Council to leave £90k post vacant to save money:

‘WE’LL SEE IF WE CAN GET BY WITH FEWER SENIOR MANAGERS’

ACASH strapped council has decided not to fill a vacant post paid around £90,000 a year, the cabinet has confirmed.

A report presented last Tuesday recommended not filling the vacant Corporate Director post in a bid to achieve much needed savings – but could be reversed if the workload is found to be unmanageable.

Gwynedd Council had two corporate directors: one post has been vacated following the departure of Iwan Trefor Jones to become Deputy Chief Executive at social housing group, Cartrefi Cymunedol Gwynedd.

Working directly underneath the chief executive, the corporate directors are paid approximately £90,000 a year but the authority will “try and make do” for the time being.

The report, authored by the chief executive Dilwyn Williams, referred to a decision made in May that the authority should consider reducing the number of senior managers.

He went on to say that while two people could not fulfil the work of three, they would have to prioritise the workload for the time being.

“As one of the corporate director posts is now empty, this gives us an opportunity to see whether we can cope without the post.

“I have discussed the matter with the remaining Director and whilst we both have reservations relating to the medium term risks, we are both agreed that it is incumbent upon us to at least experiment with a different model.

“I therefore recommend we do not fill the vacant Director post to experiment to see if we can do without the post.

“Functions undertaken by the previous post holder would need to be re-allocated between myself and the remaining director.”

Dafydd L Edwards, head of finance, wrote: “We are planning for a funding gap of between £2m and £7m... In view of the challenging situation, it is logical to see whether we can get by with less at this tier.”

The report was approved unanimously.