MORE officers at Southend Council are being paid top salaries, although the highest-earning bosses have taken a pay cut.

Latest figures show the number of bosses earning more than £100,000 has dropped from ten to eight and their salaries have fallen as a pay freeze continues to bite.

But at the same time, the number of staff earning above £50,000 a year has risen from 132 last year to 134 this year.

This includes an increase in those being paid between £50,000 a year and £100,000 a year, from 122 up to 126.

Chief executive Rob Tinlin’s overall pay, which includes his basic salary and pension contributions, has dropped from £184,209 to £171,012. Other top officers, such as the four corporate directors, have also seen their pay drop by between £1,000 and £9,000, apart from Andy Lewis, in charge of enterprise, tourism and the environment, whose pay rose slightly.

The pay freeze, imposed in April 2009, excludes annual increments agreed within pay bands.

Mr Tinlin said the rise in the number of middle managers earning over £50,000 was probably caused by such automatic increases in pay pushing them into the higher category.

He said: “I suspect we have one or two members of staff whose pay has gone up with the annual increment and therefore they are getting more.

“To the best of my knowledge, we haven’t taken on any new senior staff.”

Mr Tinlin said when the recession struck two years ago, senior officers decided to give up their performance-related bonus, which can be up to 10 per cent of their pay packet.

The bonus is given if officers hit their targets for the year and is signed off by councillors.

He said: “We voluntarily offered to reduce the amount we would take in that performance element and then reduce it to zero.”

This year, the council is axeing 178 jobs, including 107 likely redundancies, as it tries to save £15.5million following Government cuts.

Union bosses are unhappy to see the increases for some officers in the face of such cuts and with a pay freeze having been imposed on the council’s 2,000 staff.

Claire Wormald, Southend branch secretary of Unison, representing local government workers, said: “Obviously, seeing the number of people on higher pay increase is a concern when we are also seeing members’ jobs go.

“It’s the people working out in the community whose jobs are being cut.

“A lot of our workers can be paid as low as £12,000.

“Members are struggling to provide a service because of the cuts in staff.”

The salary figures are revealed in the council’s draft statement of accounts, just published and available for public inspection.