Cheshire's police and crime commissioner has defended the 33 per cent pay rise he gave his deputy - telling a councillor he made a mistake when initially calculating the salary for the role.

Cllr Jonathan Parry (Labour) referred to the increase at Monday's meeting of Middlewich Town Council.

"The reason I'm asking is we're going to be paying more in Middlewich and we want to know how much of that is being seen on the ground that we will get the benefit of," said Cllr Parry.

As reported previously by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the deputy commissioner's salary jumped from £38,250 when he was appointed in June of last year, to £51,000 in November.

Police commissioner John Dwyer told the meeting: "I now manage a budget of about £250m.

"My office costs about £1m and my office is your office because we're there representing the public of Cheshire and we're holding the chief constable to account."

With regard to his deputy's salary, Mr Dwyer said: "I made a mistake."

He said he calculated in May, when he took up office, that the job he wanted the deputy to do would be equivalent to half of his own salary.

"When I actually get him in post and realise that the job I'm asking him to do is a lot more complicated because of what I've inherited from my predecessor, it needed a lot more work doing on it, I took a view then of actually this pay is not right and not the right level," said the commissioner.

"So I'm not giving him a pay rise, what I did was to readjust the pay level which I think he should have had right from the beginning.

"It is a genuine mistake on my part and indeed the police and crime panel said in November that had I declared this to them in May they would have accepted it anyway."

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