The leader of Northumberland County Council has told the public to "wait and see" if his promise to slash £1m from the authority's wage bill comes to fruition.
Coun Glen Sanderson made the pledge back in April, after figures obtained by the Taxpayer's Alliance showed the council was paying 20 high-up employees more than £100,000 a year - the highest of any council in the North East.
The Conservative leader reiterated his commitment to the cut in September, despite the fact that a long-awaited review into senior management structure at the council failed to deliver significant savings.
The latest comments came at Tuesday's meeting of the council's staff and appointments committee, the process to appoint a new team of permanent executive directors, replacing the current interim arrangements, was presented to members. Speaking at the meeting, Coun Sanderson said: "This is the start of a new beginning for the council.
"We will be enjoying the tenure of the new chief executive, who I think everybody will like."
He added: "The press will want to know if the leader will keep his promise of making £1m savings and the answer is wait and see! But, probably."
Dr Helen Paterson was announced as the council's new chief executive in October, and will take up the role in February.
Outgoing interim chief executive Rick O'Farrell, who himself joined the council as interim director of transformation three years ago, said: "The interim executive director team applications closed last week.
"We had a significant number of applications for all the roles. At the moment the executive team is staffed by interim directors from across the council on temporary promotions."
The report also sought to continue some of these interim arrangements until the new appointments are in place. Both the process and the continuation of those arrangements were approved unanimously by the committee.
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