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Angus Council leader Bill Duff to join £50,000 a year club with 17% wage rise

The total salary bill for all 28 Angus councillors is set to top £800,000 this year after increases recommended by a national pay body are applied from April.

Angus Council leader Bill Duff. Image: Angus Council
Angus Council leader Bill Duff. Image: Angus Council

Angus Council leader Bill Duff is in line to break the £50,000 salary barrier with his latest pay rise.

The SNP group leader will see his 2025/26 pay jump to £50,063 from the current rate of £42,698.

It represents a hike of more than 17%.

And increases across the board will take the total wage bill for Angus’s 28 councillors to more than £800,000 for the first time.

Every councillor will see their salary soar by almost £5,000.

Depute council leader George Meechan will be the next highest earner, with a rise from £32,024 to £37,548.

Provost Linda Clark’s salary will go from £27,753 to £32,540.

The remuneration rate for senior Angus councillors, including committee conveners and vice-conveners, will increase to between £27,985 and £32,540.

Basic pay for the remaining 13 councillors is rising £4,637 to £25,982.

The total councillor wage bill will increase from £685,801 to £816,513.

The rises are due to come into effect from April 1.

Pay rises follow double-digit Angus council tax hike

The increases come after Angus residents were hit with one of Scotland’s largest council tax increases for 2025/26 when an 11% rise was approved in February.

Mr Duff took control of the minority SNP administration last September following the sudden resignation of the council’s first female leader, Monifieth and Sidlaw councillor Beth Whiteside.

He is the ruling group’s finance spokesman.

The pay increases will be reported to a full meeting of Angus Council on Thursday.

Angus House HQ of Angus Council.
Angus House council headquarters at Orchardbank in Forfar. Image: Graham and Sibbald

It details the increases set by the Scottish Local Authorities Remuneration Committee (SLARC) for all of the country’s 32 local authorities.

Last summer, the Scottish Government confirmed it would accept proposed SLARC pay and banding changes to be introduced this year.

Angus Council is in a similar band to neighbouring Dundee City Council and Perth and Kinross.

Similar increases in those areas – for Mr Duff’s SNP counterparts Mark Flynn and Grant Laing – have already been presented to councillors.

The SLARC review looked at the duties councillors perform and the hours they work.

It also compared their roles to other public sector workers and MSPs.

Senior management review ongoing

In a report to this week’s meeting, Angus Council finance director Ian Lorimer says the increase in councillors’ pay was taken into account in the budget calculations.

“Local authorities are responsible for paying councillor salaries and expenses from their annual budgets,” he states.

“The Scottish Government does not provide funding specifically to meet these costs, and it is for local government to fund the salary increases associated with these changes.

“There is sufficient funding in the members services revenue budget to meet the costs of the new remuneration structure.”

The pay rises also come as councillors await the outcome of a review into the authority’s senior management structure.

It will decided whether to re-shape the top-tier of officers.

Authority chief executive Kathryn Lindsay instigated the review last August following the departure of second-in-command Mark Armstrong.

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