So the North to be the loser again.

I've just read that DT article too. Now I understand where the figure for West Lancashire comes from. Most of it was a severance payment for redundancy - not a salary at all. The other eye-watering pay packages also included redundancy pay outs, which were no doubt cheaper than being sued for unfair dismissal. It's standard practice to factor in redundancy pay packages when restructuring.

Did you read the link in the OP, MOnica?

No Monica it's not just a rumour. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has produced various documents, which will almost certainly be approved. A new formula has been discussed (and already partially implemented) for a couple of years. The final allocations have been delayed, probably as a result of the December election, but they will need to be published in the next week or so, so that councils can finalise their council tax for 2020/21. The trend has consistently been from urban to shire councils ie. from areas of greatest need to those with less need. Schools have already been told their allocations and the same thing has happened.

But as with all threads, the discussion moves on and we are now talking about a wider range of issues

I really am not exaggerating when I say that is one of the most dishonest pieces of journalism I’ve ever read. I cannot believe that anyone could take it seriously and provide it as evidence of anything. The ‘journalist has a PPE from Oxford which explains her total lack of numeracy but I bet her politics meant she was already programmed to believe every word and figure from the TPA. Just one example -if you are going to discuss salaries, first define what you mean by ‘salary’ and having done that, don’t keep changing the definition .

I'm in awe that a thread can grow so fast and with such speed when it is based on merely a rumour of what a report to government is meant to say.

There has been no official comment and nobody has a clue about what the government will acually do.

Thanks for pointing that out, suzie. That's rather cut those 'salaries' down to size...

I read Chews link to the DT ???????.That's what passes for journalism? ??????. The source is the Tax Payers Alliance ?????? whose completely manipulated and misleading figures are uncritically reproduced by the ‘journalist’ concerned. I’d be ashamed to post a link of that quality.

In any case, you're not addressing the OP, which is that many of the more deprived councils in the North are about to lose more money than those in more affluent regions. Executive pay is a different issue.

Chewbacca The West Lancashire Director of Leisure and Well Being isn't a Labour councillor. He or she is a council employee. Anyway, West Lancs doesn't appear to have a "Director of Leisure and Well Being" any more. It has a Corporate Director of Place and Community, who manages Growth and Development Services, Wellbeing and Leisure Services, Environmental Services and Housing and Regulatory Services, who is paid £168.21pa, according to West Lancashire's own data.

www.westlancs.gov.uk/media/545193/structure-chart-2019.pdf

Well, there you go! QED! Proof that people would "blame" the local councils for central government cuts. I have no idea why some council CEOs are paid more than others. Of course, councils are all different - some are much bigger than others and some have two tiers, where others have three. The CEOs of urban councils and unitary authorities generally have a bigger job than the CEOs of shire counties, where there is an additional layer of district and boroughs, who do some of the work.

Nevertheless, even if the pay of the highest paid executives were halved, it wouldn't make much difference to the cuts which have been imposed by central government over the last nine years.

Those of you blaming your council staff for the rise in your council tax have chosen the wrong target (which is precisely what the government intended).

But it's relevant Urmstongran. Council employees aren't political appointments - or shouldn't be. Why would a new elected council give the council management a pay rise?

Well said gillybob no one has ever lived in the north and experienced the cuts like us.

surely no one is surprised ,BoJo and his merry men are out to get us all,Council budgets in Scotland are due to be set next month.We haven't any idea what will happen to our budgets because Mr Javid in all his wisdom has held back from making announcemnts until March leaving our Finance minister to attempt to fix budgets without any idea what cuts we'll be hit with this year.

The past ten years of Tory governments have seen 1 .5 BILLION cut from our so called block grant ...thats a grant that isn't a grant at all

.We hand over ALL our revenue Westminster pilfers half of it or more and we get the rest baclk along with a proportion of WM debts for the honour of letting them squander OUR money on things we dont want and wont use...you know things like London Sewres and London crossrail and dont even mention HS2 or Buck house etc etc .He wont agree to our request for a new referendum despite the EU issue so it appears Mr BOJO is determined to hang onto us and our cash as long as he can .

Did you know that when WM ruled India ,it was normal for India to run at a large deficit ...every year .Did you realise that during that time WM pilfered ..or rather stole 45 BILLION from India .They use the same tactics with us .A tory government when Scotland hasn't voted for a majority of tories in my lifetime ...66 years ...dragged out of the EU when 62% of us voted remain.Democracy ??? You're having a laugh!1

Some of these salaries are eye watering!

Here's the list

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/04/09/town-hall-rich-list-exposes-council-bosses-earning-600000-services/

West Lancashire (Labour) has a Director of Leisure and Well Being. He earns £337,351 pa.

I can’t remember the details growstuff sorry. I could look it up I suppose but it’s a bit boring for a Saturday night!

Slough (Labour) has an interim Chief Exec earning £595,000 pa

Wirral (Labour) has a Managing Director for Delivery earning £569,423 pa

Birmingham City Council (Labour) has a Strategic Director who earns £444,775 pa; and they were so cash strapped that they had to dig into reserves to fund budget gaps.

Darlington (Labour) has a Chief Exec earning £387,650 and they were so cash strapped that they increased council tax by an eye watering 5.99%.

Do you mean the councillors or the council employees Urmstongran?

Conservative-run Essex County Council has the greatest number of employees receiving remuneration in excess of £100,000 with 55 employees in total earning over this amount. Essex also had the highest number of employees earning over £150,000 at 13.

They don't quizqueen. Boris Johnson earned over £800,000 from speaking and writing last year. No CEO of a council could earn anything like that. They don't get rent free housing either.

Knowsley (south of Liverpool) is one of the most deprived areas in the country. Wokingham is one of the least deprived.

In 2009/10, the formula recognised that Knowsley had needs 41% above the national average, whereas Wokingham had needs 31% below the national average.

According to the current formula, Knowsley receives funding 11% above the national average, while Wokingham receives 17% below the national average.

In other words, the difference between what the two councils receive has narrowed, despite the very different needs. This is what the Tories mean by “levelling up” and what they’re doing with schools too. Schools in deprived areas are about to lose funding in the latest funding round.

You would have to have the brain of a dead goldfish not to see what’s going on. The Tories have won Parliamentary seats in these areas, but the councils are still Labour controlled. The Tories are trying to blame the Labour councils, so that they return Conservative councils. When that’s happened, they’ll probably announce with great fanfare that they’re going to increase funding, so it looks as though the Conservative councils are responsible for greater efficiency, whereas in reality they have more money. They’ll try the same trick as they are with police numbers and the NHS.

Sorry, but some areas have been well and truly stuffed.

Trafford council where we live has been Conservative for years. No complaints from us. Labour got voted in last May. One of the first things they did which was front page news in our local rag, was to award themselves well above inflation pay rises.

I shall be interested to see how our borough performs going forward.

Why do the leaders of County Councils earn twice what the Prime Minister does? Mine is on £250,000 and many of his deputies over various functions are on over £100,000!!! Cuts should be made there as a priority.