The richest employees of Bracknell Forest Borough Council have been revealed and some of them are earning four or five times a typical wage.
Bracknell Forest Borough Council has 214 staff earning £50,000 or more, out of which 154 earn 55,000 or more and some are pushing £200,000.
The council’s own figures reveal a striking pay gap between its senior officers and the typical worker.
According to national data whilst the minimum wage is about £24,800 a year before tax, median annual pay across all UK employees is £32,890, and full‑time workers earn about £39,040 a year.
By contrast, more than 214 council staff at Bracknell are paid at least £50,000, meaning each of them takes home at least £11,000 more than the average full‑time salary.
At the very top of the organisation, chief executive Susan Halliwell commands a salary band of over £200,000, putting her pay more than five times higher than the salary a typical full‑time worker in the UK earns.
Sitting just below her, Executive Director: People, Grainne Siggins, is paid over £180,000, four and a half times the national median.
Three other executive directors – Resources boss Stuart McKellar, Place lead Andrew Hunter and Communities chief Kevin Gibbs – all earn at least £150,000 a year.
A large cadre of assistant directors and statutory officers also sit on six‑figure packages.
Director of Public Health, Charlotte Pavitt, takes home over £125,000, while senior legal and social care posts – including Borough Solicitor and Monitoring Officer Sanjay Prashar and the assistant directors for children’s and adults’ social care – earns over £120,000.
These sums dwarf the pay of the average local resident in ordinary jobs. Even one tier down, the money remains well above typical earnings.
Assistant Director: Property Services Sarah Varley receives over £115,000, and Assistant Director: Commissioning Sally Parkinson earns over £110,000.
Key operational posts in highways, planning and digital services all earn over £100,000.
Below that, a further layer of senior managers, from finance and HR leads to policy and corporate improvement chiefs, are paid over £90,000.
In total, the data sets out a tightly controlled hierarchy in which hundreds of officers earn comfortably above both local and national norms.
The very top earners are in a completely different league to the elected representatives who set the direction for the council who, by taking on a lot of responsibility can hope to top up their salaries by £30,000, or to Bracknell people whose council tax funds their wages.