Nearly £3,000 pay rise for chief executive

Last year Nigel Lynn saw his remuneration package increase by more than £6,000 to £117,011 so that it was more comparable with surrounding local authorities.

This was split up into a £3,000 uplift and a three per cent increase for performance related pay from October 2016.

This was after a Lib Dem attempt to limit the pay rise to one per cent was defeated.

Members of the council’s Chief Executive Remuneration Committee unanimously recommended a 2.5 per cent pay rise for Mr Lynn from October 2017 when they met on Tuesday.

This would equate to almost £3,000 a year extra pay for the chief executive.

A final decision will now be made by Full Council in January.

This follows an appraisal of Mr Lynn’s performance held by the Conservative leader of the council Gill Brown last month.

Alan Peach, group head of support at the council, explained that the chief executive had been given a performance rating of 3.5 out of four as he had ‘achieved everything he was asked and more’.

Further detail of the appraisal were circulated in exempt papers not provided to the public.

The officers’ recommendation was accepted at the committee meeting, which lasted six minutes.

Lib Dem James Walsh described how last year the perception was the chief executive was getting ‘three separate bites’ at a pay rise.

He said: “I do not think we have got in quite the same mess we got ourselves into last year.”

He raised the hope that the pay cap for ordinary public sector employees would be fully lifted by the Government.

Councillors stressed that any such future national pay increases would not apply to the chief executive.

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