The number of highly paid staff at Argyll and Bute Council has increased for the third year in succession.
Latest figures show that 123 workers at the authority – which has been forced to make a succession of cuts to frontline services – earned more than £50,000 last year.
And as in the previous year the authority spent over £1m on ‘exit packages’ to cover redundancies, 90% of which were not compulsory in 2017-18 – but this year the £1m was shared between 29 people, rather than 59 as last year.
Six people received exit packages costing more than £80,000 and in two cases these were valued at more than £100,000.
The packages include redundancy payments, ‘pension strain’ and compensatory lump sum payments.
The highest paid staff member was new chief executive Cleland Sneddon, whose salary including fees and allowances was £124,765.
He was followed by executive director of customer services Douglas Hendry on £99,214, acting executive director of customer services Ann Marie Knowles (£98,769) and executive director of development and infrastructure services Pippa Milne (£98,769).
The average gross weekly pay for full-time workers in Argyll and Bute is £488.80 – below the Scottish average of £493.80 and British average of £502.60.
In 2016-17 the number of council staff earning more than £50,000 rose from 109 to 121 – and 2015-16’s total was an increase of more than 30% on the previous year’s figure of 85.
An Argyll and Bute Council spokesperson said: “The council needs experienced, capable and skilled people at all levels to develop and deliver services through the period of considerable change affecting local government across Scotland.
“We adhere to local and national pay agreements to attract and retain skilled employees, and to ensure our staff are paid fairly for the work they do.
“A national pay award of 1% moved two employees marginally above the £50,000 mark. No council employee earns a basic salary of more than £125,000.
“The remuneration figures can include salary, taxable benefits and payments which employees whose posts are made redundant are legally entitled to.
“To achieve savings, we have to make changes to our staffing levels using a voluntary redundancy process for those employees who wish to leave.
“The cost of these packages ultimately creates a saving for the council within three years.”
The latest figures available in the council’s annual unaudited accounts, available here as a PDF: unaudited_annual_accounts_2017-18_-_signed_web
Argyll & Bute is a disgrace. The only thing they are good at it recruiting managers and giving themselves pay rises. This council, along with many others should be split up into really local units of council management. The number of officials should be at a minimum with what used to be known as the town clerk running the show. Councillors should make decisions rather than, as now , being told what was to happen by a small clique of decider councillors and their officials.
Ask any councillor to get something, anything, done and you will get a parroted answer provided by the officials “we have no money” or “we will look at this when we can” or “we have looked at this and it cannot be justified”, all meaning go away and forget it. I have made numerous suggestions for real improvements in safety around the area and all have received the same treatment. I fully expect that many others have done the same.
Examples are:
a. Before the work was done to change King St Junction to single lanes I told more than one councillor that it was a mistake and would cause hold ups and congestion. Shoulders were shrugged.
b. I suggested that the road between the two roundabouts at Balloch and Arden on the A82 be made “no right turn” to cut down the number of accidents with drivers trying to dart in, or more likely out, across traffic at the Duck bay or Cameron House junction.
c. The fact that Winston Road is a bus route and has no effective pavements and cars parked on a corner making it blind since Churchill estate was built in the 1960s is a disgrace. I spoke to both councillors and officials a couple of years ago. Nothing has been done.
d. Walk along the west prom and there are two sets of steps with concrete seats in the middle. From the prom to the level of the top[ seat is equal to two steps and there is nothing to highlight the danger of mistaking the seats for a step and having a nasty fall. I wrote to and spoke to a councillor but the council decided they could do nothing to make it safer.