Council Chiefs' Pay Packets Under Attack

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MasterSamWise
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Council Chiefs' Pay Packets Under Attack

Post by MasterSamWise » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:03 am

The number of Town Hall "fat cats" pocketing over £100,000 a year has soared by 25% - as families face further hikes in council tax.

Some 818 local authority bosses crested the pay threshold last year, compared with 645 in 2005-6.

Fourteen earned more than the Prime Minister's £188,000 annual salary, while six received more than £200,000 from the public purse.

The figures - compiled by pressure group the TaxPayers' Alliance - are bound to cause fury at a time when consumers are feeling the pinch from an economic downturn and rising living costs.

Government data published this week revealed that council tax bills are set to rise by 4% this year - well above the 2.5% inflation rate.

Gordon Brown has demanded a 2% cap on wage settlements in order to keep inflation down, but the Town Hall "Rich List" shows that top bosses enjoyed an average rise of 4.6% last year.

The average pay package for the 818 on the list was more than £120,000 - nearly five times the starting wage of a police constable.

TaxPayers' Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott insisted such pay bonanzas were not acceptable when councils failed to deliver value for money.

"Too often, council executives are rewarded handsomely even when they fail," he said.

"Families and pensioners are struggling with the demands of yet another council tax rise, and councils owe it to them to cut back on executive pay hikes."

The TaxPayers' Alliance used freedom of information laws to request details of senior officials' earnings from more than 450 councils across the UK.

The best paid was Northamptonshire's chief executive Peter Gould, who scooped a whopping £215,000 in 2006-7. He retired last May.

John Ransford, deputy chief executive of the Local Government Association - representing more than 400 councils in England and Wales - said the report should be taken with "an immense dollop of salt".

He insisted some of the data was inaccurate or out of date, and accused the Alliance of making "personal attacks on individual people who have no part in the setting of salaries and no chance to defend themselves".



http://uk.news.yahoo.com/skynews/200803 ... dbed5.html


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