Shocking rises in pay for officials amid growing fury over budget cuts
By Bill Heaney and Lucy Ashton
Spiralling town hall pay pushed the number of local government officials who earned above £100,000 last year to thousands across the UK.
Meanwhile, council tax rises have soared above inflation and councils have pushed ahead with salary increases for some of their best-paid employees.
However, in West Dunbartonshire, low paid but highly valued and respected home care workers, who look after elderly and vulnerable residents, will be taking strike action today (Wednesday) and tomorrow for equal pay.
Their trade union, the GMB, claim the workers, nearly all women, have been the targets for a council campaign aimed at scaring them and “pulling at their heart strings” by telling them that taking the time off and leaving their elderly residents alone and without a visitor will leave them vulnerable.
The UNISON and UNITE unions are giving their support to the GMB.
The breakdown – covering the financial year 2019-20, which ended just as the coronavirus pandemic struck – was published amid evidence of growing public discontent at council tax levels which caused First Minister Humza Yousaf to declare a freeze on council tax.
However, two councils close to home here, Argyll and Bute, which includes Cardross, Helensburgh and the Rosneath Peninsula, and Inverclyde, which includes Greenock, Gourock and Largs, refused to comply, but their resistance melted away like a child’s ice cream on a hot day in Rothesay.
There were no tears from the residents of Argyll and Bute who escaped a ten per cent hike in what they pay for council services when their councillors caved in.
LOSERS: Provost Maurice Corry and Council leader Robin Currie.
Even the thought of such a rise brought about a heave for for change at their Lochgilphead headquarters and Provost Maurice Corry, a Conservative, lost the provostship after cutting cards for the gold chain, while Liberal Democrat Robin Currie the council leadership in a similar piece of local government theatre.
Politicians will tell you there is no money in local politics, but they are once again being economical with the truth since the highest payment over the year was £573,660 to the departing deputy chief executive of Coventry City Council.
Golden parachutes – commutation payments and early retirement payments – are eye-watering and West Dunbartonshire has seen hefty sums paid out to their now departed chief executive Joyce White and some of the chief officials she defended so stoutly when they were involved in the controversy over fine dining and golf matches at five star resorts on Loch Lomondside with at least one contractor seeking work from them.
It’s quite possible for senior council officials to take early retirement and the cash that goes with it and move move on to another public sector job.
One man who jumped is said to have “played a pivotal role in the unprecedented regeneration that has taken place, and continues to take place” on his patch.
That certainly cannot be said for Joyce White at West Dunbartonshire, whose package while she was in post until last year was around £150,000.
Her successor in the post, Peter Hessett, pictured left, who was her deputy in Church Street and is believed to be on a similar contract, although the secretive council communications department refuses to discuss this or other important matters of public interest with The Democrat.
Other top earners received £260,513 and £237,316. Another one was paid £223,909.
The figures obtained by the TaxPayers’ Alliance showed that in the year to April last year the number of local government employees earning more than £100,000 a year went up by 135 – or 5 per cent – to 2,802. Over the course of two years, the number of £100,000-plus town hall staff has gone up by 351.
More than 693 were on salaries of £150,000 – roughly equivalent to the pay of the Prime Minister – an increase of 26 over the year. The best-paid individual collected £573,660.
On average each English local authority had seven employees paid more than £100,000. The return of town hall fat cat pay is said to have followed a period of austerity forced on local councils by David Cameron’s coalition, which after 2010 froze council tax and cut back Treasury grants to local government.
The Scottish Nationalist Party followed a similar strategy up here in Scotland, and continue to follow it.
The restrictions down south were widely seen as a response to the unpopularity of high ‘stealth tax’ council tax rises and executive pay spirals in town halls during the Labour governments in the 2000s.
However the TPA report pointed to growing public unhappiness over town hall pay as council tax rises above inflation have returned in recent years.
A poll carried out to accompany the report found that 59 per cent of people support the idea that councils should freeze or cut salaries of senior staff, while 45 per cent of the public also believe that this would have an impact in keeping council tax down.
It said only 28 per cent think their local council performs well, while 44 per cent regard local services as average.
In West Dunbartonshire literally hundreds of people have posted on social media in recent months their objections to council decisions including what is being done with the £20 million levelling up money that was allocated to them by Boris Johnston’s Tory government.
The poll, carried out (in England) by research firm Public First among more than 2,000 people, found only the TV licence was a more unpopular tax than council tax.
Some 40 per cent of people said council tax was unfair, compared to 54 per cent for the TV licence fee, 38 per cent for inheritance tax, 34 per cent for fuel tax, 25 per cent for VAT, and 24 per cent for income tax. John O’Connell of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘At the onset of the coronavirus crisis, thousands of town hall officials were taking home huge sums.
‘While councils were plunged into tackling the pandemic, many staff will have more than earned their keep, but households have nevertheless struggled with enormous and unpopular council tax rises.’
The figures for town hall pay cover the year to April 2020, a month which saw council tax rise by 3.9 per cent in England. This followed a 5.1 per cent rise in 2018 and a 4.7 per cent rise in 2019.
This month the 4.4 per cent increase in England took the annual council tax bill for a benchmark Band D house to £1,898. The Local Government Association, the umbrella body for councils in England, said: ‘Councils are large, complex organisations… that make a huge difference to people’s lives.
“It is important that the right people with the right skills and experience are retained to deliver this important work.
“Senior pay is always decided by democratically elected councillors in an open and transparent way.”
Number of staff in SNP-run Glasgow earning six figures ‘doubles in a year’
Journalists Paul Drury and Martin Beckford are reporting that “soaring numbers of officials are earning more than £100,000 in Scotland’s local authorities.
At Glasgow City Council, the number of fat cats paid the eye-watering sums incredibly doubled in a year to 42, according to the Town Hall Rich List.
In Edinburgh, a chief at a council-run subsidiary reportedly received the UK’s highest ‘bonus’ of £72,000 on top of his generous annual salary.
This comes as local authorities face criticism for the decaying state of city centres, countless potholes and soaring costs for parking.
The rich list report also revealed that a record number of town hall staff across the UK are receiving more than £150,000 a year. At least 829 local authority employees were handed the staggering sum in pay, pensions and payoffs last year.
The figure has soared by 108 in a year – the biggest increase on record – and has reached the highest level since the annual list was first compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance in 2007.
Some 188 council workers had a salary alone that was higher than the Prime Minister’s.
Others left their jobs with ‘golden handshakes’ of more than £400,000 or were awarded bonuses of at least £70,000. They were among 3,106 town hall staff whose total remuneration topped £100,000 in 2022-23, the most since 2015.
Councils in England abolished a year ago to create unitary authorities paid out £1.35million to staff who lost their jobs.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said the report had uncovered a ‘surge’ in pay increases to public executives, adding: ‘Residents can use these figures to ask whether precious funds are really going towards frontline services, or whether town hall bosses can get better value for money.’
The figures are likely to anger Scots taxpayers, many of whom face higher council tax bills at a time when local authorities are cutting back on services such as pothole repairs and libraries.
The largest single bonus handed out in Britain was to Marshall C. Dallas, the chief executive of Edinburgh International Conference Centre, a subsidiary of City of Edinburgh Council.
He received a payment of £72,280, taking his total remuneration package to £230,991. The council leader Cammy Day said: “These pay awards are a matter for EICC’s board. However, I do not agree with bonuses like this in arm’s-length companies.”
Glasgow City Council said the Taxpayers’ Alliance figure of 42 for its high earners – double the previous year’s 21 – was slightly greater than its own salary records showed.
A spokesman said that in the previous year, the very top of officials’ Grade 11 pay was just short of £99,000.
A nationally negotiated pay award pushed those people over the £100,000 barrier in 2022-23, he said. In addition, some school head teachers are now enjoying six-figure salaries.
A Glasgow Council spokesman said: ‘Like every other council in the country, we routinely and proactively publish this kind of information, which goes before scrutiny committees and is available to the public online.’
The highest total pay and pension packet across local government in the UK for 2022-23 was £651,158.
It was received by Felicity Roe, the former director of culture, communities and business services at Hampshire County Council, which just last year warned it faces ‘financial meltdown’.
On average, each council had nine employees taking home at least £100,000.
However, Westminster City Council had 60, ten more than the previous year.