'Poaching' responsible for town hall executive salaries doubling, says spending watchdog

A town hall merry-go-round has doubled the pay of senior officials, a spending watchdog said yesterday.

Councils have been hiring each other's bureaucrats for ever-increasing salaries, the Audit Commission said.

But the carve-up of plum appointments has brought no improvement in efficiency or the quality of service to the public.

The findings come at a time of increasing concern over rising council pay packets.

There are more than 800 officials on £100,000 a year or more and eight councils pay their chief executives more than £200,000.

Council tax bills have more than doubled in a decade and services are repeatedly scaled back, but councils insist they must pay higher salaries to attract the talent they need.

The Audit Commission said an increasing trend for town halls to poach each others' best officials had helped fuel a near-doubling in pay packets and discouraged local talent.

But It found no evidence that authorities led by 'tried and tested' town clerks were any better at hitting Government performance targets.

The number of council vacancies filled by a chief executive from another authority more than doubled from nine in 1999-2001 to 21 in 2005-2007, the research showed.

Mid-range salaries shot up by 90 per cent to £150,000 - faster than anywhere else in the public sector.

The Local Government Association said last night it was 'natural' to value experience and that council chiefs were poorly paid compared with their equivalents elsewhere.

But critics say officials who have worked for local authorities are unlikely to command similar salaries in the private sector, while executives there face far greater penalties for failure.

Tory spokesman Eric Pickles said: 'Chief executives' pay seems to owe more to a virility statement by local authorities than improved services.'