More questions than answers - the council's annual accounts

This week Carmarthenshire's county councillors will be asked to "consider" and approve two vast glossy reports, debate a motion on pylons in Brechfa Forest and sign off a further nine reports as part of their monthly meeting, all within the space of a couple of hours.

Over in the Audit Scrutiny Committee, members will be asked to run their eyes over the council's annual statement of accounts - not so glossy, but packed with figures and statements and who knows what lurking in the murky depths.


Like Victorian children peering through the window of a sweet shop at Christmas, the first place bloggers go in the Annual Statement of Accounts is the section dealing with fat cat senior officer pay. Scroll down to section 6.35 (roughly half way through).

The first thing we notice is that someone who was earning between £155k and £160k left the council in 2011/12. In fact, a comparison with the previous Annual Statement seems to suggest that this individual was a bit of a shooting star, as there was nobody in that bracket previously. Although the council is supposed by law to name anyone earning over £150k, it didn't.

Someone else who was earning between £100k and £150k received a pay-off of £134k (presumably a year's salary). The individual is not named, but is believed to have walked straight into another highly paid post with a different council - Pembrokeshire to be precise.

The Director of Regeneration and Leisure, Dave Gilbert, saw his salary fall from £130k to £104k, but it turns out that this was because he now only puts in a four day week. Strangely our contribution to his pension pot fell from £15,630 to zero.

The biggest beast, of course, is the Chief Executive himself. The exact extent of his earnings have always been shrouded in fog, but the accounts tell us that his earnings fell from £185k to £181k in 2012/13. Pension contributions fell from £22k to zero.

How these figures are arrived at is not at all clear. The chief executive's salary is supposed to be £165k (excluding fees, allowances and pension contributions).

It is also worth reminding ourselves that these figures relate only to his work in Carmarthenshire. Income from other activities, such as his non-executive director role with the Welsh Government, is not part of the package. Neither is any compensation he may receive for being part of the task force sent in to sort out schools in Monmouthshire.

The only elections in the financial year 2012/13 were the council elections in May 2012, and we know that Mr James took an advance of £20,000 on those fees immediately before the end of the 2011/12 tax year.

So where did the £16,000 paid on top of his basic £165k come from? And why were no pension contributions paid?

Oh, and despite repeated claims that the council has been cutting back on top earners, the report shows that the numbers earning more than £60,000 stayed stubbornly static at 67. What seems to have been happening is that quite a few left the council with very large pay-offs, with promotions and new appointments swallowing up future savings.

And all of that from just one page out of hundreds and hundreds facing councillors this week