COUNTY Hall’s £170,000-a-year boss says she expects a pay rise if she is made joint chief executive of both Worcester City and Worcestershire County Councils.

Trish Haines told an industry magazine she would expect her six-figure salary to be raised further if she takes charge of both councils when the city’s long-serving chief executive David Wareing retires early next year.

The two authorities are currently looking into a variety of ways they can save taxpayers’ money by working more closely together, with final decisions expected in December.

The cash-strapped city is keen to make significant savings on Mr Wareing’s £90,000-plus salary by sharing its next chief executive with another authority and turned to the county after Malvern Hills District Council pulled out of a planned staff merger earlier this year.

But in an interview with the Local Government Chronicle, Mrs Haines made it clear she would expect her own pay packet to rise if the new role is approved – as long as healthy savings are achieved overall.

“I’m not going to do all that work for no extra money,” she said. “But at the same time we have to demonstrate significant efficiencies.”

She made it clear, however, that the new role is not yet set in stone.

“You don’t have to have joint management to have better joint working,” she said.

“It is much simpler, but it’s just as possible to have it in other ways.”

Mrs Haines said that with the city council staring into a financial black hole, it is right for the county to consider ways it can help out.

“We are all part of one local government community,” she said.

“The county council is not in a position to bail out the city council but clearly it’s not in anybody’s interest for the county town to have gone belly-up financially.”

And she went on to defend public servants’ high salaries, pointing out that her own wages “went up 2.4 per cent just like everybody else” this year.

“The really sad thing is that when you look at the improvement journey local government has been on for the last 10 years, managers are a lot more focused and better value for money,” she said.

“And when you get a result, somebody turns around and says we don’t need them anymore, pay them off. You can’t have it both ways.”