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Eric Pickles may not be amused when he discovers that some senior council managers have had pay rises.

As I have already highlighted, our council Chief Executives did not spring into action when asked by Eric Pickles to take a pay cut.

Only one took a reduced salary, while five have either taken or are about to get a rise.

And it seems some of the other senior managers in our councils have also had increases, while none have taken pay cuts.

In response to our Freedom of Information requests, various councils confirmed they had awarded some of their top staff extra pay.

And although Northumberland's Chief Executive Steve Stewart took a 5% pay cut, his fellow managers did not follow suit. The council says 19 members of the senior management team received an increase in their basic salaries.

But it says many of those were due to the management shake-up that followed the council's new unitary status, and changes in responsibilities.

There were four jobs though which they said were directly comparable, one of which was the Chief Executive role.

The three others were: Lead HR Business Partner (rise of £1,982 or 3%), Acting Chief Fire Officer (rise of £5,944 or 6.5%) and Associate Director, Strategic Commissioning (rise of £386 or 0.05%).

In North Tyneside, five council officers received a pay rise.

The Director of Finance took an extra £8,300, the Head of Legal, Governance and Commercial Services £7,300, the Head of Environmental Services £3,750, the Head of Cultural Services £6,150 and the Head of Neighbourhood Services £3,300.

In South Tyneside, Patrick Melia, the Executive Director of Regeneration and Resources, got a rise of £2,545, and Helen Watson, Executive Director of Children and Families, got an extra £2,547.

In Sunderland, one unnamed officer got a rise of £5,722 or 4.88%.

The Assistant Chief Executive of Darlington Council changed roles to become a Director, and received a pay rise of £735, or 0.76%.

In Stockton, where the Chief Executive Neil Schneider got a rise of 1.3%, three other managers got similar rises.

Corporate Directors Julie Danks, Jane Humphreys and Paul Dobson all received pay rises of 1.2% or around £1,500.

Three senior managers in Middlesbrough Town Hall have seen their pay rise.

We already know that Middlesbrough's Chief Executive Ian Parker saw his pay rise by £7.344 or 5.4%.

But there were also rises for the Assistant Chief Executive, the Executive Director of Environment and the Head of Children's Trust and Performance. (The council wouldn't specify who got what, but the rises mentioned were £5,403 or 5%, £5,000 or 6.67%. £1,259 or 1.79%).

In York, where Chief Executive Kersten England got a rise of £1,875 or 1.4%, two other managers were also awarded an increase.

One unnamed head of directorate got an extra £5,883 or 6.1%, and another £2,944 or 2.95%

I cannot tell you about Cumbria County Council as it has yet to answer our Freedom of Information request.

But in Allerdale the Strategic Managers of Places, People and Business all received a £2,000 rise, worth 3.85%.

All these rises came despite a general freeze in local authority pay, but all were due to the officers earning increments based on their performance or length of service.

Again, council officers could well argue that they have earned those rises, and removing them would certainly make little difference to the cuts the local authorities face.

It is also worth noting that the majority of managers did have their pay frozen. There were no reported rises in Durham, Gateshead, Redcar and Cleveland, Copeland, Carlisle, South Lakeland, Barrow, North Yorkshire, Ryedale, Richmondshire and Scarborough.

But the rises that did take place may well , and the eyebrows of trade union members and council taxpayers.

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