West Dunbartonshire
This council had not finished its 2024/25 audit when we last checked, so its record stops at 2023/24, the most recent year anyone has signed off.
It takes a whole year’s Band D council tax from
103 households
to pay the chief executive’s salary of £144,584. Band D in West Dunbartonshire was £1,399 in 2023/24, before water and sewerage.
The register
Who is paid what
| Officer | Salary | Employer pension | Other benefits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Hessett Chief Executive 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £144,584 | £27,905 | £0 |
| Victoria Rogers Chief Officer - People & Technology 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £108,216 | £20,886 | £0 |
| Peter Barry Chief Officer - Housing & Employability 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £108,216 | £20,886 | £0 |
| Laurence Slavin Chief Officer - Resources - S95 Officer 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £108,197 | £20,882 | £0 |
| Amanda Graham Chief Officer - Citizen, Culture & Facilities 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £108,197 | £20,882 | £0 |
| Laura Mason Chief Officer - Education, Learning & Attainment 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £107,647 | £20,776 | £0 |
| Alan Douglas Chief Officer - Regulatory & Regeneration 2023/24 is the most recent audited year (2024/25 audit still in progress at extraction, August 2026). Taxable expenses nil (Table 3). | £105,887 | £20,436 | £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
216 employees were paid above £50,000 in 2019/20. By 2023/24 it was 477. Above £100,000 the count went from 4 to 9.
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 216 then against 184 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
West Dunbartonshire disclosed 123 exit packages costing £2.7m over the six years to 2023/24.
Packages of £100,000 and over
| Year | Band | Packages | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 | £100,001–£150,000 | 4 | £458,654 |
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
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 from Note 13 Defined Benefit Pension Schemes narrative: 'In 2020/21, the council paid an employer's contribution of £19.558m (2019/20 £18.887m)' (£m, x1,000,000). Teachers' figure from the same note: amount paid over in respect of employer's contribution to the Scottish Teachers Superannuation Scheme (SPPA) £8.837m; excludes teachers added years payments of £0.044m shown separately. No combined total printed.
Officers and members
The paid and the elected
2023/24, 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 2 'Councillors Total Remuneration' (whole £, no scaling): salaries £517,724, expenses £8,125, total allowances £525,849. 22 councillors stated in the Management Commentary narrative. 2023/24 is the latest audited year.
Arm’s length
Pay in the companies this council owns
| Body | Post | Salary | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Dunbartonshire 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/west-dunbartonshire.json