Public record · audited accounts to 2024/25
South Ayrshire
£161,677chief executive salary, 2024/25
8officers paid above £100,000
£4.8mexit packages, 106 of them, six years
£1,695Band D council tax, current year
It takes a whole year’s Band D council tax from
111 households
to pay the chief executive’s salary of £161,677. Band D in South Ayrshire was £1,453 in 2024/25, before water and sewerage.
The register
Who is paid what
| Officer | Salary | Employer pension | Other benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mike Newall printed as “M Newall”Chief Executive Salary includes £1,500 election fees. No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £161,677 | £10,411 | £0 |
| Lyndsay McRoberts printed as “L McRoberts”Depute Chief Executive & Director of Education Salary includes £1,250 election fees. No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £139,427 | £8,969 | £0 |
| Tim Eltringham printed as “T Eltringham”Director of Health & Social Care Partnership No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £138,177 | £9,664 | £0 |
| Kevin Braidwood printed as “K Braidwood”Director of Housing, Operations & Development Salary includes £250 election fees. No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £125,091 | £8,732 | £0 |
| Jane Bradley printed as “J Bradley”Director of Communities & Transformation No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £124,841 | £8,732 | £0 |
| Tim Baulk printed as “T Baulk”Chief Financial Officer No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £107,239 | £6,954 | £0 |
| Catriona Caves printed as “C Caves”Chief Governance Officer Salary includes £1,000 election fees. No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £106,674 | £7,525 | £0 |
| Wendy Wesson printed as “W Wesson”Chief HR Officer Salary includes £250 election fees. No taxable expenses or non-cash benefits paid in 2024-25 (accounts statement). | £101,641 | £6,382 | £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
242 employees were paid above £50,000 in 2019/20. By 2024/25 it was 719. Above £100,000 the count went from 4 to 16.
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 242 then against 239 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
South Ayrshire disclosed 106 exit packages costing £4.8m over the six years to 2024/25.
Packages of £100,000 and over
| Year | Band | Packages | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019/20 | £100,001–£150,000 | 4 | £668,589 |
| 2020/21 | £100,001–£150,000 | 3 | £462,862 |
| 2022/23 | £100,001–over | 3 | £594,361 |
| 2023/24 | £100,001–over | 1 | £117,606 |
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 figure is 'Contributions from employers' (£000, x1000) from the fair-value-of-assets reconciliation in Note 27 Defined benefit pension schemes (Strathclyde Pension Fund); excludes unfunded benefits paid directly by the Council (£1.907m), disclosed separately — the MiRS line 'Employers' contribution payable to the scheme' (£18.383m) includes them. Teachers' figure printed as £9.8m (x1,000,000) employer's contributions to the Scottish Teachers Superannuation Scheme (SPPA) per Note 28. No combined total printed.
Officers and members
The paid and the elected
9 senior officers£1.1m
all councillors£727,470
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 table 'b) Remuneration paid to Councillors (subject to audit)': salaries, expenses and total as printed in whole £. Total number of councillors not stated in the report.
This council as data: /api/scotland/south-ayrshire.json