Cornwall Council is proposing a radical shake up of its management structure, with three high powered roles facing the axe.

The move could save the authority as much as £400,000 a year, as part of plans re shape the authority to "deliver services in different ways in the future".

Under the changes proposed by new chief executive Andrew Kerr, the current structure of six directorates will be reduced to three.

These will cover economy and the environment, Localism, business management, organisational development, community safety and protection and finally, education, social care and health.

The restructuring, which is supported by the Council’s Cabinet, will see the number of corporate directors reduced from six to three, delivering initial savings of around £400,000.

According to a briefing to councillors, Kim Carey, corporate director for adult care, health and wellbeing, has said that she does not wish to be considered for any of the new roles. 

Adding: "As a consequence, Kim will be leaving her employment with the council on the grounds of voluntary redundancy.   A leaving date has not yet been agreed. In the meantime Kim will continue to have operational accountability for ACHW service commissioning and delivery."

The council says that once the new corporate directors have been appointed the shape and structure of all the services within the new directorates will be reviewed and that will "deliver further management savings which will help protect frontline services".

“We need to re-shape the council to better suit the way we will deliver services in the future. This top level restructure is the first part of that process,” said Andrew Kerr.

“We are also faced with the huge challenge of having to reduce our spending by £190m over the next four years. Streamlining the organisation is one way of reducing our costs although a management restructure will not in itself deliver all the savings we need,” he added.

 “Cornwall is extremely fortunate in having access to millions of pounds of EU funding to improve its economy and create new jobs and we must ensure that every penny of this funding is spent in the right way. We also need to build strong relationships with our local communities to ensure that we work together to create the kind of Cornwall we want for our children and grandchildren.

“The impact of the economic recession and the continuing reductions in Government funding for the public sector means that we will need to work even more closely together to deliver the services which meet the needs of our residents. The new management structure will help us to co-ordinate our work to deliver social care and health, and move towards integrated public services for Cornwall.

Details of the re organisation have been outlined to members and staff and formal consultation will now take place with the affected staff before the start of the appointment process.