£40m cuts, £120k jobs: Labour’s Cardiff Council.

Welsh Conservatives have welcomed Cardiff Council’s decision to partly reduce its 1.3 million pounds senior management team – but questioned the still hugely expensive ‘gang’ of corporate directors at the Labour-run authority.

This week three new posts were advertised at the council; Director roles with an annual starting salary of 120 thousand pounds.

These merged position have been made available following the council’s decision to reduce its number of corporate directors from 11 to seven.

Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Local Government, Janet Finch-Saunders AM, said:

“Any reduction in this now infamous gang of hugely inflated salaries is welcome – but seven 120 thousand pounds positions, plus the chief exec, will still be a justifiably hard sell to taxpayers.

“This is a Labour-run council making huge, huge cuts to frontline services.

“Council tax in the city has just rocketed.

“Now unknown heaps of cash are being spent advertising these colossal new positions.”

South Wales Central Assembly Member and Welsh Conservative Leader, Andrew RT Davies AM, said:

“It was naïve to recruit a total of eleven gold-plated directors in the first place – and the Labour-run authority’s U-turn is welcome.

“Given mammoth cuts and an inflation-busting council tax hike, it would now be appropriate for the authority to reveal how much it’s spending on advertising these positions – and how much it could be paying out in redundancy.”