Extra Money for Councillors Too Much say Liberal Democrats

12.02.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 4th Jun 2007

Liberal Democrats in Greenwich voted against the Council's Members' allowances scheme for 2007-08. This provides a 4% increase in the basic annual allowance to £9,964 but an increase of over 30% for the Council Leader and Cabinet members. The Council Leader will now receive £61,155 and the Cabinet members £31,549 each.

"We supported the pay rise for the Leader of the Council as this is a full time executive post which should be remunerated accordingly," said Liberal Democrat Cllr Brian Woodcraft (Middle Park & Sutcliffe ward). "But the massive pay rises for Cabinet members are unacceptable.

"Greenwich has a ten-person Cabinet which is the maximum size allowed in law and larger than most other boroughs. On top of that, some of the Cabinet posts have very few responsibilities and it is irresponsible for councillors to approve such a large pay rise without properly examining whether they are all needed.

"Once again the Labour leadership of Greenwich Council has displayed poor stewardship of public money."