A senior officer at Cheshire East Council has been poached by another local authority for the second time in just over four months.

Jan Bakewell, the council's Director of Governance and Compliance Services, will be moving to a position at St Helen's Council, according to an internal email seen by Nub News.

The move comes only months after Cheshire East's then acting Chief Executive, Kath O'Dwyer, made the same move to St Helen's.

That announcement in December was made shortly after Ms O'Dwyer had been selected to fill the top job on a permanent basis.

Ms Bakewell will be moving to the post of Director of Legal and HR Services at the Merseyside based council, starting on 1st August.

The internal email, written by Jane Burns, the Executive Director of Corporate Services, said: "As well as being the Council's Monitoring Officer, she has played an important role, including in the work to move us towards a committee system."

She added: "I will be discussing with Lorraine O'Donnell [Chief Executive] and my ELT colleagues how best to replace Jan. We are keen to move quickly to minimise any gap."

A Cheshire East Council spokesperson said: "The council's director of governance and compliance, Jan Bakewell, has tendered her resignation to take up a new role at St Helen's Council.

"Mrs Bakewell's resignation has been accepted. She will be leaving Cheshire East Council at the end of July. We are currently considering how we will fill the gap and will progress with this as soon as is practicable."