Dozens of council staff cost more than £100,000
Dozens of council staff across the West Midlands are costing in excess of £100,000 a year amid calls for a cull of top-earning bosses.
Figures released by the TaxPayers Alliance show there were more than 60 staff at 10 councils with pay and pension pots costing six figures in 2013.
Some staff also got more money because it included their redundancy packages.
The TPA said Staffordshire County Council was employing 28 staff on more than £100,000 a year in 2012/13.
But the council said seven of the staff on the TPA list received a salary in excess of £100,000 that year. The remaining 21 related to exit packages on top of salaries.
Ian Parry, deputy leader, said: "Senior staff have been instrumental in transforming the organisation to deliver £130m of savings over the last five years while council tax has either been frozen or reduced."
Nationally at least 2,181 council employees received total remuneration in excess of £100,000 that year, a fall of five per cent on the previous year's 2,295.
Councils across the country have lost millions of pounds in funding due to austerity measures imposed by the Government.
Join the debate in the comments section below
Jonathan Isaby, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is good news that the number of senior council staff making more than £100,000 a year is falling, although that may only be because many authorities have finished paying eye-watering redundancy bills.
"Sadly, too many local authorities are still increasing the number of highly paid staff on their payroll. It's particularly galling in places where councils are pleading poverty and demanding more and more in council tax.
"Taxpayers expect their council to be filling potholes, not pay packets. Many rank-and-file staff in local councils will be equally appalled - at a time when councils across the country are freezing pay, it appears the money they're saving is being used to line the pockets of town hall tycoons."
Staffordshire Council Council had a member of staff on the payroll who cost £212,500 last year.
Chief executive Nick Bell was on a salary of £194,550. He is leaving the county council in the autumn.
Sandwell Council had seven staff on remuneration packages of more than £100,000 - half the number of the year before.
The TPA said Wolverhampton City Council paid £187,223 for the services of Charles Green, who was brought in to oversee the council's regeneration plans on a temporary basis for two years. He was on a daily rate of £750 but has now been replaced by a full time director, Tim Johnson.
The council had eight staff on six figure packages but that includes the sums paid for making the former assistant chief executive and others redundant.
The figures show five staff on remuneration packages of more than £100,000 at Dudley Council, a drop of two on the previous year. There were seven at Walsall Council.
There was just one person with a package of more than £100,000 at each of Lichfield District Council, Cannock Chase District Council and Wyre Forest District Council and two at Stafford Borough Council and South Staffordshire Council.
