EDUCATION bosses have appointed a new manager to identify underperforming schools as quickly as possible.

Tony Birch has been appointed as Bolton Council's new strategic manager of school evaluation. One of his key roles will be identifying schools that are underperforming at an early stage.

Mr Birch's appointment has been announced in the light of a new Ofsted report on the LEA which gave the service a good report overall.

But it, did find the identification of underperforming schools was a weakness.

The new role has been created as part of the authority's re-structuring in reaction to its own self evaluation. Mr Birch told the Children's Services Scrutiny Committee: "I am looking forward to the challenge.

"I have begun work to look at school effectiveness in the light of the comments from Ofsted."

At the meeting Cllr Diana Brierley called for the area to be monitored over the coming year.

Currently, the Withins School in Breightmet is working towards coming out of special measures and the Deane School is to close and be restarted this summer as it has failed to come out of special measures in the previous three years.