COUNCILLORS will not be getting big pay rises this year.

Despite a majority voting in favour of higher allowances for Kirklees members, no provision was made for paying them when the council's budget was approved.

It is a blow to Conservative and Labour councillors, who joined forces to vote for the pay rises at a full council meeting on January 18.

But the Liberal Democrats, the biggest party on the hung council, did not want the increases, which had been recommended by an independent panel.

They vowed not to make provision for the allowances in the council budget.

Labour and Conservative councillors did not ask for money to be made available before the budget was passed.

This means councillors will only see a small rise, in line with inflation, when the new financial year starts in April.

Council leader Clr Kath Pinnock said she was pleased no-one had tried to make cash available for the bigger rise.

She said: "I said I would not propose any additional funding for members' allowances in the budget. Everyone seemed to have accepted the wisdom of that and didn't raise it at the budget meeting.

"We have had a difficult budget round and had to make some hard decisions about where we could invest in services."

The pay rises suggested by the independent panel would have seen party leaders' allowances shoot up dramatically.

The panel said leadership and special responsibility allowances should increase to reflect the skills and knowledge needed for the role.

These special allowances come on top of the basic allowances given to all councillors, which are currently £11,405.

Under the panel's proposals, basic allowances would have risen £336 to £11,741.

Clr Pinnock would have got special allowances of £24,066, giving her a total of £35,807.

Leaders of opposition parties would have got a special allowance of £9,627.

The changes would have seen Tory chief Clr Robert Light's total annual allowance go up to £21,368. Labour leader Mehboob Khan would seen his total rise to £15,206.

Members of the Kirklees Cabinet would have got get £12,033 in special allowances.

Special allowances were also proposed for chairmen of special committees.