Apr 2009 06

Council Spending Uncovered II – No. 4: Town Hall Rich List 20097

  • 1,022 people in town halls now earn more than £100,000 a year. Up 27% from 818 last year.
  • At least 16 people in local authorities earn more than the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who earns £194,250 including his MP’s salary. 
  • Over 115 people in town halls are earning more than £150,000 a year.
  • 182 people in local authorities are earning more than Cabinet Ministers, who earn £137,579, including their MPs’ salaries.
  • Full data available for each council.

The Town Hall Rich List 2009 reveals the number of people in Town Halls earning more than £100,000 per year in 2007-08. New research from the TaxPayers' Alliance shows the shocking truth about top public sector wages, including information on every local authority.

As workers in the private sector face the prospect of tough pay deals or unemployment, it is increasingly clear that the rewards for senior staff in councils remain sky high. Generous remuneration for senior staff is difficult to square with complaints from councils that their resources are stretched, and may make it more difficult to control pay for other council staff. As we look ahead to what will surely be some of the hardest financial conditions many councils have seen in decades, it is more important than ever that the Town Hall gravy train is brought to a halt and that taxpayers' money is used for public services, as intended, instead of the personal enrichment of a select few on the council payroll.

This report provides a detailed list of the 1,022 most highly paid people in local authorities last year, who received £100,000 or more of taxpayers' money.
 
To read the full report, click here (PDF).
 
Key Findings

  • 1,022 people in town halls earn more than £100,000 a year.
  • At least 16 people in local authorities earning more than the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who earns £194,250 including his MP’s salary. 
  • Over 115 people in town halls earn more than £150,000 a year.
  • 182 people in local authorities are earning more than Cabinet Ministers, who earn £137,579, including their MPs’ salaries.
  • There are 8 people in town halls earning above £200,000 a year.
  • The people who are on our list in both 2006-07 and 2007-08 had an average rise of 6%.  This is three times the current 2% government target for growth in pay for ordinary public sector workers.
  • The average total remuneration of the 1,022 people on the list is £122,184 per annum.  This works out at almost £2,350 a week.
  • The 10 most highly paid people in local authorities earn on average around 10 times the amount earned by a regular police officer, nurse or soldier.
  • The number of people earning above £100,000 in local authorities is increasing rapidly.  There were 818 people on these remuneration packages in 2006-07, compared with 1 ,022 people in 2007-08, an increase of about 27%.

The full report can be downloaded here (PDF).

Maria Fort, Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers' Alliance said:

“The size of council executives’ pay and perks is staggering, and every year the cost continues to rise. The fact that executives who have overseen increases in council tax, cuts in services and major policy failures are getting ever more generously rewarded is frustrating for taxpayers who are struggling to make ends meet. With bills rising and services stagnating, in too many town halls there is a culture of rewarding failure. Councils must start tightening their belts – we’re in a recession and many of these rewards are financially unsustainable and morally indefensible. Despite calls for transparency by all three major parties, and an obligation to come clean with taxpayers, many council executives are still secretive about their massive pay packets.”

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  • http://www.mradebthelp.co.uk Keith Robertson

    Hi, thanks for such an information packed report! I was just wondering – would the freedom of information act letter in the appendices cover a request to local fire authorities? (obviously I would amend references to local councils etc.) As a firefighter I am aware of a certain amount of staff in the service with comparable salaries to those in your report, but don’t have the exact figures and would find it interesting to obtain some more precise information.

  • Steve Robson

    You can hardly claim to have “uncovered” even this small percentage of Council spending when all the information was provided by Councils themselves and you haven’t verified it at all, hence the numerous errors and inconsistencies. Wouldn’t “Minute proportion of Council spending listed approximately” be a better title. More accurate anyway!
    You also lie about what the private sector provide. Only PLC’s declare salaries and they certainly don’t list everyone earning over £100K. They list the (usually much higher) salaries of the Directors. If they listed all staff earning over an arbitrary figure like £100K, their Accounts would be much longer.
    If you are using arbitrary figures, you should update the figure every year, otherwise there will be an automatic increase as people on £99K increase to £101K. You wouldn’t want to fix the results, would you now?
    Finally, you will tend to find that the average salary of people earning more than £100K will be more than £100K. To then compare that to an average police salary etc is ridiculous. Apples and pears. You should at least compare ALL local authority managers salaries to this, rather than excluding those that reduce the average. If we used your method to produce cricket averages and only included scores of over 100, batsmen’s averages would be great!
    Its difficult to not see you as malicious when your methodology is so poor. It must be deliberate because surely any educated person could produce work better than this.

  • http://tamesidemafia.blogspot.com/2009/04/tameside-council-fat-cats-named-and.html Tameside Mafia

    Thanks for all your hard work. We have covered your article for Tameside:
    http://tamesidemafia.blogspot.com/2009/04/tameside-council-fat-cats-named-and.html

  • Mr Price

    The true corruption of the Blair & Brown government is now coming out, and our councils are ripping us off blind, I was astounded that councils had money to invest, I always thought that it was spent around our communities, and they have the nerve to increase council tax year upon year.
    Its time for change, or as many are doing, leave the country altogether.
    Blair & Brown have done what Hitler couldn’t, finished Britain.

  • RayD

    just for reference, the Obama administration considers anyone earning over $250,000 to be rich and deserving a good taxing. That’s 184,000 of your British pounds.

  • John Emms

    Tameside mafia? Hmm – doesn’t sound like a rational, balanced organisaion to me. And Mr. Price – please be aware that Browwn, Blair and the government have absolutely nothing to do with local govt salaries – and of course a large proportion of those salaries are paid by Tory or Lib Dem councils.
    TPA does its usual job of getting highly generalised info and coming to conclusions which support its prejudices without seeking to answer the questions the information raises. Like what do these people do and how valuable is is to the community and would you be able to attract the necessary skills and experience for substantially less? The TP’s conclusions may be right may be wrong but you can’t tell from this report.
    Oh – and the PM is an elected position, like council leaders. So his salary should be compared with council leaders. Council officers should be compared with civil servants, like the cabinet secretary, permanent secretaries and the like.
    I’m sure the TPA is a worthy organisation, but anyone who starts with a prejudice and seeks to support it rather than genuinely trying to find out rationally based truth tends to be a waste of space.

  • michael courtney

    i have disclosed to the inland revenue how construction labour agencies avoid deducting taxes from workers by paying their wages through an offshore company who then offer a form of selfemployment which is totally bogus.on learning this i was told they knew all about it but there was nothing they could do.i have been selfemployed 25 years and if i tried to pay my wages through an offshore company i would be prosecuted is it because most of these workers are not british so it is acceptable that they can earn their living here but pay no taxes here