 Cumbrian teaching assistants protest about cuts to their salaries, but only one council Chief Executive in the region has taken a pay cut. Eric Pickles is not short of advice for councils. But one of his pearls of wisdom appears to have fallen on deaf ears. At last year's Conservative conference the Communities and Local Government Secretary had a suggestion for council Chief Executives. He said any paid more than £150,000 should take a 5% pay cut; any paid £200,000 could make it 10%. But the Politics Show has discovered that only one Chief Executive across the region has actually listened to that advice and cut his salary. And not only that - five Chief Executives have actually seen their take-home pay rise despite a supposed freeze on council pay. We gained all this information from a series of Freedom of Information requests put into our local authorities.  Northumberland County Council Chief Executive Steve Stewart took a 5% cut in pay. So we discovered that only Steve Stewart, the Chief Executive in Northumberland, had taken a cut. He lost 5% of his £188,000-a-year salary. Of the others, 16 took a pay freeze. But five Chief Executives will be taking home more money. They have benefited from increments based on their performance or length of service. One or two have already attracted negative publicity. Newcastle's already had to defend Chief Exec Barry Rowland's £5,000 rise. It increases his salary by 3% to £165,000. And there has been an ongoing row about a £10,000 back-dated rise for Hartlepool's Paul Walker (a rise of 6.8%). After more than a week of criticism, he has agreed to take a month's unpaid leave to save the council £13,000. But the others were news to us. Kersten England in York saw her take-home pay rise by £1,875 or 1.4%, although the council say she waived an increase of twice that size. Neil Schneider in Stockton also got a rise - £2,094 or 1.3%.  Middlesbrough Chief Executive Ian Parker saw his take-home pay rise by more than 5%. And in Middlesbrough, Chief Executive Ian Parker saw his pay package rise by 5.4% or £7,344. And all in all, 12 council Chief Executives across the region are paid more than the Prime Minister's salary of £145,000. Three - Gateshead's Roger Kelly, Sunderland's Dave Smith and Durham's George Garlick - were paid more than £200,000 in salary, pension contributions and allowances. This of course is a sensitive issue at a time of austerity and unprecedented cuts. I was at a protest in Carlisle this week where teaching assistants were protesting about cuts of around £3,000 to their already-modest take-home pay. There were hundreds on the march, and many were angry that the decision on their pay had been taken by council officers paid many more times higher than they are. And the trade unions have also said that Chief Executive pay should be capped and regulated in the same way as the salaries of other council employees. But Kenny Bell at Unison also say executive pay is not the most crucial issue facing our councils. Instead, he accuses Eric Pickles of using it as a distraction from the real problem - the funding cuts imposed by the Government. You could also argue that Chief Executives are more likely to earn their pay packets in tough times than in an age of plenty. Eden District Council will pay £31,000 more for its new Interim Chief Executive this year, but he will be charged with merging their management team with another authority. That could save £400,000-a-year. And even Mr Pickles admits pay cuts of up to 10% won't solve council's funding problems. But he believes taking a cut would have been an important act of leadership at a difficult time. For now though, our councils and their Chief Executives don't seem to agree. We will be debating the issue in the Politics Show at 12pm, BBC1, Sunday 27 February.
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