The chief executive of Hampshire County Council is earning more than the prime minister.

His salary band was included as part of a survey in a national newspaper which looked at the highest earners in the country’s local authorities.

The survey showed Hampshire’s chief executive, Andrew Smith, earns between £190,000 and £199,000 a year.

Gordon Brown, meanwhile, is paid the more modest sum of £188,848 as Prime Minister.

Mr Smith’s salary was published as part of a report in The Sunday Telegraph.

Mark Wallace, from The Taxpayers’ Alliance, commented: “I think people in Hampshire will be shocked to discover that while they’re struggling to make ends meet, the council is spending quite so much money on people’s salaries.

“This man is paid more to run Hampshire than Gordon Brown is paid to run the country.”

In contrast, a private in the Army would have earned £15,359 in the same year.
 
Local Government Minister John Healey hit out at the rising salaries of town hall fat cats.

In a letter to the chairman of the Local Government Association, which was leaked to the press, Mr Healey wrote: “I have become increasingly concerned about the level of chief executive and other senior officers’ pay and perks in some authorities.

“I am concerned that some of these increases can legitimately be viewed by council tax payers as excessive.”

The Taxpayers’ Alliance is campaigning for the regular publication of details of top council employees’ salaries. 

Mr Wallace said: “I think the other thing that is shocking is that this is not published as a matter of course.

“People are concerned because, if you think about it, every £1,000 that goes towards this salary is an entire family’s council tax bill being swallowed up.

“And unfortunately, these salaries go up irrespective of if people are getting a better deal from their council.”

The Taxpayers’ Alliance produces an annual Town Hall Rich List. At the time of the report’s publication, Hampshire had refused the alliance’s request to disclose its chief executive’s salary.

The county won the dubious honour of being among the five councils which gave the “most ludicrous” reason for refusing to provide the details.

The county council had told the alliance that complying with the request would “exceed the sum of £450” and told the organisation its request was “vexatious”.

The council also said The Taxpayers’ Alliance request was “identical or substantially similar” to its request from the previous year.

But the leader of Hampshire County Council, Cllr Ken Thornber, said: “We make no secret of the pay of senior staff and publish information on expenditure on staff salaries in our annual statement of accounts.

“Hampshire County Council is the third largest council in the land and our chief executive, as head of paid service, is responsible, through the leader, for managing an overall annual budget of £1.6billion, for a staff of around 39,000 and for providing services for 1.26 million people.

“The chief executive’s salary is fixed in comparison with county councils which have large populations, from 1.3 million people to 800,000.

“The salary for Hampshire’s chief executive is in fact lower than a number of other large authorities including Surrey, Hertfordshire, Suffolk, Kent and Essex, three of which are smaller than Hampshire.”

He added: “Comparing the county council’s chief executive’s salary with that of the prime minister is not comparing like with like.

“The prime minister is a politician, therefore if comparisons are to be made against local government remuneration they should be made against the leading elected members of councils, not chief executives.”