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More than 50 Norfolk council officers are being paid more than £100,000 a year - at a time when council tax has risen and services are being cut. The top paid officers received more than £6.3m, new statistics have revealed.
Figures released in the annual report by the TaxPayers' Alliance - known as the Town Hall Rich List - show Norfolk County Council had the most officers in the county above the £100k threshold in 2023/24. Tom McCabe, chief executive at Norfolk County Council (Image: Supplied) Among them was chief executive Tom McCabe, whose £201,800 salary made him the best paid council officer in the county. In total, County Hall had 31 officers paid at least £100,000.
They included children's services director Sara Tough (£173,500), strategy and transformation director Paul Cracknell (£160,200) and fire chief Ceri Sumner (£150,900). Norfolk County Council's County Hall headquarters (Image: Mike Page) Those 31 officers were paid just over £3.8m, at a time when the Conservative-controlled council made £42m of cuts and savings and increased its share of the council tax .
A spokesman for Norfolk County Council said: "We are committed to providing efficient and effective services for Norfolk residents. "This means employing and retaining the best people, at every level in the organisation, to ensure we get the best value for money." The spokesman added that, for context, Norfolk is the fourth largest council area in the country, employs more than 8,000 people and has an annual budget of £1.
67bn. Away from County Hall, the best paid top officer at the district councils was Trevor Holden, managing director of Broadland and South Norfolk Councils, on £179,649. Trevor Holden (Image: Victoria Pertusa) The other chief executive salaries in 2023/24 were £144,614 for Shelia Oxtoby (Great Yarmouth), £143,184 for Louise Rawthorne (Norwich City Council), £141,816 for Maxine O'Mahony (Breckland Council),£125,783 for Lorraine Gore (West Norfolk Council) and £118,576 for Steve Blatch (North Norfolk District Council).
Sheila Oxtoby (Image: Archant) Across all the councils, 53 officers received remuneration of £100,000 or more - totalling £6.34m. John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It’s a record breaking year in many respects for taxpayers as the country hurtles towards a record tax burden, all while the public sector continues to feather its nest.
John O'Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance (Image: TaxPayers' Alliance) "As our latest town hall rich list demonstrates, the number of council staff with six-figure remuneration packages has surged at the same time that services are being slashed and council tax is being hiked above inflation." In the previous year's figures, there were 42 Norfolk council officers listed with remuneration of at least £100,000, totalling £4.43m, although data from three councils - Yarmouth, North Norfolk and King's Lynn - was missing from that tally.
The year before, there were 45, totalling £5.3m, although there was no data for Yarmouth or North Norfolk. The latest figures have been released as all of Norfolk's eight councils face being scrapped and recreated under a major shake-up of local government.
Councils are divided over what form that reorganisation should take , with Norfolk County Council favouring one or two councils, South Norfolk Council wanting two and all the others preferring three. That change goes hand in hand with the devolution of powers from Whitehall to local councils and the creation of a mayor for Norfolk and Suffolk ..
