The Chief Executive of Ceredigion County Council is set for a £4,500 pay rise this year if unions agree on a new offer for chief officers, meaning his pay would have risen by nearly £30,000 a year since 2021.

Eifion Evans, who has served as Ceredigion’s Chief Executive since 2017 after previously holding the post of Deputy Chief Executive, will benefit from a 3.2 per cent increase in his six figure wage if a pay offer from National Employers, which negotiates pay on behalf of 350 local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is accepted by the Alace union which represents local authority chief executives and senior managers.

According to Ceredigion County Council accounts, in 2023/24, Mr Evans took home £138,674 in basic salary, up from £133,985 the year before.

In 2024/25, the nationally agreed pay award for Chief Officers of 2.5 per cent boosted the Chief Executive’s pay to around £142,140.

A 3.2 per cent pay bump would put Mr Evans on a basic salary of around £146,689.

With negotiations only started in February, and no final decision made on unions accepting the offer by the end of the financial year, any pay increase agreed will be backdated to April.

In 2021, a bumper pay rise of 14 per cent for Mr Evans was met with fury, as council staff received a two per cent rise in wages.

That year, new pay scales raised Mr Evans’ basic salary from around £117,000 to just over £130,000 at a single stroke.

The latest increase, if approved by unions, will mean Mr Evans will have seen his salary for leading Ceredigion County Council rise by just under £30,000 a year over the past five years, while residents have been left to deal with a barrage of service cuts and double digit council tax rises.