Council's Chief Executive earns £174,000

Roger Ellis

Rochdale Council’s Chief Executive earns £174,000, according to figures published by the GMB trade union.

In a table of the most recent published accounts of local councils it was shown that Rochdale’s Roger Ellis earns £174,000, including pension contributions.

The highest paid council boss in the North West is Colin Hilton of Liverpool City Council, who earned £278,714 in 2009/10. Cumbria’s Peter Stybelski earned the most, taking £464,114, although over £350,000 came from pension contributions.

Paul McCarty, GMB Regional Secretary said: “Council workers will be sickened to learn how much their bosses are creaming off and the levels of their bosses pay. This is at a time when councils say they are hard up and are slashing jobs and services while telling staff to put up with a pay freeze. These same chief executives have had the gall to say their lowest paid workers will not get any pay rise this year.

“I can’t believe that the council chief executives salaries have got so high with no obvious logic to explain this. You have to ask what our elected councilors are doing, voting through such obscene remuneration packages.

“To GMB members the real point is the difference between how those at the top treat themselves compared to what they impose on those on the front line. There are good chief executives who deserve a decent salary for running multibillion pound authorities but there are also hundreds of thousands of care assistants, school dinner ladies, refuse staff, social workers, classroom assistants, and street cleaners who also deserve decent pay, not the pittance they are on. There has to be restraint at the top combined with fairness at the bottom and there is no point having one without the other.”