MEMBERS of Suffolk County Council will today be taking crucial decisions about the top job at the authority.

The council’s staff appointments committee are meeting this afternoon to decide a pay grade for the next permanent chief executive.

Thee are to be asked to approve a basic salary of just over �157,000 a year which could be topped up with a performance-related bonus.

However council leader Mark Bee has made it clear that whoever is appointed will earn nowhere near the �218,000 a year that was paid to former chief executive Andrea Hill.

The committee is also due to appoint an interim chief executive to take over the top job immediately.

They are being told that it could be six months before a new full-time chief is appointed – three months to find a suitable appointment and three months for the successful candidate to work out his or her notice.

That will be a crucial period for the authority with early budget discussions set to start in September and firm proposals due to be drawn up in the run-up to Christmas before the 2012/13 budget is set in February of next year.

The staff appointments committee has three members. It is chaired by Mr Bee who is joined by Conservative backbenchers Mary Young and Peter Beer. Liberal Democrat leader Kathy Pollard and Labour leader Sandy Martin are also members of the committee.

Its make-up is significantly different to that in 2008 when the committee appointed Mrs Hill as chief executive.

On that occasion the three Conservatives on the committee were all members of the cabinet, by having two backbencher members the committee now looks much less tied to the administration.