THE chief executive of Blaenau Gwent council is to leave in a bid to save the local authority money - less than a month after the leader also resigned.

David Waggett, who has worked for the council and its predecessor local authority for over 35 years, is taking voluntary redundancy and will leave at the end of February next year.

The decision comes as part of Blaenau Gwent's on-going efforts to reduce senior management costs and Mr Waggett's departure will save the council £250,000 over five years.

At the start of this month Cllr Hedley McCarthy, leader of Blaenau Gwent council, resigned as leader citing local government reorganisation.

With Mr Waggett's departure, the role of chief executive will also be permanently deleted and instead a 'lead corporate director/head of paid service' has been recruited from within the existing council staff, Stephen Gillingham.

Mr Gillingham will be taking up the role and his appointment will be temporary for 12 months ahead of more information about local government reform.

The council said the move is in line with their approach to reducing the number of senior managers working for the authority and part of a review to find savings in the face of the "unprecedented budget cuts" which have already forced many difficult decisions.

Mr Waggett said: “It has been a massive honour as a Blaenau Gwent boy to professionally lead the council for nearly five years.

"During this time there has been significant improvements made in the authority’s governance arrangements and we have been successful in removing the authority from special measures for education.

"This has been a concerted effort on behalf of all colleagues, both professional and political, and I would like to thank them all. I wish everyone the very best for the future.”

Leader of Blaenau Gwent council, Steve Thomas said: "We continue to work hard as a council to identify savings and efficiencies in light of ever decreasing funding from the Welsh Government and central government.

"This is the first phase of a review into senior management costs which will be on-going over the coming months and years as we look to reduce the salary costs of the authority.

“David Waggett has served this council well, and has been our chief executive during a period when we needed to make some urgent and rapid improvements to the way the authority is run.

"I would like to recognise David’s commitment to this and take this opportunity to thank him for his support. We wish him all the very best for the future.”

Stephen Gillingham said he is looking forward to taking up the new temporary role.

He said: "I know there are challenging times ahead but I am confident we will be able to successfully respond to those challenges with the new ideas, innovative approaches and hard work that I see from staff on a daily basis."