Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, how many local authority employees are paid a salary of over £100,000 per annum.

This information is not held centrally. Local authorities are independent employers and my Department does not collect detailed information about the remuneration of senior local authority staff.

Local authorities are required to publish details of the remuneration of their most senior employees in their annual Statements of Accounts. This includes information about salary, fees, allowances, expenses, employer’s pension contribution and other benefits. Statements of Accounts must be available for public inspection including on an authority’s website.

The Government has taken steps to further increase the transparency and accountability of local decisions on pay and reward through the local government transparency code. On 3 October, the Department further strengthened the public’s ability to scrutinise councils by including a requirement in the code that councils publish information on salaries of employees earning £50,000 or more, as well as a range of other pay and workforce information.

In addition, measures introduced in the Localism Act 2011 require authorities to publish an annual statement explaining their policies toward the pay and reward of their staff, particularly senior staff. Our guidance on these measures asks councils to give full council the opportunity to vote on senior appointments and exit packages of £100,000 or more before they are rubber-stamped.