THE head of the company set up to save Herefordshire Council £33m over 10 years is standing down.

 Hoople confirmed this morning (Fri) that MD Mike Dearing will leave in June.

Mr  Dearing has been in charge of Hoople - which provides financial, IT and back office services -  since its start in 2011 as a joint venture company with Herefordshire Council.

Hoople took on what had previously been known as the shared services partnership and its £10-year £33m savings target.

In January this year, Hoople took a cuts hit of its own with the council looking to save £1.2m on the services its partner provided.

Last year, Hoople went into talks with the council as to how it could audit areas of its operation for itself, rather than have those audits conducted for, and reported to, the council.

 The council's then audit and corporate governance committee was told that such changes would reflect the "distinct organisational status" of Hoople and could lead to the removal of certain audits from the council's audit plan.

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