Westmorland and Furness Council will begin a search for a new chief executive (CEO) on August 18, with current role holder Sam Plum set to leave the job on 31 December 31.
The CEO will oversee 3,500 staff
As CEO the successful candidate will hold ‘the most senior role within the council’s leadership and management structure’ and will ultimately oversee the council’s 3,500 staff.
The responsibilities for the role include ‘providing inspirational and strategic leadership’, ‘delivering the ambitions of the council’, and ‘ensuring the provision of high quality, efficient and responsive services to the residents of Westmorland and Furness’.
With a current salary of £188,227 per year, the Chief Executive of Westmorland and Furness Council is better remunerated than Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who currently claims an annual salary of £166,786.
It also places the Chief Executive’s salary above that of French President Emmanuel Macron (£168,381), Norwegian Prime Minister Joas Gahr Store (£150,887) and Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (£151,227).
‘Fat cat salaries should be reigned in’
Benjamin Elks, a manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), said it was ‘outrageous’ that the chief executive will be earning more than the country’s leader.
He added,
With 512 senior staff (across all councils) earning more than Keir Starmer in 2023-24, according to the TPA’s Town Hall Rich List 2025, town hall pay is clearly out of control.
It’s time to rein in these fat cat salaries and start linking pay to performance.
A Westmorland and Furness Council spokesperson said,
We appreciate that salaries for Council CEOs can look high when compared to national pay averages and other prominent roles. (However) our senior salaries are carefully scrutinised, subject to national benchmarking and ultimately, they are decided upon by democratically elected councillors in an open and transparent way”
“Chief executives of large councils, like Westmorland and Furness, oversee exceptionally large budgets and they are ultimately responsible for providing large, complex services, many of which are to the most vulnerable in our society, such as adult and children’s social care
“These are difficult and complicated roles especially in these extremely challenging times for local government and we need to ensure that in this competitive market we attract the very best leaders to ensure that we deliver quality, essential, services that make a huge difference to people’s lives.
The Prime Minister’s salary has not kept up with inflation
Comparing the salary of Chief Executive of Westmoreland and Furness with that of the Prime Minister may however be misleading and unfair.
In 2009, then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was paid almost £200,000 per year, and had the salary kept pace with inflation it would now be in excess of £300,000. However, given the sensitivity of political pay Brown, followed after that by successive Prime Ministers, have voluntarily taken pay cuts and refused pay rises.
Furthermore, the comparison fails to consider the huge sums of money on offer for Prime Ministers once they have left office, with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson earning a reported £4.8mn in the first six months after he left office. In addition to the opportunity of earning vast amounts of money by delivering speeches and serving on boards, former Prime Ministers can claim a Public Duty Costs Allowance of up to £115,000 a year to reimburse expenses incurred while fulfilling public duties associated with their status as a former Prime Minister.
Private sector CEOs earn a lot more
A fairer comparison may be with leaders in the private sector. The CEO of Westmorland and Furness will oversee a staff of approximately 3,500 people, approximately the same number of people employed by clothing giants ASOS. Their CEO, José Antonio Ramos Calamonte, reportedly took home a total renumeration package of more than £1mn last year.
Applicants for the position of CEO at Westmorland and Furness will undergo a vigorous recruitment process, including technical interviews, psychometric testing and a two-day assessment centre. All of which will be carried out by the council’s staffing committee, which is chaired by Liberal Democrat Councillor Janet Battye and includes elected members from all three major political parties.
After an LDRS press release by Kieran Molloy
