'Rich List' Shames UK Council Boss' £600,000 Earnings Amid Public Sector Cuts

11:54 GMT, 9 April 2019

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The disgraced official was one of 28 featured in a report from the Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA), a campaign group for tax accountability, which revealed a list of council workers earning wages of over £250,000 from councils across Britain.

Sputnik

A wealthy council boss in the UK earned roughly £600,000 whilst his council begged for money to save public services, according to a "town hall rich list" published on Tuesday.

Interim CEO of Slough Borough Council Roger Parkin earned a remuneration package of £595,077 in 2017, including £112,959 in wages, £339,903 in pensions and over £140,000 in compensation claims after leaving his job.

The list showed that around 2,500 council employees earned pay packages of over £100,000, with 608 earning more than £150,000 altogether. 229 were paid wages of £150,000 or more, and just under 180 workers earned salaries over £150,000 last year.

Figures were sourced from the councils' last annual accounts for 2017-2018, which calculated total earnings, including salaries, pensions, bonuses and severance packages public workers received, with some totalling over £10,000 in expenses.

Slough Council cautioned the UK government in October against budget cuts, stating that the "breath-taking levels of cuts that austerity has made to local council budgets".

— Mark Rudd (@MarkRudd6243) April 9, 2019

Birmingham City Council in the West Midlands, a Labour council, came in third, where a "strategic director of major programmes and projects" receive £444,775 in total. The majority of payments for the official totalled £313,304 in pensions, according to a council spokesperson.

But Birmingham urged the UK government not to cut budget services, warning of a "catastrophic collapse", with the council later tapping into reserve finances to cover its budget.

Households will suffer a 4.7 per cent increase in council taxes for the 2019-2020 financial year as councillors state they must cut down on public services, but councillors are still receiving "staggering payouts" amid the tax hike, John O'Connell, CEO of the TPA, said.

"The average council tax bill has gone up by more than £900 over the last 20 years… disappointingly, many local authorities are now responding to financial reality through further tax rises and reducing services rather than scaling back top pay," Mr. O'Connell said.

He also stated that there were "talented people in the public sector who are trying to deliver more for less," but the massive remunerations packages "raise serious questions about efficiency and priorities."

Speaking about Mr Parkins' remuneration, a spokesman for Slough Council said: "These figures don't just involve almost a full year's salary, but also pension contributions and redundancy payments all of which, in Slough's case, are only what is contractually and statutorily mandated."