Paying the London Living Wage to staff who carry out work on behalf of Sutton Council is too expensive, it has been announced.

The council promised to introduce the minimum rate of pay, currently calculated at £9.15 per hour, for all staff, including those working for contractors carrying out council work, in January 2014 in the run-up to the local elections.

Despite assurances this move would be made in April 2014, the council did not implement the pay rise. Last week, at a strategy and resources committee meeting, it admitted the increase would not take place, stating it could cost £1m.

At the same meeting councillors voted to introduce a 2.2 per cent increase in the amount of money they can claim as an allowance.

According to a report, in March 2, 2014, the council agreed to investigate the “viability and implications” of aiming to become a fully accredited London Living Wage authority. Officers carried out a review of the requirements and came to the conclusion it was “unaffordable” in the present climate.

The council does pay the living wage to its own staff, but is in the process of implementing its People Plan, which could see more services outsourced and directly employed staffing numbers fall from about 1,500 to 500.

Councillor Richard Clifton said: “So there is no misunderstanding... the council pays London Living Wage to its staff.”

He added: “We should maintain this as an objective that the council should at some point seek to do.”

During the same meeting the Liberal Democrats were questioned over the use of zero hours contracts, a highly criticised form of employment, which offers employees no minimum weekly number of hours’ work.

A spokesman for Sutton Council confirmed the borough currently has 343 staff who are employed in such a manner.

He said: “We employ casual staff because there are often gaps in front-line services that need filling on a short-term basis. For example, there are 82 people employed casually for election duties. Employing these people on contracts would be a waste of resources.

“The same goes for our parks where there is much more work needed in the summer months.

“The casual staff arrangement also suits individuals because they do not want to be committed to one employer, and it helps the council because it means we can have a flexible workforce to meet the needs of our residents.

“We do not have the data about how many individuals working for our contractors are on zero hours. However, we are aware that some of these practices do take place.”