Councillors 'should get pay rise', advisory body says.

The leader of Glasgow council could earn £63,000 under the plans

Councillors in Scotland should receive a pay rise to reflect their workloads, government advisors have recommended.

Glasgow and Edinburgh council leaders would receive £63,000, but leaders of other smaller authorities would earn at least £44,000.

Ordinary councillors would see their pay increase to £18,000 from £16,000, under recommendations put to ministers.

Plans to pay councillors as much as MSPs were rejected by the local authorities remuneration committee.

Publishing its review - the first of its kind since 2005 - the body also said elected members should be banned from being paid extra for sitting on the boards of arms-length organisations.

Urging quick action, committee chairman Ian Livingstone, said: "The current practice of paying additional sums to councillors for serving on arms-length external organisations, often for doing a similar job as they did on council committees, completely undermines the integrity of the national remuneration scheme.

"For example, in July 2010, some 40 Glasgow city councillors were receiving an additional £260,000 for serving on arms-length external organisations - effectively spending an additional 41% of the council's allocation for paying senior councillors under the approved national scheme."