DUDLEY'S UKIP leader has slammed the £800-a-day costs being paid to keep the authority's children's services boss in post as an "obscene amount of money".

Councillor Paul Brothwood was shocked to discover cash-strapped Dudley Council has been paying the huge daily rate to an agency to keep interim children's services director Merlin Joseph in post since April.

The discovery comes just a week after it was revealed the authority has yet to fully implement improvements to its children's services department which were requested by Ofsted back in January 2012.

Cllr Brothwood, who has written to Ofsted over the time taken to begin making the 13 required improvements to safeguarding services and services for looked after children, branded the £800 a day being paid to keep Ms Joseph in post as "an obscene amount of money".

He added: "How can you justify someone earning more than the Prime Minister? I can't.

"The key for the tax payer is value for money and so far I don't believe they are getting it. It should be performance-related pay and that performance should be measured against the current failings and whether they have they been turned round."

He said the authority was looking at extended Ms Joseph's contract by another 12 months but he said he could not support the appointment, adding: "She has not proved her effectiveness.

"If we are going to pay this sort of money all these Ofsted things need to be sorted within very short timescales or you're gone. But there's no business acumen at Dudley Council."

Councillor Judy Foster, Dudley Council's deputy leader and cabinet member for human resources, defended the temporary appointment of Ms Joseph and said the council had "tried unsuccessfully to recruit to the fill the post, due to a national shortage in this specialist role and our very own high standards we have set for this job".

She said the post provides key support to the new strategic director for people Tony Oakman, who was appointed in March to the newly created role, and she added: “The care and development of children across the borough is one of our a top priorities and therefore it is essential we take our time to find the right person for the role of chief officer for children’s services.

"In the meantime, we have taken on a highly skilled interim chief officer to drive forward this work and continue with our ambition to make this authority a national leader.

Councillor Ian Cooper, Dudley's cabinet member for children’s services, added: “We are reviewing the current contractual arrangements which are due to end in September in light of the fact that we have not been able to recruit a permanent chief officer for children’s services.

"Our priority is to ensure we have effective leadership in place in this important service area.”

Councillor Patrick Harley, leader of Dudley Conservatives, dubbed the £800-a-day figure "outrageous" but added: "They've backed themselves into a corner. They have advertised and interviewed people for the post and they haven't come up to scratch.

"It's not palatable and not something I'm enthusiastic about but they don't really have much choice."

Ms Joseph took over as interim director of children's services from Pauline Sharratt, who was promoted to interim director in December 2013 following the departure permanent children's services boss, Jane Porter, who was at the helm from July 2012 to December 2013.

The appointments of Ms Joseph and Mr Oakman were made six months after the council cut its senior management positions from 22 to 11 in a bid to save £1million, creating three new strategic director roles and eight chief officer posts instead.

However, the restructure was criticised at the time as "misleading" by Tory opposition councillors who claimed it would only achieve "£88,000 in real new savings" once hundreds of thousands of pounds in redundancy payment for senior officers and other associated costs were taken into consideration.