Andrea Hill

Early career

Hill attended The Sandon School, Sandon, Chelmsford, Essex and then studied Public Administration at Birmingham University and followed her father, an Essex County Council officer, into local government. Her first post was as a management trainee at Thurrock Council in the 1980s, followed by Director of Communications and Policy Development at North Hertfordshire. 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. 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. She was described as a "tough, effective and single-minded" administrator, and according to The Telegraph was nicknamed "The Ice Queen". The same source claims she only dealt with group leaders rather than back-bench councillors and was likely to correct anyone who did not pronounce her name "Arndrea". After the authority lost out in a unitary council reorganisation it challenged the ruling, at considerable cost in legal fees, despite a previous agreement by all the competing councils that they would accept their fate. The Telegraph speculated that Hill may have been behind this challenge.

Suffolk county council

Hill was appointed Chief Executive of Suffolk County Council in March 2008 at the age of 44 on a salary of £218,592. 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.

Subsequently

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