SECRET PANEL TO SET COUNCIL CHIEF'S PAY

The panel set up by the Tory administration of Mid Sussex District Council to decide the pay and benefits of the Chief Executive will meet in private on 13th May.

Leader of the Lib Dem group on MSDC, Graham Knight said: "The Liberal Democrat group will not participate in this secret panel. The question of what elements should make up the remuneration package of the Chief Executive is a matter that should be discussed openly and transparently. There is an important public interest in seeing and understanding how very large sums of public money are to be spent. Unless the panel meets in public, no Liberal Democrat will serve on it. I have written to the council's legal officer reiterating our position."

Local Lib Dem Parliamentary Campaigner, Serena Tierney added: " The Tories running Mid Sussex council are very reluctant to come clean about how much public money they are spending and on what basis. It took a Freedom of Information request from Channel 4 News to get the information that they paid the Chief Executive a bonus of £24K in the year of the Big Culture Show disaster. The council's own figures show that he had a pay hike of 33% in that year. How much are they going to decide to pay him for the year of the parking meters fiasco?"