CEREDIGION County Council spent £1.35m on redundancy packages last year at the same time as it spent nearly £1.3m on senior officers’ wages, the Cambrian News can reveal.

The council’s official accounts for the 2016/17 financial year, seen by the Cambrian News ahead of their official publication in September, reveal 112 members of staff were made redundant at a cost of £1.35m to the taxpayer – down from £1.69m on the previous year.

This happened at the same time that four senior officers were paid in excess of £100,000 each – all salary figures include pension contributions – with another nine earning more than £70,000.

Fourteen non-senior council staff earned more than £60,000, five of which earned more than £75,000.

The accounts show that chief executive Bronwen Morgan, who has now retired, earned £125,998 last year, while Eifion Evans, in his first year in the newly created post of deputy chief executive, was paid £115,742.

Barry Rees, who previously filled the role of strategic director of education after it was vacated by Eifion Evans, earned £104,721, while Sue Darnbrook, the strategic director of “care, protection and lifestyle”, was paid £101,010.

Huw Morgan, the council’s director of sustainable communities, who retired in June, was paid £95,585.

The total wage bill for senior officers totalled £1,229,985 last year, slightly down on the 2015/16 financial year’s £1.38m bill.

The other senior officers’ remuneration is as follows: the head of finance, Stephen Johnson: £80,486; Arwyn Morris, head of ICT and customer services: £80,776; Russell Hughes-Pickering, head of performance and economy: £80,712; Alun Williams (not Cllr Alun Williams), head of policy support, and Huw Williams, head of lifestyle services, both earned £80,776; head of technical services, Paul Arnold: £80,333; Elfed Hopkins, head of families and children services: £75,257; Carys James, head of adult and commissioned services: £74,803; and head of learning services, Matthew Brown, who started the job last September: £53,010.

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