Newly appointed Lewisham Council chief executive Ian Thomas’s salary will be between £175k and £185k a year, it has been revealed.

Mr Thomas was selected after a “rigorous selection process”, the council said in a statement.

His previous work includes improving Rotherham’s children services following a child sex exploitation scandal in 2014.

Mr Thomas’ pay comes in below outgoing chief executive Barry Quirk, whose salary was £196,254, according to Lewisham Council documents.

It is also below neighbouring Southwark Council chief executive Eleanor Kelly, who in 2016 was paid £195,882.

Former Lambeth Council chief executive Sean Harriss, who resigned in October last year, was paid £180,000.

A number of Lewisham Council roles received a pay rise this year,  according to its pay policy statement for 2018/2019, but pay levels are still lower than about half of London’s councils.

Most notable was Lewisham’s director of public health, whose salary increased by more than £27,000 from £87,641 to £114,369.

A council report on pay said: “The Council’s levels of pay for chief officers are regularly benchmarked against other London Councils. These benchmarking exercises show for 2017 that Lewisham’s pay levels for Executive Directors and Heads of Service fall at the 52nd and 49th percentile respectively amongst London Councils.”

Mr Quirk had been the council’s chief executive since 1994, but had been working part time since 2011, before he was seconded and then appointed as chief executive for Kensington and Chelsea, following the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017.

Mr Thomas was appointed as the chief executive during a full council meeting on March 14, with an appointments panel consisting of Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham and a cross-party group of eight councillors.