The GMB has thrown down a legal challenge to a Tory-led London council’s controversial decision to give its leaders an inflation-busting pay rise. Barnet Council voted this month to increase its leader’s pay by over £5,000 and allowances for cabinet members by 38 per cent. Council workers across England and Wales were refused a pay rise this year. But in a letter to the council, lawyers for the union say they believe the decision was taken unlawfully – and that they have grounds to ask a judge to review it.
GMB senior organiser Tony Warr said: “GMB members are expected to accept a pay freeze while the fat cats running the council have the cheek and audacity to increase their allowances by up to £20,000 per year.
“This deplorable decision cannot go unchallenged and the GMB have a duty to our members living and working in the London Borough of Barnet to stop the increases being implemented”.
The union says that the report discussing the increase in allowances was not published five days before the meeting that took the decision, as required by the 1972 Local Government Act, and did not pay attention to the local pay review body. If the decision is not scrapped within a fortnight, solicitors will apply for a judicial review.
Conservative local government minister Grant Shapps has condemned the pay rises, calling them “quite disturbing” in a time of deficit cutting. Barnet council had not commented as Tribune went to press.
