A report on local authority settlement agreements conducted by the TaxPayers Alliance has found that Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council had the highest average payouts amongst local authorities in the country during the 3 year period between 2016-19
Settlement Agreements
The report by the TaxPayers Alliance revealed that between 2016-19, local authorities nationwide entered into 6,980 settlement agreements overall, with £98,059,105,00 paid out in total.
The average payout according to the report was £14,048.59, whilst the highest total amount paid out was by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, who paid out £8,552,433.00 in relation to 371 settlement agreements. This was also the highest number of settlement agreements entered into by any one Council, and included a pay out of £195,463.00 to just one particular individual, the highest known individual pay out by a local authority during the 3 period in question.
Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council
One of the main findings of the TaxPayers Alliance report, however, was that the highest average payout during the 3 year period in question was by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, who paid out an average of £79,628.00 on their settlement agreements. Indeed, in total, the Council paid out £398,139.50 on 5 settlement agreements. Moreover, the average payout of £79,628.00 is £65,579.41 higher than the nationwide average of £14,048.59. In fact, it is over 5.5 times the national average.
The figures relating to Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council are also considerably higher than the two neighbouring councils in that area of the country: Hart District Council and Test Valley Borough Council. Hart District Council paid out £57,023.64 on just 1 settlement agreement during the 3 year period. Test Valley Borough Council, meanwhile, paid out £100,523.27 on 7 settlement agreements, with an average payout of £14,360.47, a figure that is almost in line with the national average.
Reaction
Commenting upon the figures, the head of human resources and organisational development at Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council, Sarah Cragg, stated: "The council never comments on employment matters concerning individual employees. Termination payments are made in accordance with the council’s adopted procedures and the law."
Nevertheless, speaking to the Basingstoke Gazette, Councillor Ian Tilbury, contended in relation to the settlement agreements that: "You get these stock answers that this is nothing to do with you as councillors....It is lots of money and they should be accountable....I think the problem is that there is a big issue when you are having to pay people a lot of money to go away...What has gone on at the council in recent years has cost us a fortune, and all we know is that we have given them a lot of money."
Tilbury added: "We don't know why those people have gone and why they have been paid. This is becoming the norm. It is wrong when the council don't even know what the problems are."
Other TaxPayers Alliance Findings
In another recent report, the TaxPayers Alliance has found that at a time when the country is suffering from a very serious cost of living crises and taxes have increased to a 70 year high, the number of people employed by local authorities nationwide who earn over £100,000.00 per annum has increased to 2,921 in the financial year 2020/21, up 119 on the previous year. That represents an average of 7.7 employees on such salaries per local authority
The report also found that:-
- The number of local authority employees nationwide earning in excess of £150,000.00 in 2020/21 was 739, up 46 on the previous year
- 23 local authority employees nationwide received severance packages containing loss of office payments in excess of £95,000.00
Earning More Than The Prime Minister
At the time that this report was published, Boris Johnson was still Prime Minister and he had a salary of £157,372.00. The TaxPayers Alliance found that 234 local authority employees nationwide earned more than the Prime Minister. This begs the question as to how it can be right for an individual working within a local authority to be earning more than the person who is employed to run the country
Comments
Commenting upon the findings, the chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, John O’Connell, stated: "Taxpayers facing a cost of living crisis want to know they are getting value for money from their local authority leadership. With households having suffered through the pandemic and now struggling under colossal tax bills, the country needs councils to prioritise key services without resorting to punishing tax hikes. These figures will allow residents to judge town hall bosses for themselves and hold their local councils to account."
MP, Sir John Hayes, added: "Many of these senior local bureaucrats are earning far more than the Prime Minister, thousands are earning more than Members of Parliament. People whose responsibility is not for the whole country but for a locality and are being paid an awful lot of taxpayers’ money. It does seem odd that the person governing the country is earning half of some of the people governing the shires. Maybe we should use the Prime Minister’s salary as a measure of what’s appropriate for non-elected people."
