Britain's only black council chief: 'I have to work twice as hard' - Lambeth's top man says he has paid a high price for success

 Natricia Duncan,  Contributor

HE TRANSFORMED one of London's worst-rated councils into one of the best and is, currently, the only person of African or Caribbean heritage to run a local authority. Meet Derrick Anderson CBE, the chief executive of south London's Lambeth Council, who was last year crowned Britain's public leader of the year for leading the dramatic turnaround at the local authority.

But Anderson, who at £197,075 a year earns more than the prime minister, wants people to know that his accomplishments have come at a cost - having to work twice as hard as his peers and overcome obstacles to realise his dreams.

He said: "I dealt with all of the issues about being a black leader, a black manager in basically a white organisation. I had to manoeuvre through the glass ceiling dilemma. "I've always said whatever the obstacle in front of me I will find a way of climbing over it, even if I have to dig under it."

Recently, a damning report commissioned by Labour and Co-operative MP for Feltham and Heston, Seema Malhotra, showed a decline in public board appointments, with only 59 people from an ethnic-minority background appointed to public boards last year, representing 5.5 per cent of the total number of appointments - a 1.5 per cent drop from 2010.

Malhotra described the figures as "shocking", pointing out that the numbers should be closer to 14 per cent, which would be a proportional reflection of the UK.

Anderson, who was awarded a Queen's Honour for his service to local government, said when he arrived at Lambeth in 2006, he had to prove that he was not just a 'token'. He said: "I had 10 years of work and the recognition for that work - the CBE and honorary doctorate that I had received in the Midlands." The 55-year-old, who was born in the East End of London to Cuban immigrants, said he inherited his spirit of perseverance from his parents.

He said: "Both my parents arrived here before the Windrush, and they brought with them a whole set of values, which I think they inculcated in all of us. "It was about whatever the obstacle in front of you, just keep chipping away, keep working hard, keep doing what's necessary, and if they tell you need X, always look to provide X plus Y. I've held that set of values in me, in my head and in my family."

Anderson added that his life and his worldview were also shaped by the racial politics of the 1960s and '70s.

"I was a child of the '60s and a renegade in the '70s. If you can put it in its context, the assassinations of John F Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, the rivers of blood speech from Enoch Powell, all of these things actually put civil rights and the position of black people in the society right at the front of the international agenda.

"It forced me to ask myself, 'who am I? Where do I fit in, and how do I work my way through all of this?' I decided I wanted to challenge some of the assumptions about what black people can do."

After getting a degree in psychology and a masters in social work, Anderson progressed in his career in local government, working on various arts and rehabilitation projects.

GREAT SACRIFICE

But he admitted that his success hasn't come without great sacrifice.

He said: "The price that I have paid for this journey has been enormous. This is not a job you do in 40 hours per week. You go home and you are working, on weekends you are working, on holidays you are thinking. There is no space out of this, you either stay with the programme or you decide to drop away."

He added that this work ethic and his "clear vision" helped him to succeed in transforming Lambeth Council into the body that has won 81 national awards since 2010. He said: "I was going to take those people with me that wanted to go on the journey; but I wasn't going to hold hostages and I coined a phrase - if you can't change the people, you have to change the people." Anderson, who manages a multi-million pound budget, says one of the factors contributing to the decline in diversity on public boards is a lack of endurance.

"The fact of the matter is that you know as a black leader you have to work twice as hard as a white one. You know whatever qualification they are asking for, you have to put another 25 to 30 per cent on top of it in terms of numbers. You know if someone is working six or seven hours in your team, to make it you are going to have to work 10."

And how does he feel knowing that his X plus Y, plus 30 per cent has helped him accomplish so much? He said: "I am more excited and proud of the people I have helped, that society had written off that are now running their own cleaning companies and security businesses."