PAY rises for senior staff at Cumbria County Council should come from efficiency savings, not service cuts, according to Liberal Democrat councillors.

As previously reported, top-level officers are in line for well above inflation pay increases in the coming financial year in a bid to tackle recruitment and retention at the authority.

Following an emergency meeting of the Liberal Democrat County Council Group, its chairman Coun Ron Mein said savings should be found by "imaginative managers" making real efficiency savings and not from increases in taxation.

He said: "This does not mean cutting the number of days that a library stays open or the number of hours worked by staff in a particular office- efficiency means doing things better, cutting down on waste time and materials, cutting down on unnecessary bureaucracy and reducing duplication across the county."

January 14, 2003 09:00