A Labour leader of a cash-strapped council has given himself a 33% pay rise, despite a £3.6 million budget black hole. Cameron Holloway, the leader of Cambridge city council, will receive a boost of 28% higher than the national average annual growth in regular earnings, excluding bonuses, which slowed to 5% between March and May.
Mr Holloway, who became leader in May, will now be paid £31,276 a year, up from £23,459 when the allowance was last reviewed, which the council said was comparable to the national living wage. A spokesman for the council said the uplift “reflects the step-change in workload in recent years and additional responsibilities linked to the pace of growth in Cambridge, and work with the Cambridge Growth Company”.
The spokesman told The Telegraph: “Leaders at the city council regularly work 60-plus hours a week.”
“Without offering a level of remuneration comparable to the national living wage, the position of leader would be restricted to retirees and the independently wealthy, which limits opportunity for good candidates to put themselves forward.”
While councillors aren’t paid a salary in the traditional form, they are paid an allowance which reimburses them for their time and expenses.
Conservatives branded the leader “workshy”, as Paul Holmes, a Tory MP, claimed that Holloway “has been caught with his hand in the till”.
Cambridge Council also came under fire from Conservatives after it offered to pay for grants for cookery lessons for asylum seekers.
At the time, Sir James Cleverly, the shadow communities minister, said it spoke “volumes that Labour councils are spending taxpayers’ money on cooking and gardening lessons to asylum seekers whilst cutting back on bin collections, all the while hiking council tax to record highs”.
Cambridge council denied that any services had been reduced.
