance, and a £1,500 per month travel payment.
We’re hiring
Meanwhile, the TVCA went into overdrive to replace Emma Simson and Gary Macdonald. On 31 July 2025, a company called Penna was awarded a contract to cover the cost of paying new recruit Jo Moore for 12 months to replace Gary Macdonald as Group Director of Finance and Resources. However, this is only an interim role. Penna’s contract includes a daily payment rate of £1,250 to Ms Moore. Emma Simson would be replaced by Jodie Townsend, with an amended job title of “Interim Monitoring Officer” and a daily pay rate of £1,350.
Make this sense
Later, in September 2025, a company called Paystream was awarded a contract by the TVCA for an “Interim Monitoring Officer payment system”. This sounds like a payroll function, possibly to augment the above contract with Solace in Business Limited. To complicate matters further, Townsend appears to be self-employed as Governance First Ltd. Whatever happened to just paying people salaries?
Interim Head of Governance
On the same day that the Solace in Business contract was signed, 11 August 2025, the TVCA signed another one with Penna Ltd. This was for the recruitment of an Interim Head of Governance. The process didn’t yield any results, and another contract for recruitment to the same post was signed in January 2026. This time, the TVCA went back to Solace in Business Ltd
The calm before the storm
Things stabilised for a couple of months. Then, on 12 December 2025, after five months in post, Julie Hurley decided not to make her interim Head of Infrastructure role permanent and left the TVCA. Hurley was also Head of Planning for both the Hartlepool and Middlesbrough development corporations. It’s not known at this stage how the TVCA intends to fill these positions. However, “Recommendation 10” of the TVR advised the TVCA to ensure that the boundaries between the TVCA and the STDC would be maintained, This should also apply to the other two mayoral corporations, so this could be an opportunity to re-visit this arrangement.
Transport guru
Julie was replaced by Jonathan Spruce on 12 December 2025, although this information wasn’t made public until agenda papers were published for the 30 January 2026 TVCA Cabinet meeting. Spruce’s CV includes a stint as Senior Assistant Director at the TVCA forerunner organisation Tees Valley Unlimited. Fortunately, he sounds like a local, so he’s less likely to cane his employer with large mileage claims.
Revolving door
The January cabinet papers also revealed that Jodie Townsend won’t be making his interim role permanent. Although he may have been planning his exit for a while. As can be seen below, Townsend has recently been hired by two other organisations; firstly Sussex & Brighton Devolution Programme in November 2025, then Homes England the following month. Jodie Townsend’s role as a self-employed governance consultant has been ongoing since 2015.
Get well soon
Townsend took an extended period of sick leave from the TVCA in December, but there is no reason to doubt that this was genuine. He’s been having to commute from Stonehouse in Gloucestershire to Teesside Airport, a round trip of 440 miles. However, it’s possible that much of his work has been done from home.
Report for duty
Tom Bryant insists that Mr Townsend’s replacement “is required to regularly work from the TVCA office, and this requirement will be explicitly set out as a condition of the contract”. Whoever can he be referring to? However, clocking cards are considered old-school, and won’t be installed at the TVCA.
Sent from Coventry
The replacement in question is Jeanette McGarry. McGarry lives in Berkswell in Warwickshire. This is a mere 356-mile round trip to and from the TVCA office. When she isn’t working from home, McGarry commutes to and from Matlock, where she is Program Director at Derbyshire County Council. That’s only 65 miles in each direction. Hopefully, McGarry will quit this job to concentrate on the TVCA, where she will be paid £950 a day. But the game isn’t quite up for Jodie Townsend. He’s being retained by the TVCA as “call-off consultant” for the next few months.
There’s no substitute for experience
“Recommendation 11” of the TVR suggested that the TVCA should consider recruiting experienced staffers from the five Constituent Authorities in the Tees Valley. This would provide a better system of checks and balances. The TVCA declined to do this, on the basis that it needed people who could devote themselves to their roles full-time. Recent developments have made a mockery of this. But, what’s worse, if the TVCA had availed itself of this crucial assistance going back to its formation in 2016, it’s quite possible that the TVR would never have been necessary.
Permanent replacement
Meanwhile, the search for a permanent Chief Legal & Monitoring Officer to replace McGarry, who hasn’t even started work yet, has begun. This actual job title has been vacant since Emma Simson left in July 2025. Interviews will take place throughout February, and the final candidate is expected to be selected on 27 March 2026. Jo Moore will continue in her interim finance role for a while longer, but the TVCA has begun the recruitment process for a permanent replacement. The timeline for this is similar to the above Chief Legal & Monitoring Officer role.
Don’t panic, Mr Wainwaring
On 20 January 2026, the TVCA contracted with Tile Hill recruitment agency to manage the hiring process for the above two candidates. Three days later, the TVCA inked a deal with Ambient Solutions to recruit an Interim Finance Lead at the STDC “due to an urgent critical need”. According to the contract this was a “retrospective” deal, due to an internal delay with approval. Well, the situation was either urgent, or it wasn’t.
Why do you want to work us?
I asked a HR consultant for her opinion of events at the TVCA. Here are some key points:
- Regarding the two employees who left in July 2025, severance pay for each would be expected to be in the region of six months’ salary.
- The company Paystream, which appears in the table below, could be an umbrella company that contractors use to avoid IR35 tax liability.
- Staff churn is costly, not just in monetary terms, but in hidden costs such as disruption / team morale, re-training time, exposure to risk etc.
- Severance packages are expensive, incurring legal costs as well as the final payment. This is because the employer needs the employee to agree to waive their rights.
- Interim sourcing agents are more expensive than normal recruitment agents.
- Good specialist permanent employees are hard to find in the Tees Valley, so retention of existing competent personnel is paramount.
It all adds up
The table below shows some of the TVCA’s recruitment and retention costs since 31 March 2025. A whopping £1.53mn has been spent trying to keep the ship afloat. Caveats: Some of the costs are unknown. Two of the contracts seem to overlap. Some contracts include salary costs that would otherwise be met via payroll. Some contracts may not be paid in full if individuals are not retained for the specified period.
Nearer, My God, to Thee
The good news is that a contract hasn’t yet been signed for a quartet to play on the deck of the ship.
Further Reading: Freedom of Information request to the TVCA
Thanks to James Waterson for providing additional research for this article
