“A few weeks ago, I was a nobody and now I am a very important person but next May I will be a nobody again,” says Gary Cooke, the new chairman of Kent County Council, with a self-deprecating grin.

He is joking, of course, but it is a high point of a near 25 year career in public service and it is a mantle he does not wear lightly.

The role of chairman is non-political (although he is a lifelong Conservative), ambassadorial and as a civic facing charity fundraiser.

He comes to the job at a time of massive upheaval and uncertainty at County Hall. Cuts in government funding means £58m in savings have to come from somewhere.

It has been reported the authority is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy and that there are grave concerns whether KCC can pull through. Revenues and business rates barely cover the costs.

But when there is growth in demand in areas, such as adult and children’s care services, it goes unfunded. Many local authorities feel that the whole approach to funding requires a fundamental government rethink.

What comes first - rubbish tips or adult social care? The members will end up having to decide.

But wherever the cuts fall, the result will be a cheerless menu.

Sitting in his plush three room suite of offices looking out from County Hall in Maidstone, he takes a look around him and states quite seriously: “It’s tough. I hope we can get through it.”

At one end of the Chairman’s suite is a dining-cum-meeting room with an artificial flower display on the long, oval table. This was once used to host grand dinners provided by the county’s caterers and chefs. Not now.

The middle room is for informal meetings and then, at the other end, a large private office.

“To be elected chairman of an authority the size of Kent County Council is and should be regarded as a great honour and I intend to use every moment of this opportunity,” he says.

He compares the civic and ceremonial role's non-political status to that of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Built 199 years ago, County Hall, or Sessions House, is a mash of the old and modern, still retaining a large marble floored atrium but with automatic doors. Grand old oil paintings stare across ornately carved wooden staircases leading to a chamber whose activities can be watched virtually anywhere in the world.

Born in south London - he supports Crystal Palace - Cllr Cooke moved to Hildenborough in Kent as a child, sent to a private Catholic school after he failed his 11 plus. He was not academic and left formal education with five O-levels.

“No, I was probably better with my hands. I harboured ideas about being a commercial artist until I saw it being done properly on a trip to Tunbridge Wells Technical High School and realised that was not for me, either.

“I remember sitting with a crowd of mates around an ashtray piled high with fag butts (everyone smoked back then) and we swore blind we’d never go into the finance, banking or insurance sector,” he recalls.

“About ten years later that’s exactly what we were all doing.”

For Cllr Cooke, it was in the insurance industry, particularly for the aviation sector which became his specialism.

He got his break at Standard Life but made his name at Lloyds of London in 1969.

With experience at Lloyds, he was invited to take a start up based in Bermuda and watched the company grow from 30 staffers to 11,000, having a blast along the way.

In the early part of his adulthood, he served for eight years as a district councillor in Sevenoaks before his career got in the way. Back in Kent after a career gallivanting around the world, he was elected 13 years ago to KCC and more recently to Maidstone Borough Council.

He has two sons, James and Stuart, as well as a grown-up adopted daughter, Megan, who became a Cooke aged four.

"We adopted Megan through Kent County Council social services and it was through that experience that I wanted to serve on the adopting and fostering panels when I became a country councillor because it was an areas in which I had some knowledge."

And children are to form a key area of his charity fundraising push in his year in office - in this case the untold and unsung work of young carers. Around 8,500 in Kent are known about, officially, but Cllr Cooke says the real number may be six times that.

The Crossroads and Imago charities will be the beneficiaries of the 'Found A Pound' campaign.

"If everybody in the county of Kent gave a quid for Kent's young carers, we'd raise £1.6m - which would be amazing. If half the people donated a pound that would be £800,000 - sums which would make such a difference to the charities."

Details of how to donate by text or QR code will be released shortly.

Meanwhile, his life is a whirl of public engagements, civic duties and dinners. Best of all, he says, he gets a break from politics.

"The role is apolitical and it has been quite liberating to be apolitical and to focus on the things that support KCC."