DEPUTY chief executive Rob Vincent is set to step up to the top paid post at Kirklees Council.
A panel of political leaders is recommending that his appointment as chief executive, which has a salary of £120,000, is confirmed at next week's full council meeting.
He will succeed Tony Elson as the sixth chief executive since the council was formed in 1974.
The panel was made up of the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy leader, Labour and Conservative group leaders and with a Green party councillor and Tory chairman of the Scru- tiny Committee observing.
Subject to council confirmation, the appointment will take immediate effect at the meeting next Wednesday.
Mr Vincent, 52, said: "Kirklees has, for two years running, been judged by the audit commission to be an excellent council.
"The main challenges I and the council face, is to try to ensure we remain an excellent council, to strive to get even better in the services we provide for our residents and to use our excellence to make a difference to the lives of Kirklees residents."
He joined the council 16 years ago to lead its education resource management. Later he was appointed chief education officer and then deputy chief executive.
He and his wife Heather, a senior teaching fellow at Manchester University, have four grown-up children and live in the Colne Valley.
Mr Vincent said: "I am deeply committed to Kirklees as a council and as a part of the country which is thriving and a good place in which to work and live."
He was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, and trained in Liverpool as a civil engineer and town planner.
He worked in Dorset before coming north to work as a research officer for Tameside Council in Greater Manchester.
There he became involved in the early development of geographic information systems.
