MPs quiz town hall chiefs on huge salaries

Some of London’s highest-paid town hall chiefs were today challenged to defend their six-figure pay packets.

Chief executives from Wandsworth, Camden, Thurrock and Barking & Dagenham councils were appearing before a committee of MPs probing claims of excessive rises in local government remuneration.

They include Paul Martin, the chief executive at Wandsworth, whose salary hit £203,136 in 2012. It rose to £254,880 with other payments and pension contributions. Another is Graham Farrant of Thurrock, who earned £198,000 in 2012.

Camden’s Mike Cooke is believed to earn around £160,000. But his pay is lower than predecessor Moira Gibb, who earned £236,000 in 2011.

Labour MP Simon Danczuk, a member of the Communities and Local Government select committee which is holding the investigation, said: “I want to ask these council executives to justify the very high amounts of salary they receive. How can they argue that there should be such a differential between the lowest-paid people and themselves? Some often finish at 4.30pm on a Friday or get time off in lieu for attending a late committee meeting.”

In a memo to the committee Camden’s Mr Cooke said bumper rises were stopped in the borough after the economic crash, though London councils had raised executive pay between 2003 to 2009 to prevent talented staff quitting for better-paid jobs in the City.

The annual Town Hall Rich List compiled by the Taxpayers Alliance found that 2,525 council employees in England and Wales were paid over £100,000 a year, with 636 pocketing over £150,000 and 42 getting £250,000 or more. Camden had more employees earning over £100,000 than any other council, with 40.

The Alliance said council tax bills have almost doubled in the last 10 years while “town hall bureaucrats are still getting remarkably generous deals”.

A Camden council spokesman said only 16 of its staff were on salaries of over £100,000. He said a TPA report claiming the true number was 40 had been inaccurate.