Theresa May, the prime minister, has ordered that no special adviser will be paid more than £72,000 a year

Theresa May has imposed a pay cap on the salaries of Tory ministerial advisers as part of a strategy to distance her regime from the “excesses” of the Cameron years.

Under pay restrictions ordered by the prime minister, no new government special adviser will be paid more than £72,000 a year without an explicit exemption from Downing Street.

In the final year of the Cameron government, 20 advisers breached the new pay cap and the total bill for political aides reached £9.2 million.

However, the decision has led to some candidates turning down the chance of working in Whitehall because it would mean taking a pay cut from their current jobs. At least two people approached about taking up a special adviser role pulled out