9,000 public sector workers are paid more than the Prime Minister - BBC
Perhaps less well-noticed is a similar but smaller report recently published by the GMB union (thanks to one of the Fair Pay mailing list members for drawing my attention to it). The union report is focused only on council chief executives, rather than the public sector as a whole. Both lists agree that the Chief Exec of Wandsworth London Borough Council is the highest paid local authority worker, but they disagree on how much he's paid. The BBC say it's £299,925, while the GMB claim a figure of £356,891. Other salaries have similar discrepancies.
The BBC has been fairly clear with its methodology while the GMB's is slightly less clear, but it appears that the BBC is quoting the salary that the individual receives, while the GMB is quoting the figure that the taxpayer pays. In other words, the GMB figures include the 'on-costs' - the money paid by the employer for National Insurance etc. If this is the case, then the BBC's figures more accurately describe what these people are being paid, whilst the GMB's figures more accurately describe how much these workers are costing the country.
Nottingham City Council stands alone in the GMB data in that it couldn't supply its chief exec's salary figures in time for the GMB report, but the BBC's figures appear to include Nottingham's Jane Todd - among various other anonymous highly-paid NCC staff. Assuming Ms Todd is the highest-paid member of the council, then her salary is £214,999. If her salary is scaled down like all the others in the BBC data compared to the GMB data, then the 'real cost' is probably much higher. If it were adjusted to be comparable to the increases shown in the GMB data then she would probably be one of the top-ten highest paid Chief Execs in the country.
Of course, all this data and conjecture must be treated with caution. NCC provides an interesting example for this argument - at the best of times it's very difficult to capture every little scrap of data about so many people and organisations and keep it fair. So there may be a few payments missing here and there for various people scattered throughout the reports.
Mentioned in a previous posting, Mr Kim Ryley, one of the top paid workers referenced in the original piece, has managed to hang onto his salary - by moving from Hull to a Shropshire authority only months after a Hull newspaper ran a story on his salary. His replacement in Hull, Nicola Yates, has accepted a £40,000 wage drop compared to Mr Ryley's old wage. Northamptonshire County Council continue to "attract the talent" with a CE salary of £237,000.
The list of 149 top-paid council chiefs follows. The figures presented here have been slightly re-worked from the original GMB data to remove any back-pay or temporary payments, and to correct some figures to show an annual pay figure, rather than the amount paid so-far in cases where the worker has been in post for less than a year. Nottingham City Council's figure is missing from the GMB data so the BBC figure has been used unaltered, as discussed above. See the GMB website for more information and for the notes that accompany the original data.
Edited 06.10.10: Wrongly listed the Chief Exec of Nottingham City Council as Jon Collins - now corrected. The CE is Jane Todd - Jon Collins is the political leader of the council and earns only £45,732, according to the Evening Post. Oddly, the mystery of NCC's top wages doesn't end there. In December 2008 the Evening Post reported that Ms Todd wouldn't accept the full salary of £185,000 and was instead taking £165,000. See also the NCCLOLs blog entry on the subject from 2009. It just goes to show what a lot of confusing misinformation there is out there.
Gerald Jones, Wandsworth, £356,891
Peter Gilroy, Kent, £299,611
Joanna Killian, Essex, £285,152
Joe Duckworth, Newham, £281,085
Colin Hilton, Liverpool, £278,714
Geoff Alltimes, Hammersmith and Fulham, £270,474
Andrea Hill, Suffolk, £267,775
Mark Hammond, West Sussex, £266,470
David White, Norfolk, £263,700
Chris Willaims, Buckinghamshire, £258,868
Andrew Kilburn, Waltham Forest, £257,243
Ged Fitzgerald, Lancashire, £254,376
Caroline Tapster, Hertfordshire, £251,190
Derek Myers, Kensington and Chelsea, £250,311
Derrick Anderson, Lambeth, £250,150
Gareth Daniel, Brent, £249,884
Nick Walkley, Barnet, £249,210
Rob Leak, Enfield, £247,048
Jon Rouse, Croydon, £246,810
Andrew Smith, Hampshire, £246,648
Roger Kelly, Gateshead, £245,581
Ron Hilton, Staffordshire, £242,842
George Garlick, County Durham, £242,485
Will Tuckley, Bexley, £242,363
Dave Smith, Sunderland, £238,967
Kevin Lavery, Cornwall, £238,800
Katherine Kerswell, Northamptonshire, £237,000
Mike More, Westminster, £234,500
Cheryl Miller, East Sussex, £233,239
Stephen Hughes, Birmingham, £233,097
Sir Howard Bernstein, Manchester, £232,326
John Sinnott, Leicestershire, £231,000
Mark Lloyd, Cambridgeshire, £230,456
Moira Gibb, Camden, £229,959
Barry Quirk, Lewisham, £229,902
Erika Wenzel, Cheshire East, £229,291
Joyce Redfearn, Wigan, £228,876
Paul Hart, Doncaster, £227,729
Joanna Simons, Oxfordshire, £225,665
Mary Ney, Greenwich, £225,150
Sheena Ramsey, Knowsley, £224,772
Annie Shepperd, Southwark, £224,736
Roger Hampson, Redbridge, £224,063
Robert Whiteman, Barking and Dagenham, £224,046
Tony Reeves, Bradford, £223,760
John Foster, Islington, £222,868
Joanne Roney, Wakefield, £222,172
Paul Rogerson, Leeds, £222,122
Bruce McDonald, Kingston upon Thames, £222,000
Martin Reeves, Coventry, £221,949
Jan Ormondroyd, Bristol, £220,457
Chris Bull, Herefordshire, County of, £219,734
Michael Lockwood, Harrow, £219,504
Steve Robinson, Cheshire West and Chester, £219,000
John Marsden, North Yorkshire, £218,532
John Mothersole, Sheffield, £217,814
Trish Haines, Worcestershire, £216,931
John Barradell, Brighton and Hove, £215,800
Gillian Norton, Richmond upon Thames, £215,657
Ged Curran, Merton, £215,546
Doug Patterson, Bromley, £215,287
Hugh Dunnachie, Hillingdon, £215,206
Jane Todd, Nottingham City, £214,999
Mick Burrows, Nottinghamshire, £214,643
Paul Sheehan, Walsall, £213,826
Tim Shields, Hackney, £213,221
Charlie Parker, Oldham, £213,000
John Everitt, Bath and North East Somerset, £211,626
David McNulty, Surrey, £210,000
Kim Ryley, Shropshire, £209,446
Sheila Lock, Leicester, £208,127
Gavin Jones, Swindon, £206,331
Tony McArdle, Lincolnshire, £206,059
Kevan Collins, Tower Hamlets, £204,261
Paul Martin, Sutton, £204,242
Jim Graham, Warwickshire, £204,242
Barry Keel, Plymouth, £203,477
Barbara Spicer, Salford, £201,329
Mark Gilks, Hounslow, £201,183
Nigel Pearson, East Riding of Yorkshire, £201,000
Cheryl Coppell, Havering, £200,215
Andrew Kerr, North Tyneside, £199,636
Peter Bungard, Gloucestershire, £199,116
Brad Roynon, Southampton, £198,842
David Jenkins, Dorset, £197,000
Martin Kimber, Rotherham, £194,611
David Parr, Halton, £194,000
Adam Wilkinson, Derby, £193,068
Mark Sanders, Bury, £192,982
Gillian Beasley, Peterborough, £192,050
Dianna Terris, Warrington, £191,000
Steven Pleasant, Tameside, £190,800
Sean Harriss, Bolton, £190,647
Kevin Crompton, Haringey, £189,440
Steve Stewart, Northumberland, £188,458
Neil Schneider, Stockton-on-Tees, £188,211
Tony Hunter, North East Lincolnshire, £188,194
Ada Burns, Darlington, £188,060
Phil Norrey, Devon, £187,246
Amanda Deeks, South Gloucestershire, £186,590
Carole Hudson, St. Helens, £186,000
Ruth Bagley, Slough, £185,890
John Shultz, Stockport, £185,615
Neil Davies, Medway, £185,146
Richard Carr, Central Bedfordshire, £185,000
Rob Tinlin, Southend-on-Sea, £184,209
Steve Beynon, Isle of Wight, £183,937
Paul Walker, Hartlepool, £183,565
Elizabeth Raikes, Torbay, £183,000
Graham Burgess, Blackburn with Darwen, £183,000
Timothy Wheadon, Bracknell Forest, £182,600
Ian Trenholm, Windsor and Maidenhead, £181,826
Susan Law, Wokingham, £181,101
Rob Vincent, Kirklees, £180,689
John Polychronakis, Dudley, £180,666
Nick Hodgson, Derbyshire, £179,643
John van de Laarschot, Stoke-on-Trent, £179,000
Dr Allison Fraser, Sandwell, £176,978
David Williams, Portsmouth, £176,578
Richard Carr, Wolverhampton, £176,523
Margaret Carney, Sefton, £176,465
Philip Simpkins, Bedford, £175,145
Roger Ellis, Rochdale, £174,000
Graham Turner, North Somerset, £170,450
Peter Stybelski, Cumbria, £170,000
Janet Callender, Trafford, £170,000
Steve Weaver, Blackpool, £168,039
Martin Smith, Ealing, £167,532
Owen Williams, Calderdale, £166,000
Kevin Crompton, Luton, £165,451
Michael Coughlin, Reading, £165,213
Simon Driver, North Lincolnshire, £165,057
Alan Jones, Somerset, £161,286
Phil Coppard, Barnsley, £161,000
Nicola Yates, Kingston upon Hull, City of, £160,000
Steve Maddox, Wirral, £159,188
Nick Carter, West Berkshire, £158,431
Ian Parker, Middlesbrough, £155,644
David Hill, Milton Keynes, £155,000
Mark Rogers, Solihull, £154,000
Martin Swales, South Tyneside, £152,229
Pam Donnellan, Bournemouth, £149,343
Victor Brownlees, Telford and Wrekin, £149,000
John McBride, Poole, £146,983
Amanda Skelton, Redcar and Cleveland, £146,795
Kersten England, York, £130,000
Helen Briggs, Rutland, £129,334
Barry Rowland, Newcastle upon Tyne, £103,757
Philip Hygate, Isles of Scilly, £90,852
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