Another year, another TaxPayers’ Alliance Town Hall Rich List is published – and is as wildly misleading as ever.
It may be good fodder for a tabloid headline but the Rich List does little to inform the debate on public sector salaries. By listing top-level salaries alongside pay-offs and pension packages, the TPA gives a deeply skewed impression of just what a council chief executive earns – before you even start to consider what the right level is for salaries.
It is nearly 20 years since the first English authorities started to hire chiefs on £200,000 plus. What is remarkable is how little top salaries have risen since then and how slim the gap between council chiefs’ pay and their directors’ has become.
