The salaries paid to top officers at Wokingham borough council during the last 12 months have been published.
According to data compiled by the Taxpayers’ Alliance, Wokingham borough council’s chief executive Susan Parsonage earned £180,349 excluding pensions last year, while her deputy and the council’s chief financial officer earned £151,577, also without pension contributions..
The data also revealed the council paid 12 of its staff more than £100,000 – up from six last year.
Elsewhere locally, Bracknell’s CEO Susan Halliwell earned £234,000, while Reading CEO Jackie Yates was on £211,939.
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers are caught in a pincer movement with a record-breaking tax burden on one side and a bloated public sector feathering its nest on the other.
“Our latest Town Hall Rich List exposes a surging class of council bosses enjoying six-figure packages, even as they plead poverty, slash frontline services, and hike council tax bills far beyond inflation.
“Residents can see exactly how many local bureaucrats are receiving plush packages and judge for themselves whether they’re getting value for money.”
A Wokingham borough council spokesperson told Wokingham Today: “Senior staff salaries at Wokingham borough council are in line with other local councils and the number of staff earning £100,000 or more is below the average for similar unitary authorities.”
In the wake of the largest council tax increases since 2004, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has published its annual Town Hall Rich List 2026 (THRL) report, the 20th edition of the project.
It found the number of council bosses receiving more than £100,000 in 2024-25 stood at 4,733, the highest level since this dataset was first published in 2007 and 827 more than last year’s edition.
This is an increase of over 21 per cent on last year, as council wage bills continue to grow. In contrast, the Yorkshire and the Humber region saw the smallest increase in the number of employees receiving over £100,000, rising by 2% from 204 to 209.
The number of staff receiving more than £150,000 throughout the country has also hit a record high of 1,255. This is a 14.9% increase from last year and almost twenty times more than in the first edition of THRL when Tony Blair was prime minister.
The THRL reveals there were 320 council employees who received a higher salary than the prime minister was entitled to in 2024-25.
The highest remunerated council employee in 2024-25 was from Staffordshire council, who received around £457,500.
The organisation said councils have routinely increased council tax by 4.99 per cent each year, the maximum before a local referendum is mandatory in England, often citing stretched budgets and increased demands.
It added how despite budget shortfalls, councils have been able to consistently find ever-increasing amounts to pay senior staff.
Local councils employed more than double the number of senior managers as the NHS did the year before.
Six councils that issued Section 114 bankruptcy notices since 2020 had 124 council employees receiving more than £100,000.
Some increases in the figures are partially driven by an increase in the number of councils that have published accounts compared with the 2025 edition of this list.
In a positive move towards more transparency, the number who failed to publish accounts in time for this year fell from 15 to five.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance has more than 3,000 supporters who have given money, and tens of thousands of others who do not, but all individual names are kept private. In the history of the TPA, it has received over 25,000 individual donations. The average value of an individual donation is currently £497.
Unlike many other groups, the TPA does not receive a penny of taxpayers’ money.
These figures are not intended to attack council staff; they merely highlight councils’ senior employees’ remunerations.
Figures are sourced from annual accounts published by each council.. These are online on each council’s website. Audited accounts are used whenever available. If audited accounts are not provided by the council, unaudited or draft accounts are used.
Accountability matters as a core principle of local government. These figures should shine a light on the town hall bosses who are delivering for residents, but also allow taxpayers to hold to account those who are not offering good value for money.
Read the full report here.
