EAST Lothian Council’s head of education has resigned from his position after nearly three years in charge.

Darrin Nightingale informed colleagues of his decision via email yesterday (Wednesday).

He said he had been offered a new role as executive director with a “challenger bank”.

Mr Nightingale said: “It wasn’t an easy decision, as I have really enjoyed the last three years working with talented, motivated and engaging people.

“However, I have been offered and accepted an executive director role with a challenger bank, whose goal is to create community, social or environmental benefit in a financially sustainable way – an exciting and I believe purposeful role.”

The decision to appoint Mr Nightingale to the top education role at East Lothian Council was the second time that the local authority put someone with a financial background, rather than teaching, in charge of schools.

It became controversial when the council decided not to replace his immediate boss, former headteacher, Don Ledingham when he left his role as director of people services.

At the time, Councillor Peter MacKenzie objected, saying: “Teachers and headteachers need to know that when they lift the phone to Haddington, they have someone who fully understands their concerns because he or she has been there themselves.”

Mr MacKenzie and Mr Nightingale were in dispute again at a meeting of East Lothian Council’s policy and performance review committee on Tuesday, just 24 hours before Mr Nightingale announced his resignation.

At the meeting, Mr MacKenzie criticised Mr Nightingale for a report he had produced for the council’s education committee the previous week, describing the report as “opaque” and accusing him of not providing detail which was “easy to digest”.

But Mr Nightingale defended his report, pointing out it gave a school-by-school breakdown of performance.

The departing head of education leaves after a summer which saw secondary schools in the county deliver their best exam figures in five years.