MORE than one in three of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council’s top managers are to be axed to save £860,000.

A total of eight out of 22 top posts, each with annual salaries above £80,000, are to go, the Conservative-led council has revealed.

Secretaries and personal assistants of the top bosses will also face redundancy and middle management will be next to go under the cost-cutting microscope, the council leader confirmed.

And the opposition Labour group is vowing to go even further if it seizes power at a showdown meeting tomorrow night.

The move comes as councils face massive cuts to their budgets, with swimming pools, community centres and libraries all threatened with the axe.

Tory leader Michael Lee revealed his plans to the Lancashire Telegraph ahead of tomorrow night’s meeting, which will see Labour make an attempt to regain control of the town hall it lost in 2007.

He said the move would save almost £1million a year, adding: “This is not a nice thing to do, but it’s important.”

And in a warning to middle managers he added: “We will make more of a saving there, because there’s more of them.”

Labour group leader Kate Hollern said: “I think we have got to go further.

"We are probably looking at between eight and 10 people, to save £1.5million a year.”

Under the plans put forward by the ruling coalition, the 22-strong management structure would be whittled down to 14, leaving bosses to fight it out for the positions.

Four people could be in line for the job of director of regeneration, which includes responsibility for planning, roads, events and theatres.

This is likely to be one from Adam Scott, currently strategic director for regeneration, environment director Peter Hunt, leisure and culture chief Steve Rigby and programmes director Brian Bailey.

Adult social care chief Stephen Sloss and Gladys Rhodes, who is in charge of the children’s department, would compete for a new job in charge of ‘families, health and wellbeing’.

And the job of director of neighbourhoods and housing would be filled by one of two more bosses, Sayyed Osman and Dave Mallaby.

As part of the management merger with the local health trust, several senior NHS jobs would also be lost.

Coun Lee admitted the cuts over the next three years would have an impact on front-line services.

He added: “We are trying to minimise it, but anyone who says it won’t have an impact is lying.”

Any savings will be offset in the first year by payoffs to the managers who have lost their jobs.

Under local government terms and conditions, workers are entitled to a week’s salary for every year they have worked.

The chief executive of the Primary Care Trust, Judith Griffin, has already lost her job, with council counterpart Graham Burgess taking responsibility for both organisations.

And there are expected to be further cuts of PCT managers.

The numbers for tomorrow night’s meeting will be finely balanced, and all could depend on how two councillors who quit the ruling coalition last month choose to vote.

Labour is promising to save the jobs of the 22 police community support officers who are facing the axe.

Coun Hollern will also be under pressure to reopen Shadsworth Leisure Centre and prevent the borough’s community centres from closing, after the party led high-profile campaigns against the closure.

Coun Lee added: “They will have to make cuts somewhere, unless they’re going to win the Euromillions every week.”