New figures show that nine Bradford Council staff were paid over £100,000 in the 2021/22 financial year, with the Chief Executive paid over £197,000.
The Taxpayers Alliance has today released its annual Town Hall Rich List – detailing the highest paid Council staff in the Country.
Their figures show that Bradford Council’s Chief Executive Kersten England was the authority’s highest paid employee, with a £197,547 salary.
The Council has said the wages are similar to what is paid in other Councils, and argued that Bradford includes pension contributions in their figures – which many other Councils do not.
The figures show that at least 2,759 employees across the country received more than £100,000 in total remuneration in the past year.
In Bradford this included Ms England, who is due to retire from her role this Summer, the Council’s Strategic Director of Corporate Resources (£151,062), Strategic Director of health and wellbeing (£151,062), Director of Finance and IT (£115,471), City Solicitor (£106,677), Director of Human Resources (£106,677), Director of Public Health (£106,677) the assistant director, who started in October 2021 (£100,749).
The director of the West Yorkshire Pension Fund was paid £115,112.
The director of Children’s Services, who left the role in October 2021 was paid £85,679 in that period, and was paid £88,000 in compensation after leaving the job.
The average number of employees who received £100,000 or more in total remuneration was 7.9 per Council.
In Yorkshire the local authority with the most employees who received remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2021-22 was East Riding of Yorkshire, with 23.
The biggest remuneration package was received by Sheffield’s chief executive – £243,130.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers facing record council tax rises want to be sure they are getting value for money from their local authority leadership.
“Many authorities continue with extremely generous pay and perks, including bonuses and golden goodbyes, while local people are facing a financial squeeze.
“Residents can use these figures to hold their local town hall bosses to account.”
A Bradford Council spokesperson said: “The salaries the Council pays to its senior staff are in line with the rate such staff are paid in other councils.
“Looking at the data, Bradford Council includes the organisation’s pension contributions in the overall salary of staff but not all councils do this so their salaries look artificially lower.
“Bradford is the fifth largest metropolitan district council in the country with a gross budget of over £1 billion and a workforce of more than 8,000 staff delivering vital public services to over half a million residents and 17,000 businesses.
“Senior staff in the council now earn less than senior level posts in other sectors of public service, yet the responsibility they hold is huge.
“Council staff work incredibly hard, often seven-day weeks to keep the district going in challenging times. Council staff are the most undervalued of all the public services, and are paid the least.”
Council Leader Susan Hinchcliffe said: “It’s important that we all know who the Taxpayers’ Alliance is.
“The former Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance became the Chief Economic Advisor to Liz Truss during her ill-fated two months as Prime Minister when together they crashed the economy so no one should take any lessons on management from them.”
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