Plaid Cymru councillors have signed off on plans to give top brass at Ceredigion County Council new roles and bumper pay hikes despite warnings of public anger and that redundancies will result from a review of lower pay scales.

Chief Executive Eifion Evans presented a report to a full council meeting on 17 July asking members to sign off on plans to restructure the leadership team at the authority and also review the pay scales of the lower paid staff at the council.

Eifion Evans told members that the plan was a response to a challenge laid down by the budget last year to reduce senior officer numbers.

The motion was passed with 18 voting in favour, 15 against and one abstention.

The only Plaid Cymru councillor to vote against the proposal was Cllr Carl Worrall and one independent councillor, Gareth Lloyd from Llangrannog, voted in favour.

In February, opposition councillors said the council should look at staffing costs of higher-paid members of the authority to help address a financial shortfall which saw major hikes in council tax for residents.

Following the challenge from councillors, Mr Evans told members that he looked at various options.

After posts became vacant and other officers picked up the slack, Mr Evans told members that a plan to redistribute responsibilities across a reduced senior officer team “became viable”.

Current arrangements are “not sustainable” with officers under “incredible pressure”, Mr Evans said.

The council’s current senior team structure includes the Chief Executive, two corporate directors and 13 corporate lead officers – coming at a wage cost of £1.95m a year.

Mr Evans’ restructuring plan will see one corporate director and the corporate lead officer for schools roles removed from the current structure with responsibilities dispersed among a new concentrated pyramid of three new Executive Corporate Lead Officer roles, underneath Mr Evans and a new second in command Executive Corporate Director role.

The Executive Corporate Director role will come with a salary increase to a maximum of £123,221 a year.

In the latest set of council accounts for 2023/24, corporate directors in Ceredigion earned between £108,000 and £111,000.

The pay bump for the most senior position will see a pay rise of around £10,000 a year.

Corporate Lead Officers were paid between £83,000 and £86,000 a year, according to the 2023/24 accounts.

Those who take on the new Executive Corporate Lead Officer roles will see pay rises of up to £20,000 a year to the new maximum for that role of £106,806, while those who stay in the Corporate Lead Officer roles will see a pay bump to a maximum of £92,016 a year.

Despite the rises for remaining leadership positions, the loss of two senior staff positions will see the overall cost in wages of the leadership structure fall by £120,000 a year to £1.83m.

Mr Evans’ pay – which currently stands at £142,141 a year but is set to be boosted by 3.2 per cent for the current year if unions can agree on the terms of a pay offer – will not be affected by the changes.

“Many members of the public have got in touch with me and have said they are happy with the plan,” he told members.

“This will help attract candidates to Ceredigion.

“If we don’t grow within our own structure it becomes impossible to attract people.

“If we want to maintain standards we have to ensure that pay scales are fair.

“If we don’t have a solution we will not be able to recruit staff and we will lose staff.”

Mr Evans said that Ceredigion staff are paid less than their peers in neighbouring counties, and “this is a chance to do something to show we appreciate the work they do.”

Cllr Rhodri Evans said the public is “angry” about the plans, and said that changes in wage scales without more money being put in the pot will mean a “loss of jobs” as the costs will increase.

“At the moment this paper costs us money, and people at the bottom who work hard are going to lose their jobs,” he said.

Outside the publicised changes for senior staff, the plans will also see a review take place of the National Joint Council for Local Government Services pay scale which accounts for the majority of employees in Ceredigion.

The current pay scales were introduced in 2019, and since then the National Living Wage has increased by 48.7 per cent.

The report said that “the compression of pay differentials at this level, whilst pay increases at the higher level have not kept pace, requires attention.”

Mr Evans said that if wages at the bottom rise but not at the top, salaries become “compressed” and “we need to do something about this”, but warned that jobs will be lost as part of that review.

Mr Evans said the council has lost close to 1,000 staff in 10 years as it gets to grips with reduced settlements from central government, and it is a “reality” and “likelihood” that more staff will be lost in the coming years.

He told the meeting that the plans “will mean redundancies”.

Councillors warned that those at the lowest wages will be sacrificed to pay for the top job pay rises – but Mr Evans said that was “factually incorrect” and the plans “would affect every single level of the council without exception and without prejudice.”

Mr Evans said the “current wage structure has come to the end of its life”.

All current senior officers will be matched with jobs instead of outside recruitment, Mr Evans said.

“If we don’t do it we’ve got a major problem on our hands as far as pay structures are concerned,” he said.

“If we do it, it’s going to be okay for some but not for everybody.”

Cllr Elizabeth Evans told members that “there is real anger in our communities that they are not being listened to by the council.”

“So you can imagine the reaction when we are having to have this paper in front of us now to determine pay increase for senior members of staff,” she said.

As seems to be the norm in public meetings, the Chief Executive laid the blame at the public’s reaction to his plans at the Cambrian News’ door, accusing the newspaper – that he has on several occasions attempted to report to press standards bodies over our reporting on council affairs but never once been successful - of being “misleading”.

“There are people that don’t work for the organisation who have been fed messages to say this is a disgusting [idea],” Mr Evans told members.

“But it’s been fed by false information, it’s been led by misleading and misguiding headlines.”

He said: “It is very sad that the Cambrian News does not report the facts correctly.

“It’s very sad because the fact they put information that is misleading in the headings is misleading the public to think that things are happening that are not happening.”

Cllr Amanda Edwards said that “a week’s notice has not been enough to make such an enormous decision”, and warned that councillors will be “damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

The plan was passed by 18 votes for, 15 against and one abstention.

Four council members were not present.

With the proposals approved, a consultation will be undertaken with staff and trade unions.