Kirklees Council is advertising for a new director with a salary up to £121,000.

The role will have responsibility for Commissioning, Public Health and Adult Social Care and will ‘champion the rights of vulnerable people’.

However, the new job will not add a further director to the council’s leadership team as the current director for Public Health, Dr Judith Hooper, is retiring later this year.

A council spokeswoman said: “Kirklees Council is to reshape its senior management in the field of adults, children and public health due to the retirement of Dr Judith Hooper.

“We are using this opportunity to structure the directorates so that we can meet the council’s future challenges.

“We continue to have the same number of directors, which includes a Director for Children and Young People.”

Director of Public Health Judith Hooper
Director of Public Health Judith Hooper

A job advert says the new director will be responsible for the “strategic management and operational delivery of our physical assets and associated personnel - 1,060 in adult social care and 60 in public health” and he or she will have to lead, plan and deliver all adult social care services and adult safeguarding.

Public Health, which transferred to Kirklees Council control last April, will also form part of the new director’s duties.

However, if the chosen candidate does not have a Public Health qualification, the authority will need to employ a further director to manage the statutory duty.

The job advert says the salary is in the range of £110,000 to £121,000 with 27.5 days annual leave, plus eight public holidays. The annual leave rises to 32.5 days after five years. The job also comes with a final salary pension scheme.

The director will be ‘on call’ for health protection and public health matters but will not receive extra payment.

The retirement of Dr Hooper from her top position, which has a published salary of more than £94,000, has paved the way for the re-jig of responsibilities.

A new proposed executive structure shows there will remain the same number of directors - led by chief executive Adrian Lythgo, Director of Resources David Smith, Director of Place Jacqui Gedman, Director for Children and Adults (to change from Adults to Young People) Alison O’Sullivan, and Director for Communities, Transformation and Change Ruth Redfern.

There will be a further 11 assistant directors and two ‘heads of’ in Kirklees Council’s executive structure.

The Examiner reported last month that Cabinet members considered the requirements for the role in a closed part of the meeting.

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