City of Canning Mayor Patrick Hall believes incoming Chief Executive Michael Littleton will be able to show the City how the “big guys” operate, ahead of his official commencement date of May 23.
Mr Littleton was named as the new Chief Executive, taking over from Acting Chief Executive Stephen Cain, two weeks ago and Mr Hall said his experience in the Cities of Cockburn and Stirling may offer valuable ideas for the City.
“He’s an absolute ripper,” Mr Hall said.
“Out of the shortlist of applicants he was just outstanding.
“His portfolio at the City of Stirling, just to give you an idea, is over $200 million dollars a year and he has 500 FTEs under him, so this is a gentleman who has a massive portfolio.
“His department in Stirling is much bigger than the City of Canning.
“He comes highly rated.
“His referees were exemplary and I can’t tell you the number of people who messaged me to say how lucky we are.”
While Mr Littleton is relatively young, having just turned 51, Mr Hall sees this as an advantage, with Mr Liddleton having worked for seven different local government organisations across three states.
“Having a younger guy come in who has fresh ideas from a really big council, and he’s now worked at the two biggest councils in Cockburn and also Stirling for very long period of time so he’s done a massive apprenticeship as an executive director.
“I can’t wait to see what he can teach us.
“It’s easy to attract applicants from smaller local governments.
“When you attract people from much larger local governments, I’m hoping that means he might be able to take us where we hope to go.
“We want to learn new things and find out how the big guys operate, and I know he will actually bring to the table some things that will really help us improve out systems and that’s what we’re always about, continuous improvement.”
