FOUR new top jobs could be created at the council - complete with salaries of £100,000.

Somerset West and Taunton Council's CEO, James Hassett, is putting a report to the council's executive on Tuesday night to gain permission for the leadership structure change.

In the report, he asks the executive to recommend to full council to approve the creation of four new director roles.

He said: "The newly-formed Somerset West and Taunton Council has set ambitious strategic targets and clear corporate priorities.

"The transformation programme has already put in place some of the arrangements necessary to deliver savings and improved customer care.

"However, to drive the organisation at pace towards these goals while continuing to work towards exceptional levels of service excellence a new senior leadership structure is required.

"It is vital to ensure the leadership of the council is matched to its wider commercial, economic, community and environmental priorities."

The new roles would not cause a hefty bill for this financial year, but the councillors are being asked to include it in next year's financial plans.

The four new director roles would be for housing, internal operations, external operations, and development and place.

These new roles would engulf the duties of three other job roles, which are being removed.

The council will no longer have a deputy chief executive, an executive assistant, or a funding manager within its leadership structure.

Each director role would come with a salary of £100,000 on a 'fixed point scale'. However, the full cost, taking into account the removal of the other roles, would be £254,000 for the four.

Of this £254K, it is proposed £183K would be given through the general fund, and £71K through the housing revenue account.

However, recruitment costs are set to be up to £75K for the new roles, meaning Mr Hassett is asking the council to recommend the approval of £94K for the 2019/20 financial year.

The report adds: "To deliver the scale and ambition required these roles will be operating at a very senior executive level.

"This has required us to look beyond the traditional pool and to attract the calibre of candidate required and the salaries for these posts will be £100,000 on a fixed point scale.

"It is proposed that we utilise an external recruitment agency. We have had success using this approach to recruit two of our current heads of function and the current chief executive.

"To ensure we are able to meet the earliest time scales we are currently undertaking a procurement process to ensure we select an executive recruitment agency that will provide best value in terms of quality, approach and cost.

"Estimated costs for recruitment are up to £75,000. This includes executive search agency fees for all four roles, appropriate psychometric evaluations appropriate to the level of role, venue and ancillary costs."

If approved, the jobs will be advertised in September, with decisions made by October.

The SWT executive will discuss the report on July 23 at 6.15pm in Deane House, where a recommendation will be made, which will then be discussed at a future full council meeting.

To view the agenda and full report click here.