A hard-up council has splashed out on a website based on Status Quo in a drive to recruit a new team of highly-paid executives.

Brighton and Hove City Council, trying to make £45m of cuts, paid consultants around £10,000 to design SayNoToStatusQuo.co.uk. The site, headed with the words "Status Quo fans need not apply" in gold lettering, is designed to attract radical candidates to fill four new strategic director roles. The new recruits, who will be paid £125,000 each, will be tasked with securing "value for money" within the council.

The website, designed by recruitment firm Odgers Berndtson, says: "Forget how it's always been done, we're rewriting the book on Local Government, shaping and transforming how we deliver services... A love of classic rock is optional." Alex Knutsen, branch secretary of Unison's Brighton and Hove branch, said the recruitment drive was "a total waste of money". He said: "There are five very talented directors, plus one acting director, already doing a good job. But now the council are spending a load of money to replace them with new people from outside, offering even bigger salaries."

A council spokeswoman refused to confirm how much the recruitment campaign cost for "commercially sensitive reasons". But she said: "These four new jobs replace the previous six directors with a salary saving of £100,000. We will have to make savings of £45 million over the next three years and this restructure is designed to deliver an organisation that will make those savings."

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