Salaries for Trafford council staff revealed – including gender pay gap and £170k a year for chief executive

Salaries for Trafford council ’s staff have been published, including a gender pay gap and a £170,000 pay check for the chief executive.

The lowest paid council staff member gets just £17,842 a year and the median (middle average) earning is £24,491. Sara Todd, the authority’s chief executive and top earner, is earning £169,538 per annum – meaning for every £1 earned by the council’s median salaried worker, Ms Todd earns £6.92.

This is marked a ‘minimal’ salary increase on the year before and the ratio of the highest earner to the median earner is the same as it was last year, according to a council report. Salary figures are always published in the following financial year, meaning these figures are for 2020-21.

READ MORE: Man arrested after brutal hate crime attack on woman and her dog

The council does not have any pay bonus schemes and all council salaries above £100k per year require the approval of full council. There is currently an overall gender pay gap of 8.14pc at Trafford council, and a 10.77pc median gender pay gap for its average earners – both in favour of male employees. The council’s workforce breakdown is 76pc female and 24pc male.

The council report on the matter said: “We employ a lot of part-time roles in Trafford (49pc of posts) which attract females and evidence shows that part-time roles pay less than full-time roles.

“When part-time roles are looked at the gender pay gap is positive for women. We have some large in-house services with lower paid bands which traditionally attract more females – catering, cleaning, passenger assistants, care assistants and support workers. If we remove these groups the gap reduces.

“Some services such as highways and street cleaning services that predominantly