Sector: Quango

Analysis

Regeneration's quangos have increased dramatically in number over recent years, and these relatively young organisations are still establishing themselves as career makers. “The major challenge will be attracting quality people from the private sector,” says PSD Group’s Tony O'Neill. “They have to be convinced that this area is the place to be.”

Most quangos believe themselves to be good payers, even though their levels are only moderately better than local authorities. At the same time quango bosses admit that they haven't had much basis for comparison, and they will therefore be eagerly scrutinising our survey results.

With many quangos planning a review and overhaul of pay and benefits within the next 12 months, there is the prospect that salary packages will improve. Quangos in the South-east, which already pay highest of all the country's quangos, could well be making their packages more attractive where their work involves preparation of sites related to the Olympic Games, O'Neill believes.

John Cadwallader chief executive, Derby Cityscape

Present role Transforming Derby city centre is the job John Cadwallader has taken on as leader of its urban regeneration company, but he won’t be doing any of the development himself. After he joined the company in January 2004, Cadwallader spent the first 10 months working with EDAW to produce a masterplan for the city centre and now he is wooing developers in the hope of getting them to come and deliver the masterplan. The URC will have its first project off the ground by September, a set of creative industries workshops for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the URC is signing up a London developer to do its first scheme in Derby. These are the first stages in the delivery of a total £1.3bn of redevelopment. Cadwallader has also come up with a few clever initiatives, notably a housing design competition aimed at establishing the URC’s role as a design champion for the city centre.

My role is about creating the climate so that housebuilders will take up the opportunities

Career path Over the course of a 20-year career with housebuilder Beazer, Cadwallader has held the positions of regional managing director and head of the company’s regeneration and social housing division. He started his career in accountancy, but having decided that he wanted to be “more than a bean counter”, made the shift to management, first joining an industrial services company, and then Beazer Homes. Within four years he had left the finance department behind him.

Past versus present “Working in private housebuilding was easier in a way, because you knew you could buy the sites. This role is about enabling, creating the climate so that housebuilders will come and take up the opportunities. Commercial private sector experience has certainly helped to deliver one of our schemes – I took a hard look at the design to identify what the constraints were to developers.”

Likes about the job? “This is the first job I’ve had where I can see more or less the whole area of my responsibility from my office window. I don’t have to get in the car to see a site.”

Biggest personal regeneration challenge? “Delivering what is most reliant on public sector money, the non-commercial elements like cultural facilities. They are ingredients that can make a real difference to an environment.”

Is regeneration getting tougher or easier? “In some ways it is getting easier in that more people are sold on the benefits that regeneration can bring and it’s now being done on a holistic basis. But it is harder in terms of funding – there are issues like the winding down of European funding.”