South Ayrshire Council has moved to limit the impact of outgoing education boss Douglas Hutchison by creating a dedicated new director.

While there was agreement over a plan to make filling the education remit a priority, the remainder of his non educational role as depute chief executive and director of people remit remains up in the air.

It is understood that a bid to split the post immediately was not progressed at an emergency meeting of the full council on Monday.

Instead the council agree to fill the education element of the role as a matter of urgency and to consider how best to fulfil the non-education related aspects of the role at a later date.

In a statement the council said it was looking at the feedback from the recent Best Value report, which recommended that the council should ‘assure itself that it has the capacity and skills required to increase its pace of improvement in key aspects of Best Value, such as community planning and empowerment, financial and workforce planning, and transformation’.

A paper will be brought with proposals for the non–education remit formerly carried out by the Depute Chief Executive and Director of People.