Jason Young commenced work for the City of Ballarat on Monday, with his new job to begin with a full audit of existing government structures and practices.

Mr Ivey said the new role differs from that of the former long standing governance and chief information officer’s that was slashed before May’s budget.

“The Governance Specialist role is a role that is significantly more narrow in scope and responsibilities when compared to the previous role of Chief Information Officer,” he said.

“The previous CIO role also included management of non-governance business units including IT, Risk and Customer Service.”

The previous governance officer was one of three senior officer positions cut earlier this year, however Mr Ivey denied that the role was made redundant.

“The previous role of Chief information Officer was not made redundant, rather the contract for that position was not renewed,” he said.

“None of the three positions ‘cut’ have been refilled, but the duties have been spread across the senior management team.”

At the time it was announced, the city’s chief executive officer Anthony Schinck deemed the job cuts necessary to save council more than $500,000 a year.

In a statement released last Friday, Mr Schinck said the appointment of Mr Young was the result of an extensive search to find the most appropriately qualified and experienced candidate to drive council’s governance processes.

“We are extremely pleased to be able to attract a candidate with such significant experience in the area of governance and public sector integrity,” Mr Schinck said.

“Jason has worked on both sides of governance, delivering strong compliance and regulatory frameworks and has also acted as an investigator in compliance matters for the Office of Local Government.”