The county council has axed its top £74,000 PR post.

Leicestershire County Council advertised the high-profile job vacancy last year and it attracted more than 40 applications, but no-one was interviewed.

In the meantime a consultancy firm called Westco provided a interim media boss on around £7,000 a month plus hotel accommodation costs.

They also carried out a review of the communications department.

Now a decision has been taken to scrap the post, and an internal staff member will be promoted to council communications manager on a salary of just under £50,000.

Lib Dem opposition leader Simon Galton said: "It's an astonishing U-turn. While the council paid £10,000 a month to consultants from Westminster we were told that it was all worth it because the role was so important.

"Now they've decided that we don't need the post at all, despite having already publicly advertised the role.

"When the previous post holder left in March last year I argued that the responsibilities could be spread among the remaining members of the communications team to save money. It made sense but it was ignored.

"Now, more than a year down the line, the council is doing just that."

He added: "I believe that the council has needlessly spent more than £100,000 on public relations and there are questions which need to be answered on why it happened."

In a response to the Mercury's questions a county council spokesman said: "The decision on the head of communications role is in line with a general rationalisation and reduction in management posts across the council.

"All these changes will contribute towards a £2 million saving in the council's overall communications spending by 2014.

"The contract with Westco, to provide interim management of the communications function, including implementation of the review, will come to an end with the full implementation of the council's new communications structure.

"The monthly cost of the contract is £10,000. However, when balanced against the monthly saving on the vacant head of communications post, the net monthly cost of the Westco service is approximately £3,000.

"We believe that represents good value for money."

Leicestershire County Council leader David Parsons was not available to comment yesterday.