Croydon councillors are set to award themselves inflation busting pay rises - but promise not to take them this year.

The controversial vote tonight to increase senior councillors annual allowances comes just a few weeks after it was revealed Croydon Council must make £70m cuts over the next four years.

As councillors give pay increases for the leader, his two deputies, cabinet members and the chief whip, council workers face a pay freeze and likely redundancies and services will be slashed across the board Council Leader Mike Fisher is in line for the biggest rise, getting an extra £12,800 for his role as leader of the council, an increase of 34 per cent.

When news of the pay hikes broke, the Conservative leadership held a meeting and all agreed not to take the pay rises this year.

Leader of the opposition Labour group Tony Newman said: “For Coun Fisher to have his snout in the trough and be seeking to pay himself this outrageous amount at the same time as his government’s policies and cuts are seeing so many council staff set to lose their jobs is frankly disgusting. He should be ashamed of himself.”

MP for Croydon North Malcolm Wicks said: "I am flabbergasted, it is not only greedy but the timing could not be worse. We are going to see kids and elderly people lose out on swimming, the start of a number of public service cuts.

"We are told to tighten our belts and we are all in this together, unless you are Mike Fisher.

"I have written to Eric Pickles, the Local Government Secretary, to challenge him about this."

Councillor Fisher defended the pay rises, saying they were in line with London Council recommendations.

He said: “We have decided to adopt the recommendations of the London Councils report in its entirety.

“We want to phase this in over a couple of years. We will take 50 per cent of the increases or decreases this year and 50 per cent of the increases or decreases next year.

“It is up to individual councillors to opt out of the increases.”

The review of the councillors’ allowances scheme is due to go before the Corporate Services Committe tonight.

All 70 councillors are entitled to a basic allowance, expenses and a special responsibility allowance (SRA) for holding an extra role as a cabinet or committee member.

There have been decreases in the basic allowance (£999) for all councillors and some senior roles. But the SRA for senior councillors have been increased and extra SRA roles have been created.

Any councillor may chose not to accept all or part of the allowances they are due by writing to the council secretary and solicitor.

Deputy leader Dudley Mead, who along with Tim Pollard can look forward to a £3,000 increase in his SRA (12 per cent) said: “We are adopting the London Councils scheme.

“We were overpaying our backbench members. They are all getting a reduction in the basic allowance, which everybody gets.

“Some of the allowances were underpaid for many years. We had a group meeting and the whole group resolved that for this year not to have the increase.

“We will review this next year.”

Coun Newman, whose SRA increases by £515, said: “We are demanding Coun Fisher changes his mind, shows some leadership and refuses to accept the pay hike.

“If there has been an outbreak of common sense among some of the Conservative group to reign in this attempt to grab extra tax payers money, it is welcomed.

“They should join with Labour councillors at the meeting to vote this down.

“I am calling for the immediate withdrawal of the proposals.”

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