5:04pm Monday 8th February 2010
By Oliver Evans
COUNCIL staff will have their pay frozen in the next financial year, it was announced today.
Unions have failed in their bid to boost pay by 1.25 per cent at Buckinghamshire County Council for the 12 months from April.
It comes after years of pay increases for senior bosses and pay freezes for private sector staff, Council leader Councillor David Shakespeare said: “Council tax would have needed to be much higher to give the council employees a bigger pay rise.
“They are bound to be disappointed but council staff are Council tax payers as well.
“It was a big effort to try and balance the cost to the residents and the services that we provide.
“Over the next few years I think public expectations will have to keep track with the money that is actually available.”
The decision does not cover teachers, whose pay is set under national agreements.
His ruling Conservative group is proposing a two per cent increase on the council’s share of the bill, a rise of £21.13 on this year to £1,077.74.
Bosses have said the authority is among the lowest funded in the UK.
But Penny Gray, secretary of the council’s branch of the Unison union, said: “We are disappointed, more so for our lower paid members.
“It will means a disproportionate amount of their salary will have to be spent to keep their heads above water.”
She said: “We felt there was enough money in the council’s reserves to cover the pay award.”
The union will consult with members on its next steps, but Mrs Gray said she thought staff ‘don’t have the appetite’ for strike action.
The council announced in November that senior staff would forego a pay rise. Yet there was controversy as more councillors were given extra payments (see link, bottom of story).
And the freeze comes after years of major rises for senior chiefs.
Between 2007/08 and 2008/09, last year, the number of managers on more than £50,000 went up about a fifth, from 163 to 197.
Chief executive Chris Williams got £210,000 to £219,999 last year, more than Prime Minister Gordon Brown £197,689.
This went up from £190,000 to £199,999 the previous year. And this was a 44 per cent increase on the year before that, a move that outraged tax campaigners.
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