WAVERLEY Borough Council is to create a new permanent position of health and well-being officer to oversee the redevelopment of the Farnham Memorial Hall.

Savings made by discontinuing two part-time posts in Waverley’s communities budget will be used to create the permanent post, which was previously funded from the government’s Better Care Fund but the money was due to run out.

The officer will continue to deliver the action plan already developed and champion local issues most affecting residents; helping deliver new community facilities at the Memorial Hall in West Street as well as implementing Waverley’s health and wellbeing strategy and its ageing well strategy to support older people to lead independent lives.

Waverley’s operational services portfolio holder Kevin Deanus welcomed the decision taken by fellow executive members last week to recommend to full council the new post should be created.

“Health and well-being have been identified as a key priority and this post will be instrumental in delivering it,” he told the committee.

The executive also recommended staffing changes should be made “to maintain a robust and resilient structure and suitable corporate governance arrangements”.

Following Robin Pellow’s retirement as monitoring and returning officer, responsible for overseeing elections across all tiers of government in the borough, Waverley’s head of policy and governance Robin Taylor will be appointed monitoring officer in July.

Waverley’s executive director Paul Wenham will be designated electoral registration officer and returning officer as part of his core responsibilities.

Waverley director of finance and resources Graeme Clark will take on the role of line manager for the internal audit. To demonstrate the independence of the internal audit from financial services, the new structure proposes the internal audit client manager also reports to the executive director.

At the executive meeting Farnham Residents councillor John Williamson questioned the staff changes to improve corporate governance, which he called “almost like marking your own homework”.

Responding, committee chairman Haslemere councillor Robert Knowles assured him it was “normal practice”.

“Last year’s election was a marathon,” Mr Knowles said. “The general consensus was it all ran extremely well. We had none of the criticism some of our neighbours did.”