Following a police probe into secret City Hall bonuses to senior staff, Mayor Linda Jeffrey has prevented bureaucrats from pushing through a new policy for non-union salary increases and bonuses that would have involved almost no council oversight.

Taxpayers who contacted The Guardian raised alarm bells after learning that senior bureaucrats, on CAO Harry Schlange and HR head Fiona Peacefull's approval, presented a policy on pay for performance and other staff increases that hasn't even been formally drafted to provide clear rules on future payouts.

Even without a “Standard Operating Procedure” in place, council was set to vote on a move that saw staff craft a policy with no clear guidelines to keep in check future performance pay to themselves.

It’s unclear why Schlange and Peacefull approved a policy for council consideration, before the policy had even been drafted.

The mayor, who in 2015 called for the independent audit that zeroed in on the city’s bloated non-union payroll and said city hall labour costs were unsustainable, and who supported a police investigation after an internal audit exposed an unapproved employee bonus program, on Wednesday called for greater political oversight on remuneration for non-union employees.

"The only reporting that comes out of the (staff) recommendation is an annual report that comes back to council. To me that’s not enough. When I look back at the challenges that we had when the audit found internal controls were ineffective I would really like some political oversight."

Describing the need for a new policy after the failure of previous practices, Peacefull addressed council when the new plan was brought forward last week at committee.

But staff did not explain throughout this process why it didn’t formulate a clear policy with all of the rules, including cementing the standard operating procedures, with its ties to salary bands and ranges, before bringing it forward to council for a vote.

The move, which effectively would have seen council vote on something without any idea of the rules governing the practice, was highly unusual.

When the Guardian asked for the standard operating procedure they referred to in the report highlighting the pay for performance recommendations, staff responded that the “Standard Operating Procedure documents are still in development, and will be finalized pending approval of the policy statement by Council."