The current Chief Executive, Anne Seex, is paid around £90,000. She is leaving her post next month and, in a report to the Council’s Executive, is recommending that her successor be paid up to £120,000 per year.

Green Party Councillors will be opposing the proposed increase on several grounds:

• The proposed increase in salary of £30,000 is itself far higher than the average wage of Norwich residents.

• The average salary for Chief Executive Officers in councils of a similar size and type to Norwich is just over £90,000. The proposed large increase in the Chief Executive’s salary would therefore be a long way above the ‘going rate’, and could put pressure on other councils to increase salaries from an already very high £90,000 in order to ‘keep up’.

• The proposal would increase the variation in wages among employees of the City Council and its contractors, which the Greens fear could lead to members of staff on lower wages not feeling valued. A £120,000 salary would be ten times than of the lowest-paid council employees and double that of the Council’s Directors, who are only one level below the Chief Executive.

• The £30,000 per year of taxpayers’ money could be far better spent. This amount of money could, for example, buy:
• three more plastic bottle recycling banks; or
• two new pelican crossings each year; or
• one to three new community play parks each year.

• There has been inadequate consultation on the proposed new salary. Items for the Executive meetings are usually publicly available for councillors and members of the public to view and comment on for a week before the meeting. This report was added to the agenda just yesterday.

Councillor Adrian Ramsay, Co-ordinator of the Green Group on the City Council, said: “To increase the salary by a larger amount than the average Norwich resident earns in total is ridiculous. The average wage for a Chief Executive in a comparable council to Norwich is just over £90,000. A salary of £120,000 is a long way above the ‘going rate’ and could put pressure on other councils to spend taxpayers’ money bumping up this already high salary. £120,000 is double the salary of the Council’s Directors, who are just one level below the Chief Executive. Such a new salary for the Chief Executive could therefore lead to calls for more taxpayers‘ money to be spent on bumping up the salaries of other ‘top’ employees.

“£120,000 would be ten times the wage of the lowest-paid employees of the council and its contractors. Huge wage variations such as this could damage the morale of the lower-paid workers – it is vital that the Council makes all its employees feel valued. The proposed £30,000 increase could be far better spent on, for example, three more plastic bottle recycling banks, two new pelican crossings each year or one to three new community play parks each year.”

Fellow Green City Councillor Rupert Read added: “I am sure we can find a suitable candidate who would be willing to work for the handsome some of the current £90,000 salary.”