Council chief was highest paid in UK

Reporter FORMER Sunderland City Council chief executive Dave Smith was the highest earning local government employee in the country, a new study has revealed.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance Town Hall Rich List has identified that the local authority spent more than £1.6m on three employees in 201516. And Mr Smith, who has now left Sunderland City Council after resigning in August 2015, had the biggest remuneration package. He received £625,570, including a payoff of £185,470 and pension contributions of £331,414.

Sonia Tognarelli, director of finance and interim head of paid service, who left the council in 2016, received £605,958 in the same year.

In addition, an unnamed executive director of people’s services at the council received £444,495.

The data also showed the number of staff at Sunderland getting over £100,000 more than doubled to 13 in 2015/16. It is understood eight of the 13 members of staff no longer work for the authority.

According to the study, the North East council with the most employees who received remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2015-16 was Durham County Council with 20. Northumberland County Council had 11 staff members who got more than £100,000 that year.

Overall, figures showed that more than 2,000 council employees in England and Wales were earning at least £100,000 a year – there were at least 2,314 staff whose total remuneration exceeded six figures in 2015-16, up 89 on the previous year.

A total of 539 council employees also received packages worth more than £150,000.

John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which campaigns for smaller government and lower taxes, said: “Despite many in the public sector facing a muchneeded pay freeze to help bring the public finances under control, many town hall bosses are continuing to pocket huge remuneration packages, with the number of people on six-figure deals actually going up since last year.”

Responding to the report, Coun Claire Kober, chairwoman of the Local Government Association’s Resources Board, said: “Nationally, incoming chief executives are being paid lower salaries than their predecessors and average chief executive salaries continue to decline yearon-year.”