By Alan Wilson

DUNDEE CITY Council has bowed to pressure from senior figures at the city chambers and decided to advertise two new key posts in a shake-up at the top of the education department, The Courier can reveal.

In a confidential report before the education committee at the city chambers tonight, director of education Anne Wilson and assistant chief executive (management) Jim Petrie have recommended that two out of four new top posts will be advertised nationally.

The leaked document shows the posts of head of primary education in the city and head of support for learning are now to be advertised instead of being appointed from within, which was the council’s original strategy until a row broke out over the issue.

No explanation has been given for the change of mind.

However two other top posts, those of head of secondary education and head of education resources, are still to be filled from within the department without interviews or advertisements.

James Collins, the existing education services manager (support for learning) is to be appointed head of secondary education and the new post of head of education resources is to be filled by the present education resources manager, Sandy Weston.

The move will cost the department an additional £11,592 in the first financial year, and £39,392 in the first full financial year, which can be managed within the provisional revenue budgets projected for the education service.

Pressure had built on the council following criticism from figures close to the education scene over the plan to appoint Mr Collins and Ms Lina Waghorn, current education services manager (Dundee east)—who was earmarked for head of primary education—to the new positions without inviting other people to apply, a move that had aroused surprise and criticism from the SNP group on the council.

Since The Courier broke the story, several influential individuals are understood to have aired concerns to council leaders about not advertising the posts.

They prefer the council to be seen to be seeking the best candidates for the jobs.

According to the report now, though Mr Collins would still be appointed without being interviewed, Ms Waghorn faces a battle against applicants both from within the council and across the country.

Mrs Wilson wants to change the structure of her department by realigning the responsibilities of senior management staff to assist efforts to improve attainment in Dundee schools after the poor performance of several schools had been highlighted in the past few years.

Rather than splitting the city into sections and having service managers overseeing secondaries and primaries in each of them, she now wants to have one service manager looking after all Dundee secondaries and another in charge of all primaries.

The proposed retiral of other senior personnel in the education department will help facilitate the change.

The opposition group on the council, the Scottish Nationalists, are angry that, despite being the biggest party in the city chambers, they were not told about the proposed shake-up at the same time as the groups which form and support the coalition administration.

In addition to the four new posts, six further posts will be created and will be filled by appointment from an existing post or by internal advertisements.

A total of 10 posts are being deleted in the restructuring.

* In contrast to the council’s handling of the new appointments, Dundee University announced at the weekend that it is to advertise four new vice-principal posts externally as part of a major restructuring aimed at improving the academic management of the institution.