READING'S ruling Labour group has admitted it was forced to reveal its plans to axe the borough's chief executive because of an information leak from the town hall.

Reading Borough Council leader Jo Lovelock said the administration released details of its intentions to make Michael Coughlin redundant earlier than planned because of a blog post on the Civic Minded In Reading site.

The anonymous blogger claimed to have overheard a front bench Labour councillor talking about the plan in a Reading supermarket. It was posted in mid-December and Labour released the details days later.

Cllr Lovelock told the personnel committee on Thursday: "We as an administration had been talking about this for a while. At some point, somebody decided it was a good idea to start talking publicly about it and once people start doing that it is not fair if the press, or anybody else, phone up and say 'is this true?', to say we are not thinking about this.

"Rather than pretending it was not happening, we decided we would not be disingenuous, given someone had decided to talk outside when they should not have done. I accept it is not good. I can only condemn anybody who thinks it is either amusing or clever to do that sort of thing."

Cllr Lovelock said Labour had planned to inform the then Tory group leader, Andrew Cumpsty, and his Lib Dem counterpart, Daisy Benson, after Christmas of the administration's plans.

The committee was meeting to decide whether or not to continue with the plans to abolish the post of chief executive and director of resources, and combine the two into a new job. The recommendation was passed without Tory and Lib Dem support.