A SHAKE-UP of city council managers will save the council taxpayer £1.8 million, according to Guildhall bosses.

Worcester City Council’s management shuffle will also see one of its longest-serving departmental chiefs Mike Harrison step down when he leaves tomorrow.

He has been with the council since 1977, and is the out-going head of cleaner and greener.

Mr Harrison said his only regret had been failing to get an award in the Cleanest City Competition in recent years, despite getting the highest marks in the competition.

He said: “Hopefully, the Take Pride in Worcester campaigns over the last two years will result in Worcester being successful in the near future.”

In recent years he kept bin collections ploughing on through the last two deep-freeze winters the city has endured, and also had to handle services during the summer floods of 2007 and of the 1997 flooding of the city’s Blanquettes estate.

Mr Harrison also had to help steer the authority through the upheaval of the hand-over of local housing stock to Worcester Community Housing, preparation of contingency plans to deal with the so-called Millennium Bug, and the introduction of the controversial wheelie bins.

Duncan Sharkey, the city council’s managing director, took over more than a year ago and embarked on the restructure in a bid to plug the council’s budget gap.

He is now supported by new corporate directors Carol Brown and Ruth Mullen, each of whom is responsible for a group of individual departments.