Several top advisers to Hong Kong’s leader have expressed shock over a suggestion senior civil servants receive a pay increase as high as 7.26 per cent, which would be a record.

One Executive Council member on Saturday said the decision over the size of the salary bump could be left to the next government under incoming leader John Lee Ka-chiu, as the matter might not be discussed by Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor’s team before her term ended on June 30.