HUNDREDS of employees at Test Valley Borough Council will be getting an above-inflation pay rise after finance chiefs gave the go-ahead.

All of the council’s 496 employees, from the lowest paid to the chief executive – who already earns around £150,000 a year – will receive the 2.5 per cent pay increase.

Councillors at Test Valley Borough Council’s general purposes committee unanimously approved the pay increase last week.

Test Valley borough councillor and committee member Alan Dowden slammed a claim by the unions for a four per cent pay increase as “unrealistic”.

He said: “They said that wages haven’t gone up with inflation but it’s the same with private enterprise.

“Everybody’s suffered with inflation they couldn’t expect any more. Two and a half per cent is very generous. It had to be, we’ve got to maintain staff.”

Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance, slammed the increase.

He said: “At a time when local authorities across the country are having to find necessary savings and hard-pressed families are struggling with rising bills, the council needs to ask itself if this pay rise is justified.

“Taxpayers expect their money to fund frontline services, not to be used to top up pay packages for council bosses, some of whom already earn three-figure salaries.”

It will be the third year in a row that staff have received an above-inflation pay rise.

Staff over the border at Southampton City Council have not been awarded a pay increase above the 1 per cent awarded by Westminster.

Last year the leader of the council, Ian Carr, defended his chief executive’s pay rise saying “I think he’s worth it” after approving the £3,000 pay hike.

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