Top Highland Council staff pay costs rocket from £6.7m to £39.2m a year - a five fold rise over six years concerning those getting £60k or more a year
Five times as many Highland Council employees earn more than £60,000 compared to six years ago.
The total has risen from 109 in 2019 to the current number of 594.
Between 2019 and 2025 there was a 445 per cent surge in the number of high-ranking Highland Council officials paid over £60,000 leading to a 487 per cent rise in the cost of paying them.
A Freedom of Information request by The Inverness Courier revealed the number of council employees receiving such sums rose by 485 while costs shot-up by at least £32.5 million over that period.
That may well leave a sour taste in the public’s mouth and possibly some council workers too given that council tax has just been hiked by seven per cent and the 594 well-remunerated officials make up just 5.6 per cent of the total staff headcount.
The revelations come at a difficult time for local authorities like Highland Council who are deeply concerned about budget pressures from wage negotiations as Unison reveals it is to launch a ballot on strike action.
Typically, unions like Unite, Unison, and the GMB represent those at the lower end of the wage scale while those higher up are represented by the civil service union PCS Scotland. There are also those operating on behalf of teaching and non-teaching staff.
The FOI revealed not just the sharp spike in the number of officers receiving such sums but also the baseline increase in financial terms and how fast the council accumulated high-earners.
You can click on the table below to highlight different data sets
It details the number of staff paid more than £60,000, £75,000 and £100,000 for each financial year since 2019 and we took account that the number for those getting over £60,000 pay included those in the £75,000 or £100,000 bracket too.
In 2019, a total of 109 people were paid more than £60,000. There was a generally incremental increase of around 26 to 30 every year until 2022 before a sharp rise in 2023 of 88 and a huge increase of 222 in 2024. By 2025 that number had risen to 594.
Those getting £75,000 or more a year remained fairly static - in 2019 it was 21 before going to 31, then 38, then 37 and 38 between 2020 and 2023, that was until 2024 when it rose by 60 and by 2025 it stood at 205.
Staff getting £100,000 or more stood at five in 2019 before falling to just one between 2020 and 2022, in 2023 it rose to two. In 2024, 10 staff were paid more than £100,000, and this year it is 19.
In financial terms, the total minimum amount paid to staff earning over £60,000 a year in 2019 was £6,680,104 and it reached £39,190,594 by 2025.
The graph below illustrates the increasing outlay on top earners since 2019
That represents a 487 per cent increase in wages and £39.2 million is 4.8 per cent of total net revenue budget for 2025/26. By comparison, the capital budget which funds roads repairs is budgeted at £21.5 million this year.
Leader of the Lib Dem opposition Alasdair Christie said: “The SNP administration is always telling us that they manage the council in an efficient manner - the data obtained shows clearly that this statement is questionable.
“The increase in salaries in 2024 when they claimed the restructuring exercise would actually save money will need to be explained.”
News of the huge amount of money spent on high-ranking officials may anger unions like Unison which has just issued formal strike ballots to some 82,000 council workers across the country over pay.
All 32 councils will have staff balloted as the move follows a recent consultation in which 92 per cent backed strike action after local government employer body Cosla offered all council workers in Scotland a three per cent increase for 2025/26.
Unison Scotland co-lead for local government David O’Connor said: “Dedicated council staff have seen the value of their pay fall for more than a decade, as wages failed to keep pace with the cost of living.
“Unison always try and negotiate pay deals which give more to those on lower pay, we are currently campaigning to get a minimum of £15 per hour across local government in Scotland”.
Chair of Unison Scotland’s local government committee Susanne Gens said: “Staff have indicated overwhelmingly that they've reached their limit. They can't afford to shoulder the burden of real-terms pay cuts.”
A Highland Council spokesperson said: “Please note that these figures have increased over recent years and includes both teaching and non-teaching staff. This is due to the application of pay awards to reflect the rise in the cost of living for all employees.
“Chief officers, NHS (Agenda for Change), Scottish Joint Council (non-teaching) and Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers (teaching) employees have all had pay awards agreed nationally.
“The council has also undergone a restructure which resulted in a removal of heads of service roles which were replaced by a concentrated number of chief officer roles which is why there has been an increase in the number of employees in receipt of over £100,000.
“The new structure is forecasted to initially deliver savings of £370,000 as part of the budget savings agreed by council in February 2024, and it is anticipated that savings will eventually equate to around 20 per cent of senior management team costs as part of a more streamlined management structure.”
