Top council bosses earn more than Nicola Sturgeon - and she runs a country

The Taxpayers’ Alliance, a right-wing think tank that lobbies for lower tax, has released its annual ‘Town Hall Rich List’ report, which details all of the UK civil servants earning salaries of more than £100,000 during 2019/20.

The report lists 28 employees of Edinburgh City Council or employees of the council’s arms-length companies, earning above £100,000 - making it the highest-paying council in the country.

The council has only named ten employees - the chief executive , the directors of services and the heads of the arms-length companies.

Chief executive, Andrew Kerr, was the highest paid local authority employee in the capital in 2019/20, with a salary of £175,740.

He was closely followed by the former boss of Lothian Buses, Richard Hall, who before resigning in March 2020 with a golden handshake of £147,950, was taking home a salary of £174,618. Edinburgh City Council is the major shareholder in Lothian Buses.

The joint-third highest public salaries went to the three heads of the council’s directorships: director of communities and families, Alastair Gaw, who resigned in October; director of place, Paul Lawrence; and director of resources, Stephen Moir. Each received £158,150 in 2019/20.

The fourth highest public salary went to Marshall C Dallas, the chief executive of the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, which is owned by Edinburgh City Council.

Mr Dallas also received a bonus of £28,838 on top of his salary in 2019/20 - the sixth highest bonus received by a UK local authority employee in that year.

The fifth and sixth highest public salaries went to the chief executive of Transport for Edinburgh, George Lowder, and the general manager of Edinburgh Trams, Lea Harrison, who took home £146,441 and £132,025 respectively.

In addition to his salary, Mr Harrison received a bonus of £48,895 in 2019/20 - the highest bonus paid to a local authority employee in the UK.