BLACKBURN with Darwen Council has decided against immediately replacing resigning chief executive Graham Burgess.

His deputy Harry Catherall will take over in the short term, and examine whether slimming the authority’s management structure can save his former boss’s £158,400 salary.

The review of the town hall’s high-paid top jobs comes as the council faces further cuts in its Whitehall grant of between £8million and £27million for 2013/2014.

Mr Catherall, 49, will become interim chief executive on September 3 following the stepping down of 60-year-old Mr Burgess, who is taking the reins at troubled Wirral Council.

Managing director of local government Andrew Lightfoot will act as his deputy. Mr Catherall, who will receive a slight increase in his £120,000-a-year-plus salary, has been charged with undertaking a review of senior jobs at the council and making recommendations later this year about whether it can manage without a direct replacement for Mr Burgess.

Mr Catherall said: “I am delighted and very proud to be offer- ed the opportunity to lead the council’s staff as interim chief executive.”