Five senior SBC officials to take early retirement

Among those leaving are head of education Glenn Rodger and current acting director of social work Stella Everingham. The one-off cost of the departure of all five is £534,000.

Under the restructuring of senior SBC jobs, four corporate directors are being replaced by two depute chief executives and 19 heads of service posts are being cut to 12 service director posts.

All affected staff were advised of their individual options and were also asked if any wished to apply for voluntary severance or early retirement.

Glenn Rodger is taking early retirement from the post of director of education and lifelong learning at Scottish Borders Council

Councillors agreed to their departure last week.

However, Councillor Michelle Ballantyne said: “We are spending a lot of money letting experienced, competent people go only to recruit new people in slightly differently titled posts. Why spend money doing that when we could be delivering services?”

She added that she was concerned that the council was losing experienced staff at a time of significant change.

But chief executive Tracey Logan responded: “We will allow these people to leave the council when it is appropriate and when we have replacements in place.

“No skills gap will be allowed to materialise.”