CLEVELAND Police and Crime Commissioner Barry Coppinger has angrily hit back at long-standing critic Ben Houchen citing a “staggering” rise in senior management costs under the Tees Valley Mayor’s watch.

Mr Coppinger also condemned Mr Houchen for “sexist” language previously used in a statement in which he referred to more “jobs for the boys” when asked to react to a planned assistant chief executive appointment in the Commissioner’s office.

Labour’s Mr Coppinger pointed to analysis showing staff salaries at the Tees Valley Combined Authority – which the Mayor oversees – had risen from £1.39m in 2016/17 to £3.9m in this financial year.

The number of high earners – pulling in more than £50,000 a year – had also increased over the same four year period from eight to 15, Mr Coppinger’s office said.

Mr Houchen, however, remained unrepentant, describing the Commissioner as “useless” on his mayoral Facebook page and accusing him of using police resources in a politically motivated attack.

The row was sparked by a report by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which revealed how a new full-time assistant chief executive was being sought earning £60,000 a year to support Mr Coppinger’s work.

At the time Mr Houchen said: “This is no time for expanding bureaucracy and middle management. It is a betrayal of public trust and of our front-line officers to use this [coronavirus] crisis to sneak through more jobs for the boys.”

Tory Cleveland PCC candidate Steve Turner also weighed in with his view, stating on Facebook that it was a “ridiculous and shambolic” appointment to make and the “latest in a long line of expensive, wasteful decisions”.

Mr Turner said a piecemeal structure had been cobbled together within Mr Coppinger’s office and said a review should have taken place by now to make the current part-time chief executive role undertaken by Simon Dennis full-time.

Mr Coppinger said: “Research carried out in order to answer a question from the media has shone a light on the massive expansion of staff at the combined authority and the subsequent cost to the taxpayer. This 150 per cent increase in just four years equates to £2.35m a year that could instead have been used to help businesses in this area recover from the effects of the Covid-19 lockdown. By anyone’s standards that is a staggering rise in staffing costs at a time when most public services in this area faced severe austerity cuts."

Mr Coppinger pointed out that only three staff posts in his office were paid more than £50,000 and the overall cost of staff salaries had remained stable over recent years with collaboration agreements with his North Yorkshire equivalent keeping them to down £655,000 a year.

Referring to Mr Houchen’s “jobs for the boys” comment, Mr Coppinger said: “Such language has no place in today’s society and exposes the Mayor’s ignorance of the fact that the previous two incumbents [in the assistant chief executive role] have both been exceptional public servants who were women.

“Considering the Mayor is supposed to be responsible for the jobs, skills and enterprise agenda he should consider the damage language such as this – when we are still in the recruitment process – does to attracting women to senior posts.

“Working towards equality in key leadership roles should be a key priority.”

Mr Coppinger has now written to the Cleveland Police and Crime Panel, a move said to be in order to “correct Mr Houchen’s mistakes”.

Mr Houchen, however, remained unrepentant, describing the Commissioner as “useless” on his mayoral Facebook page and continuing the spat further, while stating he was happy with his own record over the past three years.

However he made no mention of the criticism of the staffing wage bill at the combined authority levelled by Mr Coppinger or the language he himself had previously used.

He said: “[He] has decided to use police resources to politically attack me.

“Sad when he should be using those resources to concentrate on his job of reducing crime, which he’s failing at spectacularly.”

Mr Houchen said under Mr Coppinger’s leadership the Cleveland force had become the worst performing in England and Wales with multiple national investigations into racial discrimination alleged by officers employed by the force.

He also said people in the area felt unsafe and domestic violence had increased.

Mr Houchen added: “The guy is a laughing stock and the people of Cleveland know it. Sadly he is the only one who doesn’t seem to get it.

“The end of his tenure cannot come soon enough. We need new direction and leadership and frontline officers [and the public] deserve better than this.”

Mr Coppinger was due to step down when elections for his post were held in May.

But after the elections were postponed for a year due to the Coronavirus he said he would stay on until a replacement was selected.

Last year under his continued tenure a collaboration agreement was agreed in which the chief executive for Cleveland, Mr Dennis, shared this function with North Yorkshire ’s Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner.

A spokeswoman for Mr Coppinger said this, together with other collaborations, had resulted in a net saving of about £220,000 for Cleveland’s Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner.

She said: “There is no connection between this collaboration arrangement and the assistant chief executive role which has existed since 2016 and recently became vacant.

“The chief executive collaboration arrangement has the approval of the Police and Crime Panel and is subject to regular review.

“It can be changed at any time if appropriate, including after the next election when any future Commissioner in Cleveland or North Yorkshire can agree a different arrangement which meets their business needs, if they see fit.”