Who we are

We work with Vale of White Horse District Council to provide cost-effective services for our residents. We employ around 640 people, some of whom are based at our offices at Abbey House, Abbey Close, Abingdon, OX14 3JE. The vast majority of council staff have hybrid working arrangements meaning they can work from home or other remote locations, or in the office. 

There are 36 elected councillors. You can read more about your councillors and how they make decisions on how the council is run in our Local Democracy webpages.

You can find out more about the Leader of the council on our leaders page.

Each year, our Council Leader appoints a Chair of the Council – this is a non-political role that involves chairing meetings and representing the council at community events. Find out more information on our Chair on our website .

Following a recruitment process, Adrianna Partridge was appointed as Chief Executive and Head of Paid Service at Council meetings at the Vale of White Horse and South Oxfordshire on 10 and 11 December 2025 respectively. She starts in her role on 1 January 2026.

Chief Executive from 1 January 2026

• Adrianna Partridge Chief Executive, Head of Paid Service and Designated Safeguarding Lead

Current roles

• Adrianna Partridge Deputy Chief Executive – Corporate and Communities, Acting Head of Paid Service and Designated Safeguarding Lead
• Suzanne Malcolm Deputy Chief Executive – Place
• Andrew Down Deputy Chief Executive – Partnerships

Services

Our services are divided into the following areas:

Development and Corporate Landlord

Head of department: Andrew Busby

• Economic Development
• Property
• Community centres
• Leisure Centres
• Car parks
• Parks maintenance and toilets
• Cemeteries
• Health and safety

Housing and Environment

Head of department: Paul Fielding

• Housing needs (including housing register, homelessness)
• Environmental and neighbourhood nuisance issues (including environmental health, food and workplace safety, restaurant food hygiene ratings, how to report fly-tipping)
• Recycling and waste collections

Planning

Head of department: Adrian Duffield

• Prepares and consults on statutory plans for land use and development in the district
• Gives expert advice to developers and the public
• Scrutinises and determines planning applications
• Investigates contraventions of planning approvals and rules and takes appropriate action
• Conservation area appraisals, Listed buildings and Tree Preservation orders
• Transport infrastructure
• Footpaths

Corporate services

Head of department: Mark Minion

• Planning for emergency situations
• Communications Team
• Customer services and complaints
• HR
• IT
• Accessibility, equality and diversity
• Consultations

Finance

Head of department: Simon Hewings (also Section 151 Officer)

• Finances
• Procurement
• Revenues and Benefits (including Council Tax and Housing Benefits)
• Business Rates
• Benefit Fraud Investigation

Legal and democratic

Interim Head of department: Nick Bennett (also Monitoring Officer and Data Protection Officer)

• Legal department
• Land charges
• Elections
• Council meetings
• Information governance (Data Protection, FOI/EIR)
• Licensing (including taxis and pubs and clubs)
• CCTV

Communities

Head of Service Phil Barker

• Cornerstone Arts Centre
• Arts Development
• Migration and housing
• Community Hub
• Community Safety
• Active Communities
• Garden Communities
• Community Grants

Policy and Programmes

Head of department: Tim Oruye

• Climate
• Corporate Plan
• Planning policy (including Local Plan, Neighbourhood planning, Oxon 2050, S106/CIL Policy)

Partnerships

Head of department: Andrew Down

• Future Oxfordshire Partnership
• Oxfordshire councils
• 5 Councils
• Oxford Cambridge corridor
• LEP
• Enterprise zones

Monitoring Officer

The council’s Monitoring Officer is Nick Bennett.

Chief Executive

If you have a matter that cannot be dealt with by the relevant team or Head of Department, or you feel you need to escalate it to our Deputy Chief Executives, you can do so by emailing Executivesupportsav@southandvale.gov.uk or by calling 01235 422100.

Senior Management organisational structure

Under the Local Government Transparency Code 2015 we are required to publish the top 3 levels of management structure and salary grade. View our senior management organisational structure.

Jobs

To see job opportunities at the council please see our current vacancies page.

Trade Union facility time

We are required to publish this data on the amount and spend of facility time in respect of staff who are Trade Union representatives.

Constitution

South Oxfordshire District Council’s Constitution document sets out how the council operates, how decisions are made and the procedures the council follows to ensure that these are efficient, transparent and accountable to local people.  Some of these processes are required by the law, while others are a matter for the council to choose.

Where you live

To find out more about South Oxfordshire and where you live, you can click on the information about your area section of our home page or for more detail about the district you can head to our where I live page