TOWN Hall bosses have come under fire after admitting they will miss a deadline to introduce equal pay for women employees.

Bolton Council is paying compensation to more than 2,000 female staff, such as dinner ladies and cleaners, who have not received bonuses enjoyed by male colleagues in equivalent jobs, such as refuse collection. The bill expected to reach £8 million.

More than 500 employees who have not received offers, or are unhappy with the amount, have signed up to take legal action against the council through unions or solicitor Stefan Cross.

Bolton is among half of the country's local authorities expected to miss an April 1 deadline for bringing in new pay structures which could benefit women employees.

The council will also seek to harmonise pay between office and manual staff, which will affect up to 9,000 of the council's 13,600 employees.

The new pay arrangements are worked out by interviewing 10 per cent of staff involved in each different category of job.

Unions reached an agreement with councils 10 years ago to bring in the new pay scheme, and next month's deadline was negotiated in 2004. They say the delay is not good enough, and have not ruled out strike action.

Bolton's UNISON branch secretary, Natalie Mills, is calling on the council to tell its staff when the new pay scheme will be introduced.

She said: "We understand the council is not on course to meet the deadline and it has suggested the new structure might not even be in place until next year.

"Our members are becoming angry and we've taken calls from people who had a job evaluation interview and want to know what is going on.

"We're ruling nothing out, including strike action, but we need to find out what sort of delay the council is proposing and put that to our members."

Paul Hutchinson, the council's GMB union convener, said: "We believe the council wants to implement the new pay scheme from April 2008, which would be a year too late."

A Bolton Council spokesman said: "We are working with the unions to try and ensure that this is dealt with appropriately. It is a massive task and we will implement the pay and grading review as soon as practicable."