As the week began, the world held its breath. The anticipation was palpable. And then came news that would send shockwaves from Lands End to John o’ Groats. No, we’re not talking about the silliness going on stateside (and kudos to Keir for rightly declaring that nobody wins a trade war). It was, of course, the release of the 2025 Town Hall Rich List!
Now in its 19th year (yes, the first one was published all the way back in 2007 - time flies when you’re having fun!), our latest research showed town hall bosses have been enjoying bumper pay packages like never before.
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A record breaking 3,906 local bureaucrats romped home with six figure pay deals in 2023-24, up by 801 since the year before. Adding insult to injury, those getting over ÂŁ200,000 shot up by 50 per cent! While there were more councils that actually managed to get their accounts filed this year, the numbers still speak for themselves - as your council tax goes up, those charged with providing services are laughing all the way to the bank.
Glasgow City Council’s former chief executive topped the table with a jaw-dropping £567,317 in total remuneration, while Castle Point’s strategic director (resources) ran a close 2nd with £565,000. Westminster took the prize for most employees receiving £100,000 with 73.
While the rich list deals with total remuneration, including things like employer pension contributions, bonus payments and benefits in kind, many of the basic salary entitlements look hard to justify. In 2023-24, the prime minister was entitled to a salary of ÂŁ172,153, yet 238 council employees received a higher salary than this. We know councils are complex organisations but do those running them really have more responsibility than the prime minister?
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When the report was released, John O’Connell summed up the situation perfectly: “The number of council staff with six-figure remuneration packages has surged at the same time that services are being slashed and council tax is being hiked above inflation. Local residents can look up their own authority in our list and judge the quality of services and their council tax bill against the pay packets of their council bosses.”
But we won’t let it be said that the TPA doesn’t pay credit where it’s due. While some authorities seem to have no concept of restraint, we’d like to take a moment to highlight Burnley council who made do with no one getting ÂŁ100k, even if that's only because their chief executive changed during the year.Â
We’re not opposed to competitive pay for those in the public sector. As our Multi-Academy Trust rich list showed, some of those on hefty pay packets are achieving impressive results. But all too often, hard-pressed households are asked to shell out more and more while getting less and less.Â
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A nation of taxpayers: Huge Wages for Fat Cat Bosses
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Lead researcher on this year’s rich list Jonathan Eida joined podcast host, Duncan Barkes, and Cllr Matthew Goodwin-Freeman for this week’s episode of A nation of taxpayers.
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Naturally, the conversation was dominated by our findings with Jonathan providing insight on how much work goes into producing it while Matthew gave us some of his frustrations as a councillor holding these people to account, explaining: “When you’re dealing with officers that have maybe been around for years and years, had it easy, seen administrations come and go, they are the ones that actually you’re trying to nudge out the door. Then you get into the details of their contracts and gosh…”
Give the full episode a listen of a nation of taxpayers on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
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As a record breaking year, the media were all over the story and our team worked flat out to ensure taxpayers were heard. The rich list and John’s comments featured in the Telegraph, City A.M., the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Times, the i, the Daily Mirror, and literally hundreds of local papers.Â
The team also secured three op-eds with John writing in the Sun, Elliot Keck in the Telegraph, and Jonathan for LBC. All the while our media phone was ringing off the hook as broadcast producers sought our spokesmen for their shows.Â
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Of course we were only too happy to oblige. John kicked off on GB News, Elliot spoke to Nick Ferrari on LBC, while William Yarwood appeared in the studio with Mike Graham and yours truly joined Peter Cardwell on Talk. You’d have been hard pressed not to see any of the coverage to be honest.Â
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Look up your local council
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The whole point of producing this rich list is to arm taxpayers with the information they need to hold their councils to account. To make this as simple as possible, the TPA techies have put together a tool for you to look up your local council.
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Simply click here and you’ll be able to see all the employees at your council who are taking home the big bucks.
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What’s going wrong in Wales?
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As I mentioned earlier, part of this year’s increase is due to more councils actually getting their accounts filed. But one part of the country has seen their reporting decline since last year.
In Wales, one in six authorities failed to produce even a draft statement of accounts.
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With Welsh council taxpayers lacking even the protection of the referendum cap on rate rises and facing an average rise of 7.1 per cent this year, it is wholly unacceptable that town halls are failing to get their books published. Taxpayers have the right to scrutinise their councils and local authorities should be making that as easy as possible!
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Ten takeaways from Town Hall Rich List 2025
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With over 300 town halls to scrutinise, there’s a lot included in the rich list. We appreciate you might be busy so, if you’re looking for a quick summary of what we found, Callum McGoldrick has knocked up a handy cheat sheet, giving his ten key takeaways from this year’s rich list.
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From bonuses to golden goodbyes, Callum’s blog has you covered. And as he rightly says: “We publish THRL each year as a transparency exercise. A key element of democracy is holding decision makers accountable. Given that these town hall bosses are not elected, scrutiny at the ballot box is not possible. But local councillors have to approve the top remuneration packages. It is key for taxpayers, and voters, to be aware of the pay packets being received. It is up to them whether this is delivering value for money.”
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As mentioned above, Westminster council had a stonking 73 officials bagging over £100k. But after this week, local taxpayers will be wondering how on earth it’s justified given the latest madness to come from them.
Staff have been told to undergo a “privilege” test whilst non-white “ global majority” candidates are to be given preferential treatment when applying for senior positions. Residents simply want councils to be run well, delivering efficient services while keeping council tax low, not woke, divisive nonsense like this. |
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Benjamin Elks
Grassroots Development Manager
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