Month: May 2026

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has recently published their 20^th Town Hall Rich List.  This list compiles data on all local authority employee’s receiving over £100,000 in total remuneration.

The research is extensive with a summary available at https://taxpayersalliance.com/town-hall-rich-list-2026/, and full details at https://taxpayersalliance.com/content/files/2026/04/Town-Hall-Rich-List-2026-1.pdf.  The full dataset is also available from https://taxpayersalliance.com/content/files/2026/04/Town-Hall-Rich-List-2026.xlsx.

“The prime minister had a salary entitlement of £172,153 in 2024. There were 320 council employees who received a higher salary than this in 2024-25”

Some of the Key findings include:

• There were at least 4,733 local authority employees receiving £100,000 or more in total remuneration in 2024-25.
• 1,255 local authority employees had total remuneration of at least £150,000 in 2024-25.
• The prime minister had a salary entitlement of £172,153 in 2024. There were 320 council employees who received a higher salary than this in 2024-25, a third more than in 2023-24.
• The highest remunerated individual in 2024-25 was an individual from Staffordshire council who received £457,500. The name and job title of this individual were not provided.

Over 20 years £100,000 no longer has the same worth as it once did, and the median annual gross earnings for full-time employees in the UK is now over £39,000 per year.  However, it is also worth noting that earning over £100,000 puts you in the top 4% of UK earners.

“Continuing a theme of not disclosing data, details of 14 of the 21 roles have not been disclosed.  Croydon Council has still not fully disclosed data on spending over £500 from 2025”

Remuneration in Croydon

After 3 years of failing to publish data on earnings over £100,000, Croydon Council has now made the data available, although I can’t find this available on their website.  Continuing a theme of not disclosing data, details of 14 of the 21 roles have not been disclosed.  Croydon Council has still not fully disclosed data on spending over £500 from 2025 and has published no data since January this year.  You might think going bankrupt 3 times, having the commissionaires in, and increasing council tax by a third over 4 years might be a reason to be more transparent with residents, but it’s clear Croydon Council doesn’t.

The 21 roles paying over £100,000 are as follows:

Name	Job title	Salary	Pension	Total
Katherine Kerswell	Chief executive	£219,890	£3,948	£223,838
Susmita Sen	Corporate director of housing	£169,604	£39,348	£208,952
Annette McPartland	Corporate director adult social care and health	£164,151	£38,083	£202,234
Elaine Jackson	Interim assistant chief executive	£153,002	£36,514	£189,516
Jane West	Corporate director of resources and s151 officer	£174,813		£174,813
Debbie Jones	Interim executive director of children’s, young people and education	£164,151		£164,151
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£162,500		£162,500
Nicholas Hibberd	Corporate director of sustainable communities, regeneration and economic recovery	£125,320	£29,074	£154,394
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£142,500		£142,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£132,500		£132,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£132,500		£132,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£132,500		£132,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£132,500		£132,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£117,500		£117,500
Undisclosed	Undisclosed	£107,500		£107,500

This compares to recent years as below:

Year	Number over 100K	Number earning more than PM	Total remuneration of those over £100K
2018	20	3	£2,502,504
2019	19	2	£2,514,415
2020	23	3	£3,123,268
2021	19	2	£2,754,821
2022	29	2	£4,286,372
2023	No data	No data	No data
2024	No data	No data	No data
2025	26	2	£3,462,399	Extrapolated data from partial publishing by Croydon Council
2026	21	5	£2,935,931

No doubt this is a reduction over most years we have data for and total remuneration is down.  We haven’t however seen any of the radical changes one might expect from a council 3 time bankrupt, and we still see a distain for transparency from a council adding increasing burdens on the people it exists to serve. 

“You might think… increasing council tax by a third over 4 years might be a reason to be more transparent with residents, but it’s clear Croydon Council doesn’t”