285 Shropshire Council employees earn £50,000 or more
Monday 7th November 2011, 7:00PM GMT.
Almost 300 Shropshire Council staff have been paid £50,000 or more in the last financial year, according to new figures revealed today.
According to figures contained in the local authority’s statement of accounts for 2010/11, 285 workers received this level of remuneration.
Six people at the council were paid more than £100,000 in the last financial year, 107 between £50,000 and £54,000, and 74 were on a salary of £55,000 to £59,000.
It is up on 2009/10, when 190 employees took home £50,000 or more, but Shropshire Council today said the figures were not directly comparable.
Council spokesman Simon Alton said the 2009/10 figuers related to net salary, while the 2010/11 numbers took into account overtime and travel expenses.
He said 70 staff at schools moved into the £50,000 to £54,000 bracket in 2010/11 after a national pay increase for teachers.
Councillor Keith Barrow, leader of Shropshire Council, said the figures pre-dated a senior management review, and fewer staff were actually receiving such large salaries.
“The figures are before the senior management review which saved £5 million,” he said.
“We had lots of senior managers and dozens of assistant directors – assistant directors had a starting salary of £60,000 a year.”
He said the situation had improved immensely, with the council moving to replace the assistant directors and bringing in a new system of service heads.
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Oh, those poor Public Sector workers, you just have to feel sorry for them!
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You are a misinformed trolling buffoon. You’ll find the majority of public sector workers don’t earn half that amount.
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These figures are no surprise to me. I don’t earn anything like these amounts, as I am sure, is the case for a good many people. However, someone always has to be in charge, and there is no mention of the responsibilities of these high earners. I presume that they will have budgets of several millions of pounds, in which case the council are going to require people with qualifications, experience, and integrity. A high salary will ensure loyalty, and hopefully ensure that the right people are in the job.
I would feel pretty miffed if some “nomark” who intended ripping the council (and us) off was in post, but lets face it, you get what you pay for.
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You’d think these people would have such responsibilities wouldn’t you and I’m sure they do. But there’s also currently a spending freeze at the Council which dictates that any expenditure including that on pens, paper, printing and postage has to have a business case and be approved by one of a handful of the most senior managers and directors who are on those top salaries. Those on a mere £50k are not deemed experienced enough to make those kind of decisions any longer.
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simply out of touch at shirehall
sack them all and get some fresh faced young talent in for half the price
fix the councils budget problems overnight
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285 x £50,000 = £14.25 million!
Plus a cheif executive on more than the PM!
Plus Councillors (who doubled their allowance on the creation of Unitary Council) on over £1million!
Thats £16million just on managing the organisation, and its not seeming to deliver much results is it. They couldnt run an egg and spoon race at a school sports day. They cant even collect my cardboard properly!
I say this is frankly rediculous how can anyone take them seriously when they impose austerity on the disabled, the low paid and the youth whilst they waste so much on so called “top talent”
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dispicable.
most people in the county are lucky to earn 18. in farming its 12-14 max. these people dont even get their hands dirty unless the desks in shirehall are dusty!
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I have met a lot of poor farmers, some of them are driving Range Rovers that are nearly 18 months old!!!
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class response! ;-)
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How did we ever manage without them??
Then of course there are expenses to be claimed….
Worth every penny of your rate payers money, all of them…
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Other figures previously shown on this site show there are 6,500 staff at the council. If 300 of them are senior managers that represents 5% of the entire workforce or one senior manager for every twenty staff!
Twenty staff! There are sunday league football coaches who manage greater numbers. There are team leaders at mcdonalds on a night shift with bigger teams than that.
At the company I work for there are 95 staff and only two senior managers the MD and the Finance Director get that kind of pay and they manage all the staff directly without any middle managers to support them.
It just proves the need for wholesale reductions in staffing at Shropshire Council but not at the coal face but at the board room level. There are just too many managers. Managers play a role but ultimately they are a luxury because they cost more and well they dont actually directly do anything or deliver any services.
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I agree. Let’s shut all the small schools with less than 600 pupils so that there’s one senior manager for 45 staff like there are in Eion’s company. Some people should engage their brain before their fingers.
I also suspect that the figure includes a number of technical and/or legal experts who work for the Council for a total package (including pension) which is worse than they would get if they were in the private sector, but who choose to do so because they were trading security for renumeration, or because they beleive in public service.
Finally, if Eion didn’t have his back bent is such a tight circle that his head is in a position where his ears can’t hear and his eyes can’t see, he would know that there has been a wholesale reduction in senior managers in the Council in the year since these figures were valid.
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Iam all for saving money but if we shut all small schools with less than 600 pupils we would be hard pressed to find a school open. That would result in children being bused all around the county to access a school.
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£50,000 a year and yet they cant figure out a way of collecting our cardboard! Useless
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You can just see it, can’t you. Headline “Council spends £5m on saving Shrewsbury from giant meteortite”. Comment from Chris “£5m – and they can’t figure out a way of collecting our cardboard – Useless”. Give it a rest. The senior social work managers who take life or death decisions about abused children – should they spend their time figuring out how to collect your cardboard, Chris? Or perhaps they are better employed doing the vital jobs which most Council staff undertake on behalf of ingrates like yourself?
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ok how ridiculous, just sack the senior manager who come up with the brainwave of not collecting the cardboard. Someone on 10k a year would have an alternative system in place so that re-cycling can still be achieved.
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I wonder if anyone can guess where HowRidiculos works?
He/she has named themself very well
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it must be embarrasing for the real workers in the council who earn about £15 to 17,000 a year as the norm for inspecting rotten meat in abatoirs, removing asbestos from buildings, wiping the backside of disabled pensioners, filling in pot holes, picking up bins, cleaning toilets, fixing up council houses, removing road kill from the highway, patiently helping someone with learning difficulties find the correct library book, killing rat infestations, burying the dead, haggling with developers to protect our heritage, hosing blood off the pavement on a saturday night and cleaning up dogs muck to get lumped in with them
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WRONG! all this is now done by the PRIVATE sector through contractors. In Shirehall all they do is shuffle paper about and answer the phone all day whilst playing solitaire on their I Pads.
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Wrong king ken, the first post is 99% accurate, in fact most of the services listed above are done in house by council employees including fronline services like rat catching, toilet cleaning, street sweeping etc (they only one they dont do directly anymore is the bins and look at the mess that violia make of that every christmas!)
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OK, simple question to you all.
How much should they get paid?
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less than 50000 for starters only the cheif executive should be on that much at a tiny little council like shropshire
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It is the senior managers on these big salaries together with councillors that are making all the decisions. Pay themselves handsomely so that they can keep their fancy cars, fancy houses etc and then take away things that we need day to day like our schools.
I thought Councillors were volunteers who were paid expenses – so why is our Council Leader paid as much as some head teachers??? £45K is not reasonable expenses in my book.
This isn’t about public sector workers, it’s about public sector senior managers and Tory councillors protecting themselves while the rest of us pick up the pieces (including staff in Shirehall who have to bring their own toilet paper and soap to work….).
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Very well said.
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Get rid of Ryley and the Corporate Directors who add little value to anything for starters. Completely overpaid by any standards. They actually believe they “earn” their money swanning around at conferences with similar overpaid incompetant sorts. Laughable. The shame is that beneath these quite unnecessary top two tiers there are a lot of very able, highly qualified and committed people earning low-moderate salaries doing a huge amount of work whilst those above take all the credit. Vote em out !
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The labour market is subject to the same rules of supply and demand as any other market.
There are fewer chartered surveyors than, say, street cleaners, so the cost to hire one is greater. It’s hardly rocket science.
If you think this is unfair, feel free to put your life on hold while you obtain the necessary qualifications and be prepared to take your newly acquired skills on the road, relocating away from friends and family to where the work is so you can pursue a lucrative career. Nobody is stopping you.
If you still think it’s unfair, feel free to bleat about it on a regional newspaper web site. Nobody’s stopping you doing that either, but you’re not going to change anything.
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I don’t think anyone is saying all shoud be paid the same. It’s the sums of money involved that leave people open mouthed in amazement. Is the Chief Exec for example really, REALLY, worth £180k, or £200k (whichever figure is the real one)? Yes, reward them for the responsibility they have but be realistic with public money.
And as for taking your skills where the jobs are and relocating away from family…I have done so, and know plenty of others who have, just to get an average salaried job, for many it’s just to get any job – and certainly not one with a mega bucks payout in compensation for the inconvenience.
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100% correct.
Pleat in the local newspaper is the maximum any of you will do.
BUT nothing will change.
So the councillor’s responsible for this fiasco will just keep their heads down for a week or two, until it all blows over and you have all forgot about it.
The word ”Director” adds another £20,000 to the same job that used to be ”Managed”
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@ English Exile.
You rarely have anything nice to say about the people of Shropshire.
On Katie Price signing book recently your blogged,
“There really are some desperate people in Telford”
Above you write,
“Pleat in the local newspaper is the maximum any of you will do” (Should that be Bleat??)
And then you finish with,
“until it all blows over and you have all forgot about it”
There have been many previous blogs where you have sniped at us. Please stop!
I guess from your title that you either live or spend a deal of time abroad. Thats nice, congratulations that you are able to do so.
That you have decided to abandon Shropshire leads me to believe you have forfeited your right to be nasty about us.
It is niether big or clever or for that matter appreciated.
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if its supply and demand then they should all take a massive pay cut because there is not much demand for executives in shropshire and there is an over supply of people for jobs now as evident by the 3 million unemployed in this country
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supply and demand? sack them then
there is no longer any demand for them as there is “no money left”
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In my experience you have to be ruthless and unprincipled to succeed as a senior manager in the brave new world that is Shropshire Council – it wouldn’t be quite so bad if high salaries resulted in good people making good decisions with the majority’s interests at heart rather than cementing their own powerful positions and interests.
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Simply put a cap in place of say a maximum number of 12 people who can earn more than this figure so if one person moves up the ladder due to progression, bonuses, over time or promotion then another must leave the organisation, one in one out, keep it capped in that way to control costs. I think this would be a good policy
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So Head-teachers account for this.
Well I dont begrudge the Head of a massive urban comprehensive earning 50k, some of the colleges in Shrewsbury and Oswestry especially in deprived areas are huge jobs which in fact they should get more.
But, there are hundreds of schools in Shropshire some of which are just 30 pupils in a picturesque rural village. The Heads here employ four or five staff max and manage tiny budgets and one or two buildings. They certainly do NOT deserve 50k and if anything about 30 would be appropriate
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The Heads of the small primaries don’t tend to get these salaries. The bigger the school the more the money. These are set at a national level.
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And what’s more, they do a really important job. Surely educating our children is a hugely valuable thing to do and should be prioritised even if we are in a recession.
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Or simply employ people who are committed to serving the public, not making bonk loads of money and taking stuff away from everyone else.
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what do they really do for that money? I have a PhD and only earn £25,000 a year. What are they ? super human or something
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Supply and demand rules, and obviously the demand for what you can provide comes out at about £25K per year.
Whether you have any respect for council executives who earn large sums for apparently doing little, there’s no point sniping at them. They clearly worked out that spending all their time studying for a PhD that would only earn them £25K a year wasn’t perhaps a great use of their time.
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Having a PhD doesn’t necessarily mean that you are fabulously qualified for the jobs market- a PhD can be in anything, nuclear physics, pet psychology, tropical botany, toe-nail fungi…..
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Here we go again. What entirely predictable, mis-informed, mean minded nonsense!
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Absolutely.
I find it interesting and ironic that many of those who are so critical of these salaries have such poor standards of literacy that they clearly couldn’t qualify to do even the most junior of clerical jobs within the public sector, let alone responsible managerial or professional jobs.
Examples: ‘rediculous’; ‘cheif’ etc. and please, don’t get me started on the punctuation errors!
Let’s not forget that almost all of those who work for councils earn far less than £50k, and many would be classed as among the low-paid.
Those who criticise so readily are often the same people who fail to show any understanding of the complexity and variety of the services councils provide, and take the limited services they do use entirely for granted.
It may come as news to some of you, but in larger companies in the private sector £50k or more is not that unusual a salary for middle management or for roles requiring professional qualifications.
£50k is a substantial salary, and well above the average salary, but I would prefer to have good quality people running our councils and our public services, rather than the cheapest possible regardless of quality.
Contrary to the blindly prejudiced nonsense often spouted in these columns, if we didn’t compete in salary terms, these people would simply walk to better paid jobs in the private sector.
I can understand people being aggrieved that their money ends up on other people’s pockets – but who do you think pays the obscene multi-million pound salary packages of the fat cats in the private sector, whose salaries have apparently increased by over 50% in the last year? Who pays for the massive tax loopholes they are allowed? When your energy company puts up its prices far in excess of inflation and announces large profits and bonuses for its senior managers, who pays for that?
We all do of course, and we should be very angry about that. Some of you are barking up the wrong tree!
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Yet again Shropshire Council = PR disaster. You have to look at the top brass there kim ryley especially and think what on earth are they doing dragging the name of the Council through the dirt with their wasteful ways
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Staff at Shropshire Council get paid more to work less than those of us who pay their wages FACT.
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As your comment obviously isn’t a fact I assume that FACT is capitalised because it stands for something. But what?
False And Clap Trap
Factually Ambiguous Comment Typist
Fat Anteater Clears Throat
Far Above Conspiracy Theories
Whatever!
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Tyrone,
As you don’t seem to understand, perhaps I can explain the difference to you. A FACT is much more important than an ordinary little fact. It’s so much better that if you are lucky enough to be in possession of one, you don’t need to worry about statistics or proof or any other supporting evidence at all. Very few people are considered wise enough to be trusted with a FACT. I’m really honoured that Paul has decided to share his with us.
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All these staff should go and do a ‘back to the floor day’ answering the phones, emptying bins, talking to the oap’s in care homes, that would be the most single transformative thing the council could do to make its managers better leaders and make better descisions.
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All that skill and leadership and qualifications and brain power in one place. Yet between them they still cant figure out a way to collect my cardboard!? Oh dear.
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My wife has a friend who works for the council (I’d guess she’s on about 30k) and she’s one of about 6 people with differant titles doing the same job, she says the whole council is the same.
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Yeah, my brother’s wife’s colleague’s friend went there on business once and saw someone drinking blood. It may have been ribena but it was probably blood. And they probably all drink it. Sack them all. Flibble flibble.
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My uncle’s neighbour’s landlord’s acquaintance possibly saw the same thing- although not on business as the wasters at the council don’t do any work, they are all too busy polishing their gold plated pensions. I think it must have been at a seminar on ‘Pointless Inefficiency’. Anyway, according to him/her the whole council is the same, especially most of them. So it must be true.
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Well, I know of someone else, who thought they heard, via their first cousin once removeds, half brother’s lodger’s step sister that a friend of a friend of theirs used to work with someone who sometimes did contract work for the council and they said….I can’t even remember what they said….I’ll get me coat.
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my mums sisters cousin tells me that she once read in the daily mail that all staff there dont have to pay any council tax and get free cars provided too apparently!
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And it’s all too obvious, judging by these commments, that public sector workers have little to do during the day, except comment on this site…which can be seen by the times of their comments…..ooops!
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well i heard a rumour that they are all interdimensional shape shifting lizards in shirehall they eat live young and are planning to take over the world
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roadrunner-
If you’re including me in your comment, no, I don’t work for Shropshire Council. I’ve never worked for any Local Authority. Then again, why let the facts get in the way of hot air and assumption?
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Road runner – I’m not a public sector worker either. I have worked for the public sector in the past but moved to the private sector because it offered better pay and conditions for the job that I did.
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“I’d guess she’s on £30k” – How do you guess someone’s salary (if that’s what you meant)?
“she’s one of about 6 people” – can’t they add up to six?
“differant”?
“the whole council is the same” – what, earning £30K, having “differant titles” or something that you haven’t mentioned?
Whatever it is that you mean, thank you for providing me and others with a small measure of amusement on this gloomy evening.
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Yet again Shropshire council need to learn from the better labour run Telford Council who are slimming the number of senior managers they employ down to a mere 13, cutting the Cheif Executives pay and generally clamping down on top pay to protect the lower paid and the frontline services.
Well done Telford, watch and learn Barrow
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Disgusting. I work in the private sector. I do long hours for low pay and just had our pay cut but Im not allowed to go on strike.
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yes you are mick – you have a legal right to strike – more the fool you for not doing so you might have been able to save your pension if you did
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Mick,
I think the truth of it is that you work in the private sector and have made no attempt to join a union, organise and challenge your possibly greedy employer not to cut your pay. If you joined a union, and a properly constituted vote established that a strike was called for, you would be legally entitled to strike.
I have every sympathy with you for having to accept a pay cut – but little with the idea that you didn’t protest about it, and that you criticise others who do have the gumption to do so.
Oh, and by the way – I’m not a public servant, I work in the private sector and I’m a member of a trade union – so it is all perfectly possible.
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Excellently put.
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usual public sector bashing without knowing the full facts. I work as a Planner in local government. I studied beyond degree level and have a professional qualification that makes me a chartered town planner. I earn £37,000 a year – is this excessive? I don’t think so for the effort I went to in studying and supply and demand of professional planners means I could, if I chose, earn AT LEAST £50,000 if I chose to work in the private sector (of which I should add, there are plenty of jobs around in the private sector at the moment for planners). However, I get a genuine kick out of being a public servant, and making planning decisions for the benefit of the general public, rather than because of the bottom line.
Having worked in both local government and the private sector for over a decade I can say with absolute certainty that 99% of my colleagues have a similar attitude. I am yet to come across any post in the public sector that pays more than an equivalent post in the private sector – trust me, if money was the sole motivation most local authorities would have no staff at all.
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off you go then mate, bye bye, we dont want you
what you fail to mention is that you take home 37k for now *(well over paid) but you’re getting another 10k in pension contributions! So thats why you stay in the public sector, you wouldnt get any pension at all in the private sector and if you were really worth 50k you would leave then
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Actually – when I worked in the private sector I got £3000 a year more basic salary for an equivalent post, I also got a generous contributory pension, a car worth £17,000, and an annual bonus of at least £4000. The demands on my time were broadly equivalent and in both cases I did and do regularly work at home in the evenings when required. I simply wanted to do a job that gives me an altruistic kick and I never got the same satisfaction in the private sector. That I choose to work in the public sector has nothing to do with my ability or my propensity for doing hard work in often very challenging situations but I guess this version of the truth doesn’t appeal to the average Shropshire-dwelling Daily Mail reading populace. If that’s the case then I’m glad I left Shrewsbury 11 years ago to move to a more enlightened part of the world!!
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“you wouldnt get any pension at all in the private sector”
What absolute nonsense.
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TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE MANAGERS!!!!! That is a complete joke! most people in a local authority are professionals they can manage their own workloads they dont need to be told what to do. How can they possibly justify having such a large number of managers?
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It’s NOT 285 managers – read it again! 285 workers. This will include highly qualified and trained proefessionals like Headteachers, solicitors, achitects and so on. This is why there are a stupid amount of wrong “facts” being posted on here.`
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Yet Again. Its A Shambles. Shirehall is in Chaos. The Ship is Sinking. Bye Bye Barrow.
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u wud reckon 1 of this super-execs cud figure out how to collect my cardboard hey?
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So the regular troll known as Roadrunner has somehow deduced that those responding to a particular post above all work in the public sector now.
Amazing: I wonder whether he/she would care to share with us this weekend’s lottery numbers as well.
Is your life so empty Roadrunner that your only pleasure appears to be posting bitter snipes against the public sector at every opportunity?
Who cares if there’s little or no evidence to back up comments? Certainly not Roadrunner.
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Ooops Mark are we upset? I just assumed that people supporting public sector workers, earning in excess of £50K would be public sector workers, especially as they seem to have time on their hands during the day.
No-one that I know in the private sector, supports public sector workers, so I assume they are self supporting…;-)
But feel free to comment otherwise, whilst sat at your desk with nothing better to do…;-)
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Upset Roadrunner? Not in the slightest; more a case of mildly amused.
Amused at your seemingly never ending ability to place foot firmly in mouth through regular posting of troll like assumptions, based on little more than your own apparent envy and/or prejudice.
Oh well, as long as it keeps you happy during the long dark nights.
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Well actually , Mark, I was working for councils when you were probably still in short trousers and still have many contacts inside, so know just as well as you, what goes on “inside those hallowed walls”. You can’t pull the wool over my eyes. It’s a fact that councils were places of high wages and overstaffing when I worked there, a few decades ago but it’s certainly gotten more lucrative over the last few decades, with their new job descriptions which came about in the eighties, enabling more “managerial” positions to justify the obscene wages that occassionally leak out to the press.
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Who in their right mind would ‘hate’ everyone who worked in either the public or private sector? There will be good and bad people working in both sectors. To suggest everyone in the public sector is a wastrel, serves only to display one’s complete ignorance.
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No one is suggesting that people “hate” public sector workers, Julian. People who pay taxes and council taxes, do however, hate being ripped off year after year of council tax increases to pay for wasted resources, whether it be stupid schemes or high wages to people who do little work and cannot justify their jobs.
If you worked for Ricoh or British Gas and did little to justify your wage, that would not be my concern but a concern for your employer, as your salary to work ratio which would show up in their profits and be of no interest to me.
However I feel that I do have a right to be concerned how my taxes are spent when it comes to Public Sector wastage. Sorry if this offends you but it is my money that I’m spending and I have a right to get value for my money.
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This is a great read! And I’d like to reiterate mecurials post “Shropshire Council = PR disaster”. Class.
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thats about 250 too many by my calculations! and im an accountant who earns a mere £28k p.a. unlike the councils accountants on £50k+
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What type of accountant are you? What do the senior accountants in your organisation (I’m assuming you are in an organisation similar to the council in terms of breadth and depth)
I can assure you that the majority of the council’s qualified accountants earn £30k or less.
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When there are posts on here with reference to shirehall and/or teachers employees it does make me laugh.
Because the majority on these posts want’s to sit on your backside whilst others may have studied hard to get good qualifications and then get a well paid job are in any way at fault for your lazyness then it’s your fault not theirs!
As for the shirehall is in chaos/not fit for purpose/shambles etc etc, get a complete grip of yourself!
oh and AJ all because you only earn £28000 does that mean others can only earn the same???
The majority on here can only hope to earn a good wage going my the illiterate comments i read!!
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You literacy wouldn’t get you an A level English pass either but a job with the council, maybe!!
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Its not enough sack the managment they are just too expensive
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Should’nt we all be congratulating those of us (In Council) who earn over 50K, it is through sheer hard work that these salaries are awarded.
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Oh, Oh, Oh!!
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