A COUNCIL has approved about £800,000 of cuts at the same time as giving 304 staff a pay rise.

Cherwell District Council has slashed funding across services, reduced staff hours and cut vacant job posts in response to October’s Government spending review.

The local authority said the cuts are necessary as it expects to lose £1.8m of its annual Government grant over the next two years.

Among the services that will be hit are Christmas lights, holiday playschemes, grounds maintenance and grants for sports and village halls.

Elsewhere planning fees, car parking charges and the cost of sending children on summer sports schemes, such as football camps, are all set to go up.

But, as budgets are reduced across department, Cherwell’s executive also agreed a £250 annual pay rise for all staff earning under £25,000 – a total of £76,000 across 56 per cent of staff.

Also approved was an increase in the council’s contribution to staff pensions by 2.9 per cent to the tune of £118,000 a year, which Cherwell said was “not optional” but a legal requirement The moves have been criticised by campaign group the TaxPayers’ Alliance. A spokesman said a rise is unfair while “ordinary families are squeezed”.

James Macnamara, Cherwell’s executive member for resources and communications, said: “The £250 pay award on people earning £25,000 or less amounts to one per cent, which, after a year’s freeze, is hardly generous.

“I think for large numbers of our staff to forgo the 1.8 per cent they had agreed, meaning another year with no pay rise, is an extraordinary act and one I hope people will appreciate.”