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The Scottish Executive is to look at cutting back the number of social work directors in Scotland as part of a wider cull of top tier management, writes Derren Hayes from Cosla's annual conference in St Andrews.

Speaking at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities annual conference in St Andrews, Tom McCabe, Scottish executive minister for finance and public sector reform, said the role of senior managers in all 32 councils would be reviewed in the future to assess whether their posts were necessary or could be combined with those in neighbouring councils or other public sector bodies.

He told the conference that the review - which will also assess the scope for delivering some social work and other council services on a regional basis – aims to create savings that will be invested in delivering frontline services.

McCabe told Community Care that “nothing is excluded from the agenda”, but changes wouldn’t happen before 2007.

“We are discussing with Cosla some of the possibilities: it could be councils sharing services or maybe one delivering social services for another council.”

A similar review of social services is currently taking place in Wales, led by the Welsh Local Government Association, and McCabe said he may look at its findings.

But he warned that the executive and the public were demanding more value for money from local authorities and if some councils refused to reform services he would consider introducing legislation that would compel them to do so.