This needs someone to take responsibility or the rot will get worse
3 cheers for the Taxpayers Alliance for directing the spotlight on the ever increasing number of local authority employees who are earning more than the P.M. Today they reveal that this figure now stands at a staggering 320.
As an MP I had many relations with senior council chiefs, and to think that 4,733 council employees earn more than backbench MPs I find staggering. MPs are paid at a decent level today at £91,346 and to think that the workload of local authority employees is more weighty I truly doubt!
The Taxpayer's Alliance research also shows 1.255 council employees earning more than £150,000 which is up 15% in a year. One Employee in Staffs. received £457,500, whilst 2 others in Bucks received £300,000.
The Government is currently reforming local authority structures and this will most certainly lead to bumper pay offs to departing senior employees and eye watering salaries for new combined authorities. Another upcoming trend will be the introduction of new deputy positions to the new super chief executives who will also attract eye watering remunerations. These figures will be further bloated with bonuses some of which approach the average salary of a regular worker in the UK today.
At the same time households are facing increases in their Band D council charge of 4.99% which is above inflation! So pensioners on limited incomes will have to divert money away from feeding themselves to fill the coffers of local authorities which are then drained by their top earners and there appears to be little restraint.
My take away from this is that salaries , bonuses and payoffs will continue to spiral out of control along with higher council tax demands. If it wasn't for the Taxpayers Alliance revealing these bumper salaries every year then it is likely they would go unnoticed and therefore I suspect would be even higher. I am grateful to the Taxpayers Alliance for their public service.
The only way these disgraceful raids on council taxpayers coffers is going to be restrained is if a central register of all local government salaries over a certain amount are declared, and named, including bonuses, payoffs and pension contributions. Local councillors should vote on these salaries so their voters can hold them to account for their actions. I never bought into the argument I heard from some of my councillors that they had to pay these salaries otherwise they wouldn't get the best people do the job.
The other red herring is the comparison to other pay levels, such as the PM, pointing to the likelihood that the PMs salary is way too low. Bunkum. Former PMs rake it in on their memoirs, and the ever lucrative speaker circuit. This is known as deferred earnings and even the more useless of our former PMs are doing rather nicely.There is a very good reason why most former PMs give a wide berth to going to the House of Lords despite its rather looser registration requirements as compared to the House of Commons.
So forget these distractions and focus on what's needed. Political parties need to get a grip. One thing is for certain and that is inertia will only lead to continuation of bumper pay for the L.A. fat cats. The other certainty too is that next year the Taxpayers Alliance Town Hall Rich List will expose the shameless trend of the diversion of scarce resources from public good to the welfare of high ranking local government employees is getting worse. Sad, isn't it?
Nigel Evans
14th April 2026