Pippa Milne, CEO of Argyll and Bute Council, which covers an area from Cardross through Helensburgh and north to Oban.
by Bill Heaney
No wonder she is smiling. Argyll and Bute Council chief executive Pippa Milne’s salary is increasing by over £22,000.
This adds up to an increase of more than 14 per cent—taking her earnings from £155,014 (2025/26) to £177,073 by November 2026.
Following a pay review, local authority chiefs across Scotland will receive an average pay rise of almost £20,000.
Argyll and Bute Council covers from Cardross, Helensburgh and Lomond t Oban and the Inner Hebrides.
Peter Hessett, Chief Executive of West Dunbartonshire Council, is on a pay and perks package of around £150,000, and Pippa Milne, who works from an office at Kilmory Castle in Lochgilphead.
Amanda Graham, the chief official for communications who refuses to communicate with The Dumbarton Democrat, was recently reported to be on £129,000.
Given the council budget cuts that have caused anger in both authorities both must surely be embarrassed.
WDC chief executive Peter Hessett, former chief executive Joyce White and chief communications officer Amanda Graham.
Joyce White, who was the CEO at Dumbarton recently until she departed on receipt of a “golden parachute”, for a new role at a university, must now be regretting leaving Church Street, where trouble was resident behind the old Burgh Hall doors.
And a possible bill of nearly £1 million was knocking on them for compensation in light of the victimisation and bullying of a disabled employee.
The new pay framework is agreed by COSLA and ALACE, the trade union for chief executives.
Council trade union officials in Dumbarton have claimed they have been under constant pressure for the management team and two of them, Margaret Wood of UNITE and David Smith of UNISON, have resigned their positions.
TUC general secretary Roz Foyer, Unite official Margaret Wood and UNISON’s David Smith.
General secretary of Scottish trade unionist (STUC) Roz Foyer said: “This will quite rightly create a huge backlash from workers and the public they serve.
“The decision to award council bosses above-inflation pay rises was deeply flawed.
“Staff and service users across the country are facing cuts to services, continued low pay and an increasing cost of living.
“It is simply rubbing salt into the wounds of ordinary workers who, yet again, can see that when it comes to pay it’s one rule for the bosses and another rule for everyone else.”
One council worker in Church Street, who is terrified of losing his job, declined to speak on the record about the ongoing situation there.
He said: “Things are really bad here. There’s an awful lot of people leaving the council. They cannot wait to get out of here.”
* The Dumbarton Democrat welcomes Letters to the Editor on this and other council matters about which we refuse to be gagged, banned or shut down.