DOZENS of people who monitor education in Essex could lose their jobs after a £2million redundancy fund was set up.

Essex County Council plans to reorganise its education service to save more than £5million over the next three years.

Much of the savings will come from salaries with officers, commissioners and administrators facing redundancy.

The cabinet at County Hall approved changes which will see £800,000 spent to change the way it monitors education. About £400,000 will be spent on a scheme, School Effectiveness Plus.

The scheme involves putting schools intoasystem which calculates pupil achievement and the performance of teachers, leadership and management.

The system then tells schools how they rate and which out of 25 areas it has to improve.

Another £150,000 will be spent combining schools into clusters when deciding on strategies for the future rather than each school having its own strategy.

The rest will be spent on changing provision for those with special educational needs and implementing the projects.

The council hopes by grouping schools together and using online systems it will be able to cut staff without damaging school performance.

Chris Kiernan, director for education at County Hall, said: “We are confident performance at our schools will continue to improve and believe we can reduce investment by £2million per annum by 2018