Senior management pay across devolved public services in Wales 2015 to 2019

1. This report reflects the Welsh Government’s commitment to support the transparency of senior management pay. It compiles in one place the disclosures already published by devolved public sector employers in Wales. The report does not seek to analyse or make conclusions, identify trends nor make recommendations.

2. The organisations included in the report represent the health sector, local authorities, national park authorities, fire and rescue authorities, police forces, organisations that are funded by the Welsh Consolidated Fund or sponsored by the Welsh Government and, where the information is available, institutes of higher education.

3. All public bodies are required to report senior pay within their annual financial statements or remuneration report. The exact nature of the information required varies between different sectors according to the relevant statutory requirements and the associated accounting guidance.

4. National Health Service (NHS) bodies and the bodies within central government (e.g. the Welsh Government and its sponsored bodies) prepare their accounts in line with guidance in the Government Financial Reporting Manual (FReM). The FReM requires the production of a directors’ remuneration report alongside the annual financial statements.

5. Local authorities, police forces, national parks and fire and rescue authorities prepare their accounts in line with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) Code of Practice on Local Authority Accounting. CIPFA require annual accounts to include financial statements that contain certain information about the remuneration of senior managers; but there is no requirement to produce a remuneration report.

6. Disclosure requirements for institutes of higher education are set out in the Statement of Recommended Accounting Practice (SORP) supplemented by the annual Accounts Directions issued by the relevant funding body.

7. Many of the organisations included in this report also produce an annual pay policy statement. This has been a requirement for local authorities (county and county borough councils and fire and rescue authorities in Wales) under section 38 of the Localism Act 2011 since the financial year 2012-13. More recently, the Welsh Government (as an employer) and other Welsh public sector bodies have produced pay policy statements in line with the Welsh Government’s principles around the transparency of reporting senior remuneration.

8. The tables report the salaries of chief executives (or their equivalent) across devolved public services in Wales. Where the information is available, pay is compared over the past four years.

9. The information is based on gross annual salary and excludes employer’s pension contributions, expenses and benefits in kind. Where a post has only been filled for part of a year, this is shown and explained in a footnote. Where the post has been filled by more than one person the remuneration has been added together and is explained in a footnote. The information is presented in the same format as it is presented in the organisation’s accounts, i.e. as a specific salary or a salary range.

10. The tables reports the gender of chief executives (or their equivalent) across devolved public services in Wales. A summary of this information is at tables 9 and 10.

11. The tables reports pay across devolved public services in Wales. Bodies which report under the FReM are required to include the ratio between the median staff pay (the salary of the person in the middle of a list of employees’ pay) and the highest paid ‘director’ (based on the mid-point of the banded remuneration for that director).

12. The Welsh Government’s transparency principles recommend that pay policy statements should include the relationship between the remuneration of senior posts and that of the lowest paid posts.

13. The majority of the organisations listed in the annex have used the chief executive’s actual salary or the mid-point of the chief executive’s salary band compared with the median salary. Exceptions are explained in the footnotes. 

Housing Associations and other social landlords are private bodies outside the control of the Welsh Government.  Their umbrella body, Community Housing Cymru, has published its own summary of senior pay in the sector.