£10,000 pay rise for Council boss cancelled. Liberal Democrat leader praises Herald & Post sister paper for exposing the issue.

In a surprise u-turn the Labour Party leaders of Luton Council have backtracked on an earlier decision to award the Council’s £159,000 Chief Executive a £10,000 pay rise. At the Council meeting on Tuesday evening Liberal Democrat leader, David Franks, said it was clear the strong opposition from Liberal Democrat Councillors and the fact The Luton News exposed the plan in a front page story (12th August) had led to the u-turn.

“With Luton families struggling through the recession it is not hard to see why people were so outraged by Labour’s planned pay rise for the Council Chief Executive. The pity is they could not see what a crazy idea this was until The Luton News splashed the story on the front page. We do have The Luton News to thank for exposing this story.”

Meanwhile……

Pay cuts for low paid Council workers discussed in secret after strong Liberal Democrat protests.

A report prepared for Tuesday’s Council meeting recommended pay cuts for some of the lowest paid Council staff and the leaders of the Labour run Council decided the report had to be discussed in secret.

“How can they say it is secret?” asked Liberal Democrat leader David Franks. “On Monday morning a BBC Three Counties Radio presenter told me about it live on air with about half a million people listening. I didn’t tell him, he told half a million listeners and me. What he said was ‘It’s not a secret anymore’. The affected employees know about it, the unions know about it, half a million radio listeners know about it and yet we have this absurd charade that we have to pretend we don’t know about it, pretend no-one knows and tell ourselves we must not talk about it outside the Council Chamber.”