Public record · audited accounts to 2024/25
East Ayrshire
£160,183chief executive salary, 2024/25
7officers paid above £100,000
£6.6mexit packages, 125 of them, six years
£1,717Band D council tax, current year
It takes a whole year’s Band D council tax from
108 households
to pay the chief executive’s salary of £160,183. Band D in East Ayrshire was £1,487 in 2024/25, before water and sewerage.
The register
Who is paid what
| Officer | Salary | Employer pension | Other benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eddie Fraser printed as “E Fraser”Chief Executive Taxable expenses nil. In-year pension contributions much lower than 2023/24 across all chief officers (Strathclyde Pension Fund employer rate reduction). | £160,183 | £8,987 | £0 |
| Richard Grieveson printed as “R Grieveson”Depute Chief Executive Taxable expenses nil. | £138,182 | £7,660 | £0 |
| Craig McArthur printed as “C McArthur”Director of Health & Social Care Taxable expenses nil. | £135,601 | £7,805 | £0 |
| David Mitchell printed as “D Mitchell”Chief Governance Officer Taxable expenses nil. | £115,964 | £7,538 | £0 |
| Joseph McLachlan printed as “J McLachlan”Chief Financial Officer and Head of Finance & ICT Taxable expenses nil. | £115,964 | £7,055 | £0 |
| Linda McAulay-Griffiths printed as “L McAulay-Griffiths”Chief Education Officer and Head of Education Benefits = £200 taxable expenses. | £115,220 | £6,615 | £200 |
| Marion MacAulay printed as “M MacAulay”Head of Children's Health, Care and Justice Services Taxable expenses nil. | £112,376 | £7,020 | £0 |
Basis A dash means the accounts did not disclose the figure. It does not mean zero. Employer pension is what the council pays into that officer’s pension on top of the salary. Where the accounts printed initials, the full name comes from the council’s own documents, and the methodology explains how.
The trajectory
What has actually happened to the pay
- Chief executive pay
- Band D council tax
Pay for comparative years is as the accounts disclosed it, which for a few councils is total remuneration rather than salary alone. Band D excludes water and sewerage.
Both lines start at 100 in 2019/20, so they can be read against each other: the gap between them is the gap between what the chief executive is paid and what the household bill has done since.
The whole senior team, salaries only
Basis Every officer in the council’s senior-employee table, with no £100,000 floor. Salaries as disclosed, never added up across a year where a figure is missing. Employer pension contributions appear against each officer above and are not in these totals. A star marks a year read from the following year’s accounts as its prior-year column. A few councils leave mid-year leavers out of that column, so a starred total can run slightly low.
The cohort
How many staff here are on the good money
317 employees were paid above £50,000 in 2019/20. By 2024/25 it was 632. Above £100,000 the count went from 4 to 17.
Basis The statutory £5,000-band disclosure covering all employees, counted above a fixed cash threshold as the accounts count it. Counting instead above the CPI equivalent of the 2019/20 threshold gives 317 then against 270 now, and the JSON carries that figure for every year. The backdated 2022/23 teachers’ pay award, paid in April 2023, pushes the 2023/24 figure up.
The goodbyes
Exit packages
East Ayrshire disclosed 125 exit packages costing £6.6m over the six years to 2024/25.
Packages of £100,000 and over
| Year | Band | Packages | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019/20 | £300,001–£350,000 | 1 | £342,000 |
| 2019/20 | £250,001–£300,000 | 1 | £288,000 |
| 2020/21 | £250,001–£300,000 | 1 | £258,000 |
| 2021/22 | £250,001–£300,000 | 1 | £273,000 |
| 2019/20 | £200,001–£250,000 | 1 | £248,000 |
| 2021/22 | £200,001–£250,000 | 2 | £444,000 |
| 2019/20 | £150,001–£200,000 | 1 | £157,000 |
| 2020/21 | £150,001–£200,000 | 4 | £634,000 |
| 2021/22 | £150,001–£200,000 | 4 | £680,000 |
| 2019/20 | £100,001–£150,000 | 1 | £102,000 |
| 2020/21 | £100,001–£150,000 | 1 | £114,000 |
| 2021/22 | £100,001–£150,000 | 4 | £499,000 |
Basis Exit packages as the remuneration report discloses them, by cost band. For most councils the cost covers pension strain and added years as well as the money paid to the person leaving. The bands name nobody, and neither does this record. A dagger marks a year where some bands showed packages with no cost against them, so the total is a floor rather than the full figure.
The invisible payroll
What the council pays into pensions
That drop in the local-government line is not a mistake in the data. The fund’s actuary cut the employer rate from 2024/25, the council’s bill fell with it, and the difference stayed with the council.
Basis Employer contributions taken from the pension notes to the accounts. This is the council’s own money going in, not the staff’s. This is the local government scheme only. The teachers’ scheme is a separate payment to the Scottish Government and is not added in here, because the council never printed a combined total.
LGPS: 'Employers' contributions payable to Strathclyde Pension Fund' £22.217m, Movement in Reserves Statement section of Note 8 (Pension Schemes Accounted for as Defined Benefit Pension Schemes); same figure as 'Contributions from employers' in the fair value of scheme assets reconciliation; printed in £m. Teachers: £10.816m contributions to the Scottish Teachers' Superannuation Scheme per Note 9 (Defined Contribution), printed in £m (employer rate 17.2% to 31/8/19 then 23%); a further £0.676m of discretionary payments is printed separately and excluded. No combined total printed.
Officers and members
The paid and the elected
7 senior officers£893,490
32 councillors£824,000
2024/25, salaries as disclosed
Basis The officers’ bar is salary only, before employer pension contributions. The councillors’ bar is the total printed in the remuneration report.
Remuneration Report, 'Remuneration of Councillors' table (printed in £m): salaries £0.813m, expenses £0.011m, total £0.824m as printed, converted to whole £. 32 elected members stated in the accounts' introduction.
Arm’s length
Pay in the companies this council owns
| Body | Post | Salary | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| East Ayrshire Leisure Trust | — Employees in band | £100,000 - £109,999 | 2024/25 |
Basis Read from each body’s own filed accounts. Several of them disclose a pay band and no name. Where the accounts, Companies House or the council’s own report put the identification beyond doubt, the name is given and the evidence recorded. Where they do not, the row stays exactly as printed.
This council as data: /api/scotland/east-ayrshire.json