Andrea Hill was

Suffolk County Council Suffolk County Council is the upper-tier Local government in England, local authority for the county of Suffolk, England. It is run by 75 elected county councillors representing 63 divisions. It is a member of the East of England Local Governme ...

's chief executive from March 2008 to July 2011, when she left the authority by mutual agreement.

Early career

Hill attended The Sandon School, Sandon, Chelmsford, Essex and then studied public administration at

Birmingham University The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...

and followed her father, an Essex County Council officer, into local government. Her first post was as a management trainee at

Thurrock Council Thurrock Council is the local authority for the borough of Thurrock in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. Since 1998 the council has been a unitary authority, being a district council which also performs the functions of a county council ...

in the 1980s, followed by director of communications and policy development at

North Hertfordshire North Hertfordshire is one of ten local government districts in the county of Hertfordshire, England. Its council is based in Letchworth Garden City and the largest town is Hitchin. The district also includes the towns of Baldock and Royston ...

. In the mid-1990s she was assistant chief executive at Cambridge City Council, and by 2001 she had gained her first chief officer post at Colchester District Council, aged 37, on a salary of £85,000. Among her achievements there was a £1.5 billion PFI contract for a new army garrison.

County council CEO

In August 2004 Hill became chief executive of

Bedfordshire County Council Bedfordshire County Council was the county council of Bedfordshire in England. It was created in 1889 and abolished in 2009. Throughout its existence, the council was based in Bedford. Luton was a county borough independent from the county cou ...

. During her three years tenure, it moved from two to three stars in the Audit Commission's ratings, and was described by them as one of twenty "strongly improving" authorities in the country.

Suffolk county council

Hill was appointed chief executive of Suffolk County Council in March 2008 at the age of 44. She was a powerful and vocal advocate of the emerging "New Strategic Direction" of outsourcing council functions, which became an exemplar for ministers. However, as the cuts of 2010/11 began to loom ever closer, so the media interest in Hill increased, with headlines about her rather than the council. By April 2011 Andrea Hill wrote her side of the controversy in the council's house magazine: ''Inside SCC''. But by then the council's new direction had become increasingly distrusted by elected members, who threw it out with the election of Mark Bee as the replacement council leader for Jeremy Pembroke. That may have sealed Andrea Hill's fate. In July 2011 (aged 47) she received a year's salary as pay-off for relinquishing her post, following a "whistle-blowing" enquiry that exonerated her of any wrongdoing. In October 2011 she was replaced by Deborah Cadman OBE.East Anglian Daily Times 20 Oct 2001
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Subsequently

Ms Hill subsequently took a sabbatical role as a yachting holiday flotilla hostess in the Virgin Islands.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hill, Andrea Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Local government in Suffolk British women chief executives