Moray Council restructure to save £250k
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A RADICAL management restructuring at Moray Council will see another five posts axed and £250,000 saved from the authority’s merged education and social care department.
The council insists the money, additional to other multi-million pound savings already identified across the local authority, will be reinvested in frontline services, but is unable to specify where at this stage.
A local teaching union leader expressed renewed concern at the merged education and social care department, and said the Moray branch of the EIS would be studying closely the latest restructuring proposals.
However, education chairman Jeff Hamilton insists the restructuring will provide a "one-stop shop" for children’s services.
"The restructuring is not about saving money," he added "it is about providing a better service to the young people of Moray.
"It is quite a radical restructuring but there is no doubt in my mind it is sustainable."
The most high profile role to go under the proposed restructure is that of head of educational resources, which will be merged with the current head of learning and development to create a new schools and curriculum development directorship.
Alistair Farquhar, who spearheaded a review of the council’s school estate in recent years, is currently head of education resources.
The council has launched a public consultation on the proposals which follows the creation of the new merged education and social care department last April. That saw previous education director Donald Duncan take early retirement and the new department headed up by social services chief Sandy Riddell.
The consultation is seeking the views of the public, service users and partner organisations.
A council spokesman said: "The restructure proposals will produce a further reduction of five in management posts (including head of service and quality improvement officer posts).
"This is in addition to the director, quality improvement officer and admin posts that have already been deleted in the first stage of the corporate restructuring last year."
The consultation will continue until Monday, February 20 and more details can be found on the Moray Council website at http://www.moray.gov.uk/moray_standard/page_78221.html
A further report is due to go before councillors on March 20.
Eileen Morrison, secretary of the Moray branch of teaching union the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), said it was too early to comment fully on the specific details in the consultation document. However, she said the union’s original concerns over the merger of education and social work still stood.
"We did not support the restructure at all. We did not feel it was appropriate and were concerned about people not from an educational background managing aspects of educational provision," she said.
