'Pay big bucks to council bosses'.

MEGA-bucks Scots councillors could soon be paid more than MPs at Westminster and Holyrood.

A Government-backed report wants a new breed of super-councillors set up on a huge pounds 50,000-a-year.

Instead of getting allowances for turning up at council meetings and doing special duties, they'll get a salary just like parliamentary colleagues.

The proposals, contain-ed in the long-awaited McIntosh Report, would cost up to pounds 7m a year.

It says top council politicians - like the council leaders of Edinburgh and Glasgow - should qualify for the mega pay-out.

Commission chairman Neil McIntosh, who earned a pounds 100,000-plus salary as chief executive of Strathclyde Regional Council, said: "Leading local government figures should be on a par with MSPs... these are very important, influential positions."

His report also recommends proportional representation for council elections - a step unlikely to be rushed into by Labour - and the lifting of the ban on council staff becoming politicians.

He added: "We are trying to create a new environment which makes it possible for local government to operate, look to the future and regain the confidence of the people who elected it."

Leaders of Scotland's main parties backed the "overdue" move. But Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan said councillors should get no more than pounds 20,000.

"The public would find that a lot more acceptable than a load of politicians gorging themselves on public money," he said. "They are extremely angry at the politicians awarding themselves massive wages."

MSPs earn pounds 40,000 a year while Westminster MPs get pounds 47,000.