SENIOR figures on Blackburn with Darwen Council have been accused of “swindling” £10,000 of taxpayers’ cash.

Tory group leader Cllr John Slater has hit out at a decision to pay council deputy leaders Andy Kay and Phil Riley £12,000 each for their roles, as well as the basic allowance of £7,000.

Cllrs Kay and Riley get £7,000 for their executive member responsibilities and £5,000 for being leader Mohammed Khan’s deputies.

Cllr Slater said he felt the pair should only be paid for the higher of the two responsibilities.

“It says in the report you should get paid for your highest responsibility unless you’re a deputy leader of the council,” he said.

“It’s nothing more than swindling £10,000 from the council tax payers of this borough.”

At the meeting, the Conservative group called for a named vote in which all Labour members voted through the proposals, while the Tories voted against.

Cllr Riley said: “It’s been traditional for the deputy leaders to have an additional allowance that reflects the amount of time that they spend on council business and the responsibility of some of the decisions that they make.

“This has been the case for a long number of years. It is not controversial and it has never been controversial.

“Cllr Slater has failed to understand that this was a straightforward recommendation made by an independent panel.”

The basic allowance, which is paid to each of the 51 councillors, will rise to £7,000 per year.

Under the new terms, leader of the council Cllr Mohammed Khan will be given £20,000 on top of the basic allowance, while deputy leaders Cllr Phil Riley and Cllr Andy Kay will get £12,000.

Each executive member will receive an extra £7,000 as well as the initial £7,000, while assistant executive members will get £3,000 on top.

Opposition leader Cllr John Slater will get the same as executive members, while the borough mayor will receive £19,000 including basic allowance, and the deputy mayor will get a total of £11,000.

The new allowances were approved by members at the council’s annual meeting at Blackburn town hall last week.

Backing the increase at the meeting, leader of the council, Cllr Mohammed Khan, said it was a small increase and the council still offered among the lowest allowances in the north west.

He added: “At the end of the day, this is a report from an independent panel. There has been no suggestion of any kind of dialogue with politicians during the process.

“[Tory group leader] John Slater came to see me and he said he hoped our group would fully support the recommendation from the remuneration panel.

“When we saw the report, he rang me and said he wasn’t happy because it does not give any extra allowance to his shadow executive members or deputy leaders.”