Glasgow Council faces £1.6 billion in debt while Chief Executive walks away with half a million pay package

Telegraph

02-04-2025

It is a rare household that hasn't wondered what their ever-rising council tax bills pay for, as the bins pile up, or potholes plague the roads, or streets remain inadequately lit. A new report on the remuneration of council bosses offers a rather grim answer to that question.
Since 2007, the TaxPayers' Alliance has compiled its Town Hall Rich List, documenting a council-by-council breakdown of local government executive pay deals.
Yesterday, as the country ushered in 'Awful April' with households and businesses being hit by a combination of price rises and tax hikes, a report from the pressure group revealed that ' a record 3,906 officials received more than £100,000, with 1,092 receiving over £150,000 in 2023-24, another record.'
The number of Town Hall bosses receiving over £200,000 is 262.
Glasgow City Council alone reportedly employs 42 individuals with pay packages ranging from over £100,000 to upwards of £500,000.
Within this elite pool of employees, the outgoing Chief Executive of the Council, Annemarie O'Donnel, emerged as the highest remunerated council employee.
With a tax rise of 7.5 per cent agreed by the SNP-Green administration, the average household in Glasgow will be paying more than £2,000 a year in council tax from this month which, according to local press, 'is a result of one of the biggest increases in the last 20 years.'
Back in January, it was reported that nearly '£1 in every £4 raised in council tax is already spent on funding pensions' in the public sector. Ms O'Donnel's final pay package is an example of the sheer scale of the pensions burden on taxpayers.
The Council boss, who had been in the post for almost a decade, received a jaw-dropping £567,317 in total remuneration, which included £209,472 in salary and a staggering £357,845 in pension contributions.
With a price tag of half a million pounds, hers seemed to me to be a record worth looking into some detail. Is it truly 'difficult to overstate Annemarie's contribution to Glasgow during her long career at the council, and particularly as Chief Executive', as Susan Aitken, the Council Leader, claims?
In February, the Herald reported that Ms O'Donnel's city was facing a debt burden of more than £1.6 billion, with Glasgow 'having overspent its budgets to the tune of £80 million over the past three years'.
Annemarie Ward, the Chief Executive Officer of FAVOR-UK, an addiction advocacy and recovery charity, has taken to social media to attack the Council's controversial Drug Consumption Room scheme, where drug users come to inject illegally-bought heroin or cocaine under medical supervision at a cost of £2.3 million to taxpayers.
Glasgow tragically holds the dubious honour of being Europe's drugs death epicentre. The amount, according to Ms Ward, could instead fund nearly 200 rehab placements. 'Scotland's leadership is prioritising drug use management over real recovery', Ms Ward concludes.
Under Ms O'Donnel's leadership, a plan to impose a 20mph zone on nearly every road in the city was originally costed at £4.5 million. However, according to a Freedom of Information request response revealed by the local press, the scheme is now projected to cost taxpayers £8.5 million instead.
Meanwhile, in a further act of punishing motorists, Glasgow Council has raised £1.6 million since June 2023 by fining drivers of older vehicles for driving through its Low Emission Zone.
Time and again in my research into public sector spending, what shocks me more than the waste of taxpayers' money is the near complete lack of justification provided for spending decisions. What have Ms O'Donnel and her 41 colleagues achieved in office to warrant the staggering salaries extracted from a Council deep in debt?
Does the outgoing Chief Executive bear no responsibility for example, for the £80 million overspend, or the failure to tackle the City's drug problems over her ten-year tenure? If she does, then how are these failures reflected in her remuneration?
As taxpayers are forced to tighten their belts while services continue to crumble around them, the demand for answers will only continue to grow.