Nearly 100 council employees in London earned more than the Prime Minister last year, a “town hall rich list” has revealed.
Research by The TaxPayer’s Alliance shows that 97 employees across London, ranging in roles from Chief Executive to a Coroner and a Human Resources Director, had a higher salary than Sir Keir Starmer, who earns £172,153 a year.
There were seven council employees at Westminster City Council, Wandsworth, Greenwich, who earned more than the prime minister, while there were eight employees at Bromley Council who had a higher salary than Sir Keir Starmer.
Across the country, there were 238 council employees nationally who earned a greater salary than the Prime Minister in 2023/24, an increase of 50 compared to the 188 council employees who earned more than the PM in 2022-23.
An extra 28 council employees in London earned more than the Prime Minister in 2023/2024 compared to 2022/2023, when 69 London employees earned more than the Prime Minister.
At that point, the Prime Minister’s salary was £164,951.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said he was concerned by the figures on Tuesday and called for councils to invest in “services making a difference”.
He told LBC: “We, in the budget for the first time, put some real money into councils, because they've been genuinely incredibly squeezed, whichever political control they've been under for the last decade and a half.
“Now, I would want that spent on the front line. I'd want that spent on services making a difference.”
Westminster City Council tops Town Hall Rich List
Further figures, which factor in salaries, bonuses and other benefits, show that Westminster City Council had more staff rewarded with six-figure salaries than anywhere else in the country.
The TaxPayer’s Alliance research revealed 73 staff members in Westminster received total remuneration of at least £100,000, 13 more than compared to 2023/24.
Westminster also had eight employees who received at least £200,000, while Bromley, the City of London, and Wandsworth all had seven employees who topped that figure.
The number of council employees who received six-figures varies dramatically across London, with Greenwich (62) and Hackney (52) having some of the highest numbers.
On the other end of the scale, Croydon has no employees who received at least £100,000, while the Executive Director of Children’s Services in Richmond was the only council employee in the borough who received at least £100,000.
Across the country in 2023/24, at least 3,906 council employees received £100,000 or more, a rise of 801 employees compared to 2022-2023.
A total of 22 of the 33 boroughs will send out benchmark band D bills that surpass £2,000 - seven of them for the first time.
Total bills will range from almost £2,500 in Kingston, which will remain the capital’s most expensive borough for council tax, to just £990 in Wandsworth and just over £1,000 in Westminster.
Across London, the average annual increase in band D bills will be about £90 - only because Wandsworth, Westminster and the City of London set such comparatively low bills.
This includes the £18.92 increase in the mayor of London Sir Sadiq Khan’s “precept” that is levied on all borough bills.
Households in most boroughs, as in many local authorities across the country, face a 5 per cent increase in council tax.
