BOLTON'S two leading councillors are to receive huge pay rises, The Bolton News revealed today.

The council leader, Cliff Morris, is to get a £6,000 increase in his special responsibilities allowance - a rise of 28 per cent.

His deputy, Cllr Linda Thomas, is getting a £5,000 increase - up 40 per cent.

Along with Bolton's 58 other councillors, they will also get a seven per cent rise in their basic allowance from £8,779 to £9,400.

Cllr Morris will now receive a total of £38,098 a year, while Cllr Thomas will be paid £26,618.

The leaders of the town's three political parties have defended the increases, saying the council gives value for money and that allowances had not kept up with other councils.

But the pay rises have sparked anger among public sector unions whose members were this year awarded a 2.4 per cent increase.

Bernadette Gallagher, secretary of Bolton's UNISON branch, said: "The pay rise agreed for our members last month does not even cover increased living costs, so is effectively a pay cut.

"I think they will be very angry when they see these rises, which will be funded by council tax payers."

Paul Hutchinson, the council's GMB union convener, said: "A wage rise of this magnitude is very worrying when we have many members who this Christmas will be wondering whether they are going to have a job because of more budget cuts next year."

The pay increases were recommended by the council's three-man independent remuneration panel and backed unanimously by members of all parties at a full council meeting.

They come on top of 2.4 per cent pay increases received by all councillors earlier this month which were backdated to April.

Those rises were based on the annual local government pay award which was delayed by unions angered at the Government's initial two per cent offer to council staff.

The latest review of allowances was initiated by the remuneration panel to take account of an increased workload for councillors and bring Bolton into line with other councils in the region.

In a written submission to the panel, Cllr Morris highlighted the extra time he was spending away from Bolton representing the town's interests in Greater Manchester.

But yesterday he stressed he had not requested an increase.

"It is still value for money," he said. "We have not kept up with other authorities in the region over the past five years and our allowances are still only average for Greater Manchester."

Cllr Morris was supported by his political rivals.

Conservative group leader Cllr John Walsh said: "Councillors work extremely hard and Cllr Morris devotes many hours a week to the role.

"For a recent period of four weeks, I asked about 12 Conservative colleagues to keep a record of the time they spent on council business. The average was nearly 25 hours."

He said that pro-rata, this left them below the minimum wage.

Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Roger Hayes said: "In Bolton, we were badly out of line with other councils and the demands of being a councillor are greater than ever.

"The job of council leader is very demanding; effectively the equivalent of being the chairman of a multi-national company with a turnover of more than £500 million."

Remuneration panel chairman Dr Stephen Liversedge, who also chairs the Bolton Primary Care Trust professional executive committee, said: "We looked at the average allowances of councillors across Greater Manchester and Bolton lagged behind.

"We would not have recommended these increases if we felt the people of Bolton were not getting value for money.

"It is civic duty which draws most people to the job, but we do not want allowances that are a bar to people becoming councillors."

Another review of allowances will be carried out within the next year.

Bolton's councillors claimed a total of £744,948 in allowances in the financial year from April, 2006, to March, 2007.