Almost 5,000 town hall staff are taking home six-figure pay packets with a record number of fat cats now pocketing more than £150,000 a year, a report has revealed.
As families are hit with the largest council tax increases since 2004, new figures show a record 1,255 council bureaucrats were handed over £150,000 last year.
This is an increase of almost 15 per cent in a year and almost twenty times higher than when the TaxPayers’ Alliance launched its annual town hall ‘rich list’ in 2007.
The campaign group found there were 320 local authority apparatchiks who received a higher salary than the £172,153 the prime minister was entitled to in 2024-25 – up by a third in a year.
And six councils that issued Section 114 notices – effectively declaring bankruptcy – since 2020 had 124 council employees who were paid over £100,000 last year.
The figures will cause anger among council tax payers whose bills were increased by an average of 4.9 per cent – or £111 – in England this month to reach £2,392 for a typical Band D property.
It comes as many town halls are cutting back on services such as bin collections, pothole repairs and libraries, while blaming rising demand and a shortage of cash.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TPA, said: ‘Taxpayers are caught in a pincer movement with a record-breaking tax burden on one side and a bloated public sector feathering its nest on the other.
‘Our latest Town Hall Rich List exposes a surging class of council bosses enjoying six-figure packages, even as they plead poverty, slash frontline services, and hike council tax bills far beyond inflation.
‘Residents can see exactly how many local bureaucrats are receiving plush packages and judge for themselves whether they’re getting value for money.’
The total number of council bosses receiving more than £100,000 in 2024-25 stood at 4,733, while at least 366 fat cats were paid £200,000 or more – up by almost 40 per cent in a year.
This comes despite many local authorities increasing council tax by 4.99 per cent, the maximum before a local referendum is mandatory in England, and seven being given permission to increase their council tax by more than 5 per cent to ease a ‘challenging financial position’.
Shadow local government secretary Sir James Cleverly said: ‘With soaring council tax and the threat of the four-day week in local government, people feel they are paying more and getting less.
‘What’s more, Labour’s top-down restructuring of local government will lead to a bonanza of golden goodbyes and pension payments to laid-off council staff – all funded by the taxpayer.’
The highest remunerated council employee in 2024-25 was an unnamed individual from Staffordshire council who received about £457,500. A breakdown of this figure was not provided.
Cambridge council paid the largest compensation for loss of office payment in 2024-25, shelling out £222,559 to an unnamed assistant chief executive who received £330,101 in total remuneration.
Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, John O’Connell (above), said there is a ‘surging class of council bosses enjoying six-figure packages, even as they plead poverty’
The highest remunerated council employee in 2024-25 was an unnamed individual from Staffordshire County Council who received about £457,500
And Westminster council was the local authority with the most staff receiving over £100,000 in 2024-25 – with 92 bureaucrats netting six-figures, up by 19 since 2023-24.
Richard Tice said: ‘This staggering analysis exposes the mess Reform UK has been left to clean up in councils across Britain, with fat-cat council officials raking in eye-watering salaries while delivering shocking services, all whilst hammering hard-working families with regular council tax hikes every year.’
Reform’s deputy leader added: ‘Residents deserve better.’
Staffordshire said the £457,500 figure did not relate to an employee’s salary and it was a ‘separate matter’ covered by a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), so the council was unable to comment.
Westminster said it is ‘not hiring significantly more staff into roles paying over £100k per year’ and the increase is accounted for through ‘gradual annual pay increases’ which are ‘agreed nationally’.
A spokesman added: ‘Westminster City Council is a high-profile local authority with unique responsibilities at the heart of the capital.
‘As such, we need to recruit the best talent for managing within a complex organisation whose work involves partnership with central Government, the multi-billion economy of the West End and supporting around a quarter of a million residents. The salaries paid reflect the skills needed to lead the authority.’
Robert Pollock, chief executive of Cambridge City Council, said: ‘We have been working over a number of years to reduce our operating costs including undertaking a senior management restructure which led to a 20 per cent reduction in senior staff costs and ongoing annual savings of £0.3million per year.
‘While the payment is a significant one-off expense for the council, it includes contractual and statutory pension and redundancy entitlements for a long serving individual, and has contributed to bringing down our operating costs while protecting front-line services.’
