Fife Council has been blasted for hiring three new education bosses on £90,000 salaries as the region faces massive spending cuts.
Both Kinghorn Community Council and Burntisland, Kinghorn and Western Kirkcaldy councillor George Kay criticised the appointments, which they said would cost more than £100,000 each while cuts are required elsewhere in the schools budget.
However, the local authority claimed a change to its management structure which results in five heads of service for education and children’s services was actually saving money.
Challenging the council to justify the appointments, community council spokeswoman Suzanne Gilfeather said: “I’m sure teachers would rather more classroom assistants and teaching resources than three highly-paid managers sitting in Fife House.”
Mr Kay said once pensions and other costs were added to the salaries the price to the council for each of the new incumbents would “well exceed” £100,000.
He said to even think about having five heads of service in the current financial climate was “unbelievable”.
Education and children’s services executive director Craig Munro said there had been five senior manager posts in the department since education and part of the social work service were combined in April last year but two had been vacant for some time and a third was about to become vacant.
He said: “Fife has the second largest education and children services directorate in Scotland.
“We’ve got around 9,000 staff providing a wide range of critical services to some 60,000 customers.
“As well as managing over 180 schools and helping young people reach their full potential, we’re also protecting the vulnerable children in our communities and adult service users in criminal justice.
“It’s essential we have a highly qualified and accountable management team.”
Other management posts had been removed, he said, saving £75,250 and producing a “very lean” management structure compared to those of other local authorities.
He added: “We have been working with temporary arrangements and vacant posts for some time. Now, with another one of the existing posts being vacated at the end of February, it’s time to bring our team up to full strength.”