The first step has been taken to a shared education system across the north of Scotland as councils face millions of pounds of looming cuts.
Aberdeen will scrap its director of education as part of a radical shake-up of senior staff as they make cuts of £150million over the next five years.
Authority chiefs are looking to cull high-paid staff members as they build a “council of the future” according to a new report to be presented at next week’s crunch meeting of the full council.
The existing five directorates comprised of city centre – in charge of the multi-million pound City Centre Masterplan- communities, housing and infrastructure, corporate governance and education and children’s services and health and social care will be scrapped.
These will be replaced by directors of “customer”, “commissioning”, “operations” and “resource management” as the authority moves to a more corporate model.
It is understood that the shake up, due to be fully implemented by April, will save the authority around £200,000 a year.
An officer would still be in charge of education in the city but it is expected that more authorities will scrap education directors with the Northern Alliance group to take a bigger role.
Other councils in the group are Moray, Aberdeenshire, Shetland, Orkney, Highland and the Western Isles.
Regionalisation of education has been identified as a goal by the Scottish Government.
Last night, council leader Jenny Laing said there would be a “leaner, more efficient” council in future.
Severe criticism has been levelled at council bosses in the past for an over-reliance on highly paid interim staff and agencies for top posts.
An early redundancy package is still on the table for the authority workers with 150 accepting packages and joining the exodus out of Marischal College as of May.
It is understood that current city centre director is not returning to the council and there will be no replacement of the role.
Mrs Laing said the plan had been built by the chief executive Angela Scott to “future proof” the city.
She added that the administration were “absolutely committed” to the masterplan although there would be no specific role for it and that there would be no compulsory redundancies.
She said: “I think it is important that when we make any changes to the structure that we make sure that it will meet the needs of not just the council now but also in the future.
“When it comes to education I think it is clear to see that the direction of travel is towards a more regional model and that is where we are headed.”
The council’s current education director is Gayle Gorman.
