Shropshire Council finance chief Laura Rowley quits

Shropshire Council finance chief Laura Rowley has quit her £125,000-a-year job amid a massive shake-up of Shirehall senior management.

She officially leaves the authority next Friday.

Mrs Rowley was unavailable for comment today but is understood to have been unhappy at plans for big cuts among the council's 96 senior managers as it tries to find savings of nearly £60 million in three years.

She has been a popular director of resources, both with staff and councillors, and is highly respected in local government circles at a national level.

Mrs Rowley joined the former Shropshire County Council in September 2000 after nine years as assistant director of finance at Birmingham City Council.

She has been responsible for all of Shirehall's financial services and has been administrator of the Shropshire County Pension Fu nd - one of the largest UK local authority pension funds.

Under new proposals, the council's corporate management team will be reduced from six directors to just three, including chief executive Kim Ryley and two strategic directors who have yet to be appointed.

Overall management costs are expected to be cut by at least 20 per cent, saving about £3 million a year.

Mr Ryley, said today: "Following recent consultation with members of the council's management team on the details of the management review I published a week or so ago, director of resources Laura Rowley has decided to leave the organisation on September 3."

He said that to "ensure smooth continuity", the statutory role undertaken by Mrs Rowley would be allocated to one of the authority's senior finance officers and other interim arrangements would be made "quickly".