I IMAGINE there will be a little fingernail gnawing going on in the office suites of other East Lancashire council chief executives over the summer months now that Hyndburn Council is seeing whether it can do without the services of such a highly-paid official.

In an unusual step, councillors there decided not to replace departing chief executive Mike Chambers after he left the £90,000-a-year post last week for a new job with Oldham Council. Instead, his old role is being shared among three existing senior managers.

It is, of course, extraordinary to find an undertaking with an £11.5 million budget and hundreds of employees whose job it is to provide essential public services for 79,000 people, in effect, now being run without a boss.

Yet, more intriguing is the question of whether the replacement system of carving up the job among so-called strategic directors works. The council is giving it a four-month trial and won't decide until the end of September whether to appoint a new chief executive.

But if Hyndburn can manage without, why not others in East Lancashire or in councils elsewhere where the old town clerk's job has become inflated in the past two decades in both pay and power through exaggerated comparisons with bosses in private-sector business?

It's a question that cost-conscious councils might well consider should Hyndburn's adventurous move come to the conclusion that the chief executive's role is a redundant one.

But while it is refreshing to see councillors engaging in such radical thinking, will they ever apply this prudent rationale to themselves -- and shouldn't it be?

After all, since the adoption by our local authorities of the so-called cabinet system that concentrates power in the hands of a select few have not most of our councillors become supernumeraries also?

Yet at thrift-conscious Hyndburn the allowances bill for them has just rocketed by 20 per cent and at next door Blackburn with Darwen, it is now close to the £500,000-a-year mark.

Is not a cull in this direction called for as well and might it not save a bob or two more as well?