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SALFORD COUNCIL FAT CATS |
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Star date: 30th June 2010 INCREASE IN BIG EARNERS AT SALFORD CITY COUNCIL While everyone is being threatened with public sector cuts, draft accounts for Salford City Council show an increase in the number of staff earning above £50,000 a year during 2009-2010. A total of 253 Council staff earned over £50,000, compared to 242 staff in 2008-9. Figures also show 19 people at the Council earned over £85,000 compared to 13 people last year, while top earner is Chief Executive Barbara Spicer, who pulled in £201,329 including pension contributions. |
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AUSTERITY IN SALFORD? For the first time, Salford City Council has had to disclose full details of its high earners. In the past the Council has merely given numbers of employees earning within bands of `remuneration’ but due to new regulations we now know who earns what at the highest pay levels. Top earner is Chief Executive, Barbara Spicer, who pulled in £201,329 including pension contributions. Her employer pension contributions of £25,214 alone is more than most people in Salford earn in a year. Next highest earner was Alan Westwood, Strategic Director of Customer and Support Services, with a whopping £133,593 including pension contributions. One of his responsibilities is, er, `fiscal management’ and it’s to him that you address your council tax payments. Next up is the Strategic Director of Community, Health and Social Care, otherwise known as Sue Lightup, wife of the current Mayor of Salford. She earned £133,803 including pension contributions. It was Sue who admitted subjective judgements in advising the community against the Salford Star’s funding application for £3,500. Got any spare change for the Star, Sue? Meanwhile, Barbara Spicer’s Assistant Chief Exec, Kevin Brady, earned £125,592 including pension contributions. In the previous year the role was only worth £114,227 including pension contributions. That’s a pay hike of over £10,000. Hope he’s not responsible for selling the pay freeze to public sector workers… Those having their houses pulled down, or living in the hell of a demolition zone, will be thrilled to learn that the Strategic Director of Regeneration, Paul Walker, pulled in £131,412 including pension contributions and a £5,855 `expense allowance’. The mysterious `Director of Change’ was next in the fat cat earnings league with £96,919 including pension contributions. This is incredible because, firstly, we don’t know who he or she is, and secondly, there is no `Change’ directorate. Try searching for `Director of Change’ on the Council’s website or even Google and you get nowt. So what does this person change, apart from his or her own bank balance? Answers/guesses in our comments box please… The enigmatic Director of Change earned more than the City Treasurer, John Spink, who earned a mere £95,204 including pension contributions. Fourth in the high earners league table should have been Jill Baker, the Strategic Director of Children’s Services, with a salary of £115,761 but unfortunately the accounts show that she only earned £94,573 as she, er, left the Council under a cloud in December 2009. Well, if you pay mega peanuts you get… The draft accounts also show that the former City Solicitor, Anthony Rich, earned £89,269 including pension contributions and £6,216 `compensation for loss of office’. He didn’t do as well as the former Managing Director of Urban Vision, the Council’s joint venture company, whose `annualised salary’ was £82,317 but left in October 2009 taking with him £131,172, including pension contributions and a £51,716 payment as `compensation for loss of office’. Altogether, 19 Council employees earned over £85,000 in the year 2009-10, compared to 13 the year before. And those earning above £50,000 jumped from 242 in 2008-9 to 253 in 2009-10. Meanwhile, the highest earning councillor in the year 2009-10 was John Merry, who pocketed £38,277 including a claim for £12 `travel and subsistence’. Next highest earner with £26,735 was Councillor Roget Lightup, husband of third highest Council employee earner, Sue Lightup. Must have been some Christmas down at the Lightups… In third place comes Councillor David Lancaster, who took £25,816, including £1,099 the highest claim for `travel and subsistence’. Next up come seven councillors who pocketed £166,322 between them (an average of £23,760 each) – take a bow councillors Derek Antrobus, Peter Connor, Bill Hinds, Keith Mann, Joseph Murphy, John Warmisham and Barry Warner. Altogether, councillors and `co-opted members’ claimed £911,000 in allowances during 2009-10 (click here to see them). Stop Press: 1:30pm One of our readers has just informed us that Martin Vickers is the amazing Director of Change – anyone know what he `changes’ for £96,919 a year?
Photo of Barbara Spicer by Albert Spiby |
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