Higher Council Chief Exec Pay Has No Relationship with how Satisfied Residents are with their Council

There is no link between how much a council CEO is paid and how satisfied people are with the council's performance, according to analysis by Ipsos. The information on the pay of council chief executives (for the years 2008-9 and 2009-10), collected by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism for this week's Panorama programme, was compared with data on the levels of resident satisfaction of each council in England to see if there was any correlation. Although the highest paid chief executive in Local Government also runs the Authority with the highest level of resident satisfaction, as well as the top score on value for money, Ipsos's latest analysis suggests that overall there is little connection between how satisfied residents are with their council and how much their chief executive is paid. However, when CEO pay is compared to Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) star rating data there is some correlation between renumeration and success. The councils that saw the strongest improvement in performance under the old regime have, on average, the highest paid chief executives. In addition to levels of improvement, there is a similar link between inspection star ratings and the levels of CEO pay. The average pay for councils who were previously awarded a four star rating is over 163180,000, whereas it is below 163155,000 for those with just one star. Ben Page, chief executive of Ipsos, said: "With no link between Chief Exec pay and satisfaction, residents in some areas may feel that they are getting value for money for great services while others may wonder why so much of their money goes to the council CEO. Of course the situation in much of the private sector is no different, where senior executive pay is often also weakly related to organisational performance. "However, satisfaction levels don't tell the whole story.  Looking at inspection scores, Councils that have higher scores and good levels of improvement tend to have the highest paid chief executives, and arguably these judge the whole range of services a council provides, rather than those most visible to the public."   About this analysis and Ipsos Data from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism have been combined with final CPA scores and 2008-9 Place survey data for all English local Authorities. Ipsos is one of the largest, and best known research companies in the UK and a key part of the Ipsos Group, a leading global research company. With a direct presence in 64 countries our clients benefit from specialist knowledge drawn from our five global practices: public affairs research, advertising testing and tracking, media evaluation, marketing research and consultancy, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Ipsos has worked extensively with local government in the Uk for the last 30 years. For further information: Matthew Flanders T: +44 20 7347 3452 E: [email protected]