A FURTHER shake-up of senior managers at Waveney District Council has been announced as the authority bids to fight back from a series of damning reports into its performance.

A FURTHER shake-up of senior managers at Waveney District Council has been announced as the authority bids to fight back from a series of damning reports into its performance.

The number of heads of service has been slashed from 10 to six as new chief executive Stephen Baker forms his own management team.

Conservative-controlled Waveney was left reeling at the end of last year when its former chief executive Glen Garrod resigned, saying he did not have the skills to turn the authority's fortunes around following poor ratings from the Audit Commission.

His departure was closely followed by that of another senior director before Suffolk Coastal District Council's chief Mr Baker took up the joint role at Waveney.

As part of the improvement programme, Mr Baker said he wanted to create a new management structure. The reduction of managerial posts has been carried out through redundancies, although the council would not say how much had been paid out.

Council leader Mark Bee said: “We have made tough decisions and have been thorough and meticulous throughout this process. Our aim is to improve performance and service delivery and this new, streamlined, efficient management model provides the perfect foundation to achieve this.”

Following the appointment of Alan McFarlane as director of resources, Arthur Charvonia has been appoint-ed to the new role of assistant chief executive. Stephen Archer completes the senior team as strategic director.

Mr Charvonia was formerly the council's head of legal and democracy, while Mr Archer was the director for regeneration. Director Linda Scase-Jones has left the council after a long period of illness.

Mr Bee added: “The hardest part of a process such as this is losing good people and Linda has given many years of loyal service to Waveney District Council, contributing a huge amount to the organisation.”

Meanwhile, a new committee is to be set up at Waveney in a bid to improve scrutiny of the authority's budget after a potential overspend of nearly £5m was discovered.

The EDP revealed in May that the council was taking drastic action to make savings in the light of figures which showed a worst-case scenario of a £4.6m overspend.

The audit and risk management committee, which will represent all political parties on the Conservative-run council, will be independent of the ruling cabinet and investigate and scrutinise many elements of the authority's budget.