A COUNCIL has divided up its chief executive role among existing senior managers and said that it may do away with the job altogether.

Hyndburn Borough Council has not appointed a replacement for Mike Chambers, a job believed to be worth about £90,000 and said it will wait and see if its new system of strategic directors works before making a decision.

Council leader Coun Peter Britcliffe, said: "Nothing has been ruled out, but nothing has been ruled in either."

Thursday's decision to divide up the job was taken one day before Mr Chambers was due to leave Hyndburn for the Deputy Chief Executive role at Oldham Council, a move Hyndburn knew about from the beginning of April.

The replacement team are: Nigel Rix, director of Hyndburn FIRST, Steve Tanti, director of Community Services, and David Welsby, director of Corporate Policy and Governance.

For legal reasons Mr Welsby will be named as the Head of Paid Services and Jane Ellis, Head of Legal and Democratic Services, will take on the job of Returning Officer for Elections.

Coun Britcliffe said the new team will take the council through the impending Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA), and they will not decide whether to appoint another Chief Executive until it is published at the end of September.

He said: "We are looking to see how the new system works and whether it would need adjustment.

"It is the job description that matters and not the job title.

"The next four months are very important ones for the council as it is a time when we, along with the other district councils in Lancashire, will be inspected through the Audit Commission's CPA.

"While we will obviously want to look at our requirement for a chief executive in the coming weeks, at present we're determined to remain firmly focused on our performance assessment.

"With the new Cabinet system of local government, the role of councillors has been changed but one thing that we have not looked at is the role of the chief executive."

Labour group leader Jean Battle, said: "The decision to set up temporary arrangements rather than going through the disruption of recruiting a new Chief Executive at this point in time, is one that we all felt was just plain common sense.

"The council has had a very successful year and we want to stay absolutely focused on that achievement during the time leading up to our inspection in September.

"As Peter, said we already have a lot of strength in our senior management team and we have every confidence in their ability to lead us through the next four months."