Douglas Spinks

Douglas Spinks served as Deputy Chief Executive of Woking Borough Council from May 2006 until his retirement in March 2021, having joined the council in 1984 - a total of 37 years. He worked alongside CEO Ray Morgan throughout the entirety of the commercial borrowing programme.

As Deputy CEO, Spinks oversaw many of the council's operational and commercial activities. He also served as a director of the Thameswey Group of companies and Export House Limited, giving him dual roles as both a council officer overseeing council-funded companies and a director of those same companies.

The Grant Thornton Public Interest Report found that Spinks 'supported and facilitated' Ray Morgan's approach to investments. Like Morgan and Bryant, Spinks had no significant professional experience outside of Woking Borough Council, having spent his entire career there.

He retired in March 2021 alongside Ray Morgan and Peter Bryant. Their simultaneous departures removed the leadership team that had been in place throughout the period of reckless borrowing, and meant institutional knowledge about the full extent of the council's commitments was lost.

The Grant Thornton report identified a culture of insufficient challenge within the senior officer team, of which Spinks was a key member for nearly four decades. The report found that the borrowing had escalated from approximately £400 million in 2017 to £1.8 billion by 2022.