by Chris Slater ALL MANAGEMENT roles at Cheshire East Council are to be scrapped with staff having to re-apply for their jobs. The move is part of a radical shake-up of the council's structure proposed in the wake of the Lyme Green scandal. Current posts will be ‘deleted’, with affected staff having to apply for newly created roles at the authority. The council will do its best to redeploy all staff but compulsory redundancies cannot be ruled out, it has been warned. The changes will be implemented in three stages with 49 senior posts, which have a salary of £55,000 or more, being the first to go, by Easter. They will be followed by all posts with salaries of £30,000 or more, which will be 'deleted' by July. The third phase will see frontline team leaders and supervisors removed by September. The proposed changes, drawn up by council's interim chief executive Kim Ryley, will go before cabinet and then a meeting of full council for approval. Cheshire East Council blew more than £800,000 on the failed bid to build a waste transfer station at Lyme Green in 2011 and an investigation revealed work began before planning permission was even applied for. EU procurement laws as well as numerous council rules were also broken during the botched project, it was found. Cabinet member for the environment Cllr Rod Menlove and two senior officers have already resigned during the fall-out from the scandal. Interim chief executive Kim Ryley said the debacle had ‘exposed serious weaknesses in our organisational culture’. In a report submitted to next week’s cabinet meeting he says: “The lessons from the Lyme Green project, coupled with the significant challenges involved in delivering the council’s ambitious service transformation plan, mean that it is a similarly good time for us to make changes in our management roles and responsibilities.” See next week’s Chronicle for more detail and reaction. | 
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