Wiltshire Council is encouraging staff to take more responsibility as part of its restructuring.

It is launching a programme called ‘transformational leadership’ later this year, which will assess employees on their strengths and weaknesses, with advice on how they can improve.

This was discussed at the council’s cabinet meeting at Chippenham’s Monkton Park offices on Tuesday, along with its business plan for the next four years.

In that time, Wiltshire Council’s central government funding will reduce by £22m, with the council planning to make £120m of cuts.

Councillor Stuart Wheeler said: “We are trying to change for the future. You can not force someone to change but you can give them the tools which can be used to change the whole culture of the organisation.”

So far, Wiltshire Council has made 252 voluntary staff redundancies, reducing spending by £4m with an expected ongoing annual saving of £6.9m off salary costs.

The authority will cut four service director jobs and rename the remaining 14 as associate directors, in a move that will cut costs by£500,000.

In Tuesday’s meeting, councillors voiced concerns about the new name for the people who will remain.

Councillor Fleur de Rhé-Philipe said: “I’m not at all happy with them being associate directors. I think it will cause problems for our professionals among their peers as in the private sector, associates are usually people that have not passed their exams.”

The council said it would look again at the title change.

The council has recouped around £1.6m in repayments after recovering money invested into Icelandic banks before the country’s financial crisis five years ago.

The council has retrieved around £10m from its original investment of £12m in 2008.