Review call on £360,000 payout for council boss

Five councillors from across the political spectrum signed an official call-in request following the furore over the money, which will be paid into director of corporate resources Sue Lockwood's pension fund.

The issue will now go before an East Riding Council's scrutiny committee, possibly as early as next week. The press and public are likely to be excluded on the grounds that it is "confidential".

But the committee, which has no power to reverse the decision, could ask the council's ruling Cabinet, which approved the 364,205 sum on Tuesday, to reconsider.

The call-in request was made by councillors Steve Sloan (Lib Dem); John Whittle (Independent) Keith Moore (Labour) Mark Preston (Independent Conservative), John Bird (Lib Dem) and Pat O'Neil (Labour).

The group issued a joint statement, despite threats from officials that anyone discussing the matter could face sanctions.

Miss Lockwood was one of a group of senior officers to be controversially awarded a large backdated pay rise just over a year ago.

The statement said allowing early retirements automatically was "inequitable" and Ms Lockwood's early retirement was "wholly inappropriate".

It added: "It is fair (and legal) to say that this group of councillors feels very strongly that in this time of approaching austerity, to augment a pension in this way is at the very least, immoral and coming so soon after the wage boost to "retain staff" smacks of hypocrisy."

In just eight months last year the council spent more than 1.1m on 19 early retirements.

Of these 12 were awarded on the basis of ill health, but by far the largest sum, 661,166 was spent on five people who left under the so-called 85-year rule, where people can go with unreduced benefits if their years of pension scheme membership and age add up to 85.