The Taxpayers' Alliance has continued to stoke the debate over public sector pay by issuing its fifth survey of top council salary packages finding that 2,295 town hall staff earned over £100,000 last year.

Its ‘town hall rich list' based on figures for 2009/10 finds that the total was up 18% on the year before though it admits this might be due to redundancy pay-offs. It says the number of those earning packages of over £250,000 was 48, up from 19 the previous year, while 506 earned between £150,000 and £249,999. However the average rise last year for staff named in the ‘rich list' was 3.8%.