THE leader of Barnet Council says she is “fine” with a £5,500 pay cut which replaces the controversial allowance scheme agreed in July.

Following a full council meeting on Tuesday night, the Times Series presented the Reject the Rise petition signed by 1,663 residents and council workers to Councillor Lynne Hillan.

Our campaign was triggered after the ruling Tory group voted through bumper pay rises for the leader and doubled the special allowances for cabinet members, despite warning of cuts to council budgets.

During the meeting, Conservative Councillor Melvin Cohen, who presented the revised pay scheme, admitted it had been brought about by public pressure.

Cllr Hillan said: “I would always listen to the community. If that pleases residents, that's what we set out to achieve. None of us came into the council to make money or to cut services by 25 per cent.

“Most come to be a councillor, to give back to the community and do good work for the community, and I would like to be giving them an awful lot more, unfortunately that's impossible.

“I'm personally getting a £5,500 pay cut from the old scheme which is absolutely fine.

“If I had read your paper I probably would have voted for you as well, it was not as it seemed.

“We've changed it now and it's very important we make it absolutely clear to everybody out there we're not taking any increase at all. Then we can get on with the business we've got to get on with.”

The agreed changes mean cabinet allowances will be frozen for four years, although critics claim some committee chairmen are receiving large rises for minimal amounts of work.

Labour leader Councillor Alison Moore cited the licensing committee, which meets twice a year, whose chairman, Cllr Andreas Tambourides, will receive more than £15,000 for the role.

However, Cllr Hillan said: “The licensing committee always gets trotted out, and they may only meet twice a year, but there's an awful lot of work which goes on in the meantime, lots of meetings with officers and there's lots of work involved.”

Five Tory MPs backed a rival motion from Councillor Brian Schama who proposed returning to the old scheme of allowances as voted through in March.

Under those plans, put forward by the council's own independent remuneration panel, members could claim more than one special responsibility allowance.

“They were proposing going back to the original scheme. I did not support that and the majority of the group did not support that,” added Cllr Hillan.

“We moved to the London Councils scheme for a good reason and I support these reforms.

“We discussed it beforehand in the group room. We knew that Cllr Schama was going to bring that and nobody had been whipped to vote in whatever way.

“The majority of the group supported moving to the London Councils scheme.”

She said none of the rebel councillors, who all voted for the main Conservative motion when the amendment was lost, would be punished, as Cllr Kate Salinger was when she abstained from the vote in March.

The new scheme, backdated until August 1, is expected to save £76,000 this financial year and around £115,000 next year.