Sandwell councillors vote to lose £100,000 pay

Members had already voted not to increase their 'basic' allowance for the year, saving the cash-strapped authority £31,000.

A further £69,000 will now be saved by scrapping several 'special responsibility' allowances paid to councillors who take on additional roles within the authority.

The decision is set to be rubber-stamped by the council later this month following a review of allowances carried out by council leader Darren Cooper.

"The next few years are not going to get any easier for local government and we need to do our bit," he said.

"The reason I have pushed this through is I did not think it was fair to carry on as we were, given the cuts the council is experiencing.

"It is also the fact our staff have suffered. Remember we have lost 2,000 over the last five years."

Under the changes, the council's deputy mayor will no longer receive additional payment for the role. Six town-based improvement panels have also been scrapped, meaning payments for their chairs and vice-chairs will no longer be made.

Councillor Cooper said he made the latest changes following consultation with council staff, but did not want to announce his intentions before the recent elections so it could not be perceived as a ploy to win votes.

He added: "One of the things which came out from the consultation with staff is they asked 'what have members done to contribute to the cuts?'. That was a legitimate question for them to ask.

"With this I would say to those staff 'there you are, here is our contribution'. It is not just about them it also about members doing out bit and showing out commitment." The 'basic' allowance for councillors in Sandwell is set at £9,500 which is intended to cover members' travel and office bills as well as any other payments required for them to carry out their duties.

Allowances are tied in to employee pay increases meaning when staff get a pay rise, basic allowances go up by the same rate automatically.

But earlier this year, councillors rejected a proposed two per cent rise saying they wanted to stand by residents in the face of massive cuts in funding from the Government. The move came despite the council needing to slash £63 million from its budgets by 2017. The council has also agreed to freeze council tax for a fifth year in a row. Councillor Philip Garrett, the authority's sole UKIP member, said special responsibility allowances had become 'almost laughable' and backed the move.