Tameside councillors have voted to leave a partnership with Stockport and end a system of sharing a single education chief amid falling grades. The executive cabinet agreed in March last year to explore a ‘trial partnership’ of having just one director of education operating across both boroughs.
It was proposed that the shared position would support the ‘exploration’ of how things could be done differently in education services ‘with less money’. The officer was Tim Bowman, who is employed in the senior management team at Tameside council.
The arrangement had sparked consternation in Stockport last year, with councillors in that borough claiming they had been kept in the dark about plans to share an education chief. However the Tameside authority has now decided to leave the partnership from January due to the ‘significant demand and extra pressure on the council to reform and improve systems for children’.
