Taxpayers to fork out £84k for chief

Wolverhampton City Council is set to pay £84,000 in wages for a new assistant chief executive, it emerged today.

The authority is advertising the controversial new post this week, despite claims that it would be an "outrageous duplication" of chief executive Richard Carr's role.

The new job advert was circulated internally towards the end of last week and will now be placed in local government magazines.

The post will be funded by taxpayers and comes just as bosses confirmed that council tax will rise an inflation-busting 4.75 per cent from April – the 11th year in a row that council tax has increased beyond inflation.

The new assistant chief executive, on a salary of between £77,000 and £84,618, will be tasked with developing council policy and supporting Mr Carr in his role as boss of the Labour-controlled authority. Councillor Andrew Wynne, opposition Tory spokesman for finance, said: "If we had our way, we would not have created this job – it is expensive and unnecessary, and duplicates a lot of the work the chief executive is asked to do."

"It is an insult that this comes at the same time that council tax is due to go up 4.75 per cent, and I am astounded that the salary on offer is actually so high," added the finance spokesman.

"Strengthening the council as its centre is a backward step anyway. We have gone a very long time without an assistant chief executive and I don't see why we need one now," he added. The city council is creating a deputy chief executive as part of a senior management changes taking place over the next year, which includes the deletion of the director of finance post.

Finance director Brian Bailey is leaving in April 2009 to manage the £8 billion West Midlands Pensions Fund, with a new deputy chief executive, new chief finance offer and deputy head of finance being created to soften the blow.

Councillor Milkinder Jaspal, cabinet member for organisation, people and performance, said: "Whoever gets the job will be dealing with a budget of more than £340 million and over 12,000 staff – so the money might sound like a lot, but in the real world we need to attract quality people.

"The chief executive takes on a lot of work and we need someone underneath him to interact with the heads of department and provide a strategic role. I think it's needed," he added.