Luton Council’s Administration Committee is expected to agree next Wednesday that three of the five ‘in-house consultants’ being recruited to lead the Council’s efficiency drive will receive salary increases even before they start work. They have not even been recruited yet and in fact the Committee report says pumping up the salaries will make recruitment easier.

The report suggests the two Project Managers should each have a £10,000 additional annual allowance and the Programme Manager a whopping £28,000 additional allowance on top of their salaries.

Liberal Democrat finance spokesman, councillor Martin Pantling, says he is outraged at this preposterous hike in pay. “Labour’s programme was to be driven by a core team of seven consultant-style managers. This proposed increase will see the Secret Seven costing Council Tax payers £400,000 a year and raises the question of how well thought out Labour’s plan was. It was introduced in a hurry with no real analysis of how the problem was to be tackled or where the efficiencies were to be found. Now we can see it was so rushed they did not even seriously consider how much they would have to pay to get the people they claim they need. Senior Labour members have plucked figures out of the air and hope they turn out to be accurate. This is not the way to run an organisation delivering vital services to vulnerable Luton residents.”