AN OUTRAGED councillor has called for senior council staff to take a pay cut as it has been revealed that 21 officers earn a combined £1.4million.

Full details of managers’ salaries at West Dorset District Council and Weymouth and Portland Borough Council have been released.

New legislation means that councils have to give out details of the pay given to the top tiers of management.

Dorset County Council came under fire when it was revealed that the top 30 officers in the authority earned a combined £2.5million, with salaries of up to £147,000.

Now WDDC and WPBC, which now share a senior management structure, have revealed its 21 top officers receive a total of £1.4million with the costs shared between the two authorities.

That works out at an average salary of around £66,000 for each officer.

According to website payscale.com, the average salary for a worker in Weymouth is £24,869 and the average salary for a Dorchester worker is £21,912.

Chief executive for the two councils David Clarke, who is the top earner with a salary of £110,000, claims the move to merge the management structures has resulted in a saving of £680,000.

A report considered by WDDC’s executive committee states that after Mr Clarke, the next top earners are the four directors of the two authorities – who earn £85,000 a year.

The next tier of management is made up of 16 service managers who each earn a salary of £62,000.

The report states that the cost of all of the managerial salaries is split 50:50 between the two authorities.

Mr Clarke told the committee: “In that respect it’s good news for both councils and good news for taxpayers.”

Mr Clarke said the partnership working between the two councils had achieved savings of over £1million in staff costs, with £680,000 coming from reductions in senior management costs.

In the report Mr Clarke’s salary is calculated to be 7.1 times the maximum salary of the lowest paid employee in WPBC and 7.9 times West Dorset’s lowest earning employee.

Independent WDDC councillor Alistair Chisholm said senior council staff should lead by example in the current financial climate and offer to take a pay cut.

He said: “One would have thought that if there is indeed a national crisis then really the public sector and particularly the high end of the public sector should lead by example.

“Others have had to manage on considerably less and they are expected to tighten their belts and accept pay freezes and all the rest.

“I’m not suggesting these people don’t have responsibilities but at the same time I would like to see them leading by example and taking a five or ten per cent pay cut. That still leaves them with a pretty healthy salary.

“Local authorities work as a team and I think you are going to get rather keener team support and everybody eager to play their part and do their bit if there is a good example set from the top.

“There is a time when those at the top need to demonstrate we are all in this together.”