£11m bill for top earners at city council
CHIEF EXEC TOPS THE LIST WITH AN ANNUAL WAGE PACKET OF OVER £174,000
ALMOST 200 senior staff at Derby City Council earn around £11.3 million a year between them, according to the latest salary figures due to be published by the authority in April.
Each year, councils across the country are expected to publish data which shows the salaries and responsibilities of staff earning a salary in excess of £50,000 and an organisational chart of the top three levels - chief executive, directors and heads of service.
It is part of the annual Pay Policy Statement, which was approved by full council last Wednesday and shows that the highest paid member of staff is the chief executive, Paul Simpson, whose salary is £174,480.
He has responsibility for the overall delivery of all services offered by the council and has 3,624 people reporting to him.
Three strategic directors earn £138,494, £126,701 and £117,866 respectively and the director of public health has a salary of £105,779.
A total of 16 service directors earn between £75,291 and £88,966 and the rest of the 190 or so higher paid earners have salaries of between £50,379 and £75,291.
The number of people reporting to each of the senior staff, aside of the chief executive, varies from as few as none through to 1,211 in the case of the strategic director for communities and place, which includes waste collection, recycling, highways, leisure, culture, parks, licensing, planning and regeneration with a budget of £43,736,673 to manage.
The average salary level in the council, including school support staff, is £28,174, which means the highest earner’s salary is more than six times more than the average.
The statement, which is based on the period between April 1 and December 31 last year, must set out the council’s policies in relation to the lowest paid employees and the relationship between the remuneration of the chief officers and other officers.
It also gives details of how recruitment, pay increases and redundancy payments in relations to chief officers’ remuneration - a chief officer includes service directors, strategic directors and the chief executive.
A comment attached to the statement says: “It is the policy of the council to establish remuneration packages for chief officer posts which are sufficient to attract and retain senior managers with the appropriate skills, knowledge, experience, abilities and qualities that are consistent with the council’s requirements of the post at the time in question.”
The lowest pay point applied by the council is Grade A, which equates to an annual salary of £18,562, or £9.62 per hour. But the council is “committed to ensuring that its rates apply to all workers over 18 - in recognition that young people face the same living costs as everyone else”.
The appointment to the post of chief executive is approved by full council and the remaining posts are approved by council cabinet and taken to full council for consideration upon conclusion of the recruitment/selection appointment process. At the same meeting on Wednesday, the council approved a budget of £256 million to run the authority for 2021-22 and increased council tax by 4.99% - 2% of which will pay for the spiralling costs of children’s social services - compared to a rise of 3.99% in 2020-21.
The city council portion of Derby council tax pays for planning, transport, highways, libraries, leisure and recreation, rubbish collection and disposal, environmental health and trading standards - the rest goes to Derbyshire police and the county’s fire authority.
Full details of the pay policy statement will be posted on the council’s website from April 1.