Town Hall Rich List 2008

EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 FRIDAY 28 MARCH 2008 www.taxpayersalliance.com Council Spending Uncovered No.4: TOWN HALL RICH LIST 2008 The first paper in the Council Spending Uncovered series – which investigates wasteful and frivolous town hall spending – revealed a £450 million town hall publicity machine. 1 The second paper showed that £1 in every £11 of council tax is being spent on middle managers earning at least £50,000 a year – a nine fold increase in the last decade. 2 The third paper showed that £4.6 billion was spent on local government pensions last year – equal to £1 in every £5 of council tax revenue. In this fourth Council Spending Uncovered paper, we present a detailed list of the 818 most highly paid people in local authorities – people receiving remuneration packages of at least £100,000 in the 450-plus councils across the UK. Last year, the TaxPayers’ Alliance produced the first ever list of the richest people in local government. This is the second, expanded , edition of our annual Town Hall Rich List. Unlike companies in the private sector and other public sector bodies, local authorities do not make executive remuneration details publicly available in their annual accounts. The TPA has therefore had to compile the list through Freedom of Information requests to every local authority. A recalcitrant minority still refuse to provide this information, on highly questionable grounds. The key findings of the research are: There are 6 people in town halls earning more than £200,000 a year. There are 14 people in local authorities earning more than the Prime Minister , Gordon Brown, who earns £188,849 including his MP’s salary.3 There are 88 people in town halls earning above £150,000 a year. There are 132 people in local authorities earning more than cabinet ministers , who earn £137,579, including their MPs’ salaries.4 1 http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/council_spending_uncovered_1_publicity.pdf 2 http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/council_spending_uncovered_2_middle_management_pay.pdf 3 House of Commons Information Office, Factsheet M6, Ministerial Salaries, Revised May 2007 4 Ibid. 43 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9JA www.taxpayersalliance.com 1 0845 330 9554 (office hours) 07795 084 113 (media – 24 hours) The people who are on our list in both 2005-06 and 2006-07 had an average pay rise of 4.6 per cent . This is over twice the current 2 per cent government target for growth in pay for ordinary public sector workers. The average total remuneration of the 818 people on the list is £120,938 per annum. This works out at over £2,300 a week. The 10 most highly paid people in local authorities earn on average around 10 times the amount earned by someone starting out as a 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 645 people in 2005-06, an increase of 27 per cent. Matthew Elliott , Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers have a right to know how much senior town hall officials are being paid because only then can we judge whether they deserve their remuneration. Too often, council executives are rewarded handsomely even when they fail. 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.” Ben Farrugia , Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Some local government executives still feel that what they’re paid is not the taxpayer’s business. But with council tax bills now tipping many families over the edge, it is more important than ever that councils are open and transparent about their costs. Council employees must be accountable to the local residents who pay them.” Further details The Appendix to this note contains further details of the Town Hall Rich List 2008. Two tables detail: The 10 most highly paid people in local authorities. The five most ludicrous local authority excuses for withholding information. The full Town Hall Rich List 2008, with names, positions, total remuneration and breakdowns, can be found at the end of this document. 43 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9JA www.taxpayersalliance.com 2 0845 330 9554 (office hours) 07795 084 113 (media – 24 hours) The purpose of the Town Hall Rich List The Town Hall Rich List was compiled for two reasons: Transparency. In order for local authorities to be held to account democratically voters must have as full information on their council’s policies and practices as possible. Local authority disclosure requirements are currently very inadequate: - While businesses, quangos and Whitehall departments have to disclose the salary, bonus, benefits and pension details of individual senior officials, councils only have to provide the number of staff earning above £50,000 in bands of £10,000. This means that councils cannot be fully held to account by local voters for their remuneration policies. - Research into this area is particularly necessary as many local authorities make it very difficult for the public to obtain this information through Freedom of Information requests. Examples of councils resisting, on suspect grounds, clear precedent from rulings by the Information Commissioner that such information should be released are contained in Table A1.3, in Appendix 1. Rewards for failure. We have no problem with council staff being paid well for good performance. Unfortunately, it seems that in far too many cases senior council officials are being paid over the odds for inadequate performance. To quote Larry Elliott , Economics Editor at the Guardian: “Clearly, there have been beneficiaries of the surge in public spending over the past eight years. It is, however, not immediately apparent that the winners have been the public or those at the sharp end – the nurses, the refuse collectors, the librarians, the prison officers or the police. Labour used to be accused of allowing producer interests to ‘capture’ the public sector. It is still open to that charge. All that is different is that the producers have big salaries, drive expensive cars and – so far at least – appear to have achieved the square root of naff all.” 5 By publishing remuneration details, we hope to enable people to make their own minds up as to whether they are getting good value for money from their local council executives. 5 Elliott, L. “What to tell us on budget day: where our money is going and how it can be stopped”, The Guardian , March 10 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/mar/10/budget.economics 43 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9JA www.taxpayersalliance.com 3 0845 330 9554 (office hours) 07795 084 113 (media – 24 hours) About the Council Spending Uncovered series Ten years ago the average Band D council tax bill in England was £646. Last year the average Band D bill was £1,268. Despite council tax doubling in the last decade, local authorities almost universally say that they are short of money and need to increase council tax still further or reduce frontline services. Many local authorities are raising council tax and cutting services, such as rubbish collection or care for the elderly, at the same time. This is not good enough. Taxpayers have a right to expect that their money is spent carefully. Too often we hear stories of wasteful and frivolous town hall spending – money that could be used to improve frontline services or reduce council tax. Council Spending Uncovered reviews spending by local authorities in all corners of the UK and identifies a number of budgets that could and should be reduced. Whilst we do not suggest that every penny of spending in these areas is wasteful, we do believe that there are significant savings to be made. Council Spending Uncovered enables taxpayers to judge for themselves whether their money is well spent. By trimming the fat from their budgets, councils can reduce the burden on hard-pressed families and pensioners without cutting important services. A number of local authorities, most notably Hammersmith and Fulham, are showing that it is possible to get a grip on council finances, maintain services and reduce council tax. We hope that others can follow their lead. Sources and method of calculation 1. The Town Hall Rich List was complied from responses to Freedom of Information Act (2000) requests submitted in December 2007 to the 450- plus local authorities in the United Kingdom. 2. All the remuneration data is sourced from these responses to our Freedom of Information requests and covers the two most recent full financial years (2005-06 and 2006-07). 3. Total remuneration includes, but is not limited to, salary, bonuses, benefits-in-kind, returning officer payments, car allowances, private medical insurance and redundancy payments. We are not just including basic salary. 4. In a number of cases an individual was not employed by the local authority in both 2005-06 and 2006-07. In these cases the cells for years that they were not employed at the council are blank and there is no calculation made for the percentage increase in remuneration. Where details of arrival/departure dates etc. were provided in the FoI responses, they have been included. 43 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9JA www.taxpayersalliance.com 4 0845 330 9554 (office hours) 07795 084 113 (media – 24 hours) 5. In certain cases the individual was not with the local authority for the entire year and in some of these cases the FoI response provided an annualised remuneration figure, which we have used. In other words, we have not needed to estimate an annual figure.

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