SENIOR staff at Wiltshire Council take home over £2m between the 19 most highly paid staff at the local authority.

Top paid staff that head up the council include corporate directors and directors of services, who took home at least £2.148m, with wages between £50k and 154k dished out in 2018.

96 workers are paid more than £50k, who are mainly in managerial roles within the council.

The top paid staff took home 2.1per cent of the total spend on wages, despite making up just 0.4per cent of staff at the council.

Trowbridge councillor Edward Kirk has questioned the number of people in managerial positions at the council, as more services are given to third parties or town councils to operate.

Cllr Edward Kirk said: “A lot of the work has been given out to contractors and third parties, and services like street cleaning and play areas to town councils. Wiltshire council have cut back staff every year but there is still a lot of high paid management staff. The council’s role is to manage budgets which we do quite well, but there are many staff in these high roles getting paid despite managing less services.”

However Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Ian Thorn defended the top staff wages and said: “It would be very easy for me to say that this is an outrageous figure and people should have their salaries cut but if tax payers want to see their money well spent on services in the correct way there must be the appropriately qualified people to do this. I don’t agree that there should be more staff at this level but it is vital that all staff are suitably qualified and then rewarded for their hard work.”