• Labour more than double payments for Committee Chairs
• Payments altered at the last minute, ‘through the back door’

The Liberal Democrats have labelled Labour’s last-minute hikes in allowances for chairs of council committees as ‘wholly inappropriate’ and opposed the moves at last night’s first full council meeting.

However, the bigger payments were voted through, despite opposition from the much-strengthened Lib Dem group.

The move followed a sudden decision by the Labour group to more than double the allowances for committee chairs from the levels agreed on a cross-party basis earlier in the month.The Labour leadership had already agreed to a figure of £4,500 with Lynne Featherstone and the Lib Dems just a few days before but increased this to £9,500.

The massively increased cash bonus is thought to affect 12 Labour councillors, and will cost local taxpayers an extra £60,000 a year, which is four-times the council’s total budget for fighting graffiti.

Earlier, the Liberal Democrats had successfully argued for a large cutback in the big increases being proposed across the board for payments to councillors and for an end to the extra payments for mobile phones and travel expenses of Labour councillors.

Lib Dem Deputy Leader, Ross laird, comments: “These proposed payments are excessive. We have seen in the last few days, a massive increase in the amounts to be paid which flies in the face of earlier attempts to reach cross party agreement on this issue.This is an unfortunate start for Haringey’s new constitution.”