THE news that schools will be forced to fund teachers' pay rises from their own budgets comes as it has been revealed that a former corporate director of lifelong learning and education at Monmouthshire County Council has picked up a £75,000 redundancy pay off two years after his post was made redundant.

Andrew Keep, the council's former education chief was offered a new job as MCC's chief officer for children and young people, after his education post was made redundant as part of a management re-structure which aimed to save some £900,000.

When this two year post came to a close in 2012 he left the authority, picking up a £75,000 pay off for his original job.

The move was given the go-ahead by MCC following a 2010 report on the restructure prepared by the council's chief executive Paul Matthews which suggested that deferring the redundancy pay off for two years would allow the council to retain the services of a 'respected and highly regarded educational leader' which was felt to be in the authority's best interests. A final decision was made in July 2010 by Councillor Peter Fox.

The authority's independent leader, Councillor Simon Howarth has severely criticised the move after it was picked up by fellow independent member Councillor Graham Down, in the council's audited accounts.

" Fundamentally the two jobs are the same so while the post may technically have been made redundant it wasn't a redundancy. I don't understand how a pay-off was necessary," said Councillor Howarth.

A Monmouthshire council spokesman said, "In March 2010, Monmouthshire County Council agreed a comprehensive restructure of its management team that resulted in net savings of over £1 million per annum.

"As part of this, the three existing corporate director posts were made redundant, including the corporate director for lifelong learning and leisure.

"We were keen to see continuity in our education provision, particularly as the then post holder was leading on the creation of the Gwent wide Education Attainment Service, which was recently held up by the Welsh Government as the model for the implementation of such services around the rest of Wales.

"The post holder therefore agreed not to leave immediately, but to defer his redundancy for two years and take on the newly created role of chief officer for children and young people, which had the education responsibilities that the corporate director post had, but a smaller salary. This was confirmed in an individual member decision on July 14 2010.The post holder left the authority in July 2012 and received the redundancy payment deferred from 2010," she said.