SENIOR officers at Castle Point Council have proved their commitment to saving public funds by taking a pay cut.

Four of the council’s top officials have accepted voluntary pay cuts of between 2.5 per cent and 5 per cent this year that will amount to savings of £16,995.

David Marchant, the council’s chief executive, will take a pay cut of five per cent that will see his salary, including pensions contributions, fall from £185,887 to £176,593. However, last year his salary rose by £11,470, more than this year’s cut.

The other members of Mr Marchant’s management team – strategic officers Devinia Board and Andrew Roby-Smith and deputy chief-executive Craig Watts – have also taken pay cuts of 2.5 per cent, saving a total of £7,701.

Jeffrey Stanley, the council’s deputy leader and member for finance, said: “The pay cuts were volunteered by senior officers and it reflects their desire to be seen to be in with everyone else during what is likely to be a difficult two years or so.”

In the past 18 months two other senior managers have retired, director of community services Alan Longford and director of environment Ian Burchill.

Their roles have been taken over by existing staff, saving the authority approximately £200,000.

The council has also laid off 35 staff since 2003 and rented out 20 per cent of its office space to other organisations to cut costs.

The savings come as the authority released its financial results for 2009/10, which saw the council save almost £1million from its expected expenditure of about £13.7million.

The authority also has healthy reserves of approximately £5.5million.

Mr Stanley added: “The definition of a rich man is someone who spends less than he earns and a poor man is someone who spends more. With spending cuts of up to 25 per cent expected following the Government’s autumn spending review, this puts us on a sound financial footing and means we can avoid a knee-jerk reaction to those cuts.”

Pam Challis, Tory leader of the council, said, despite the savings, the council was still performing well at delivering services.

She said: “Castle Point is nationally recognised as a high performing council with resident satisfaction of 94 per cent and we have an excellent track record of adequate reserves and sound financial management.”