MORE than £10.5 million a year is spent on middle managers and top bosses by councils in Worcestershire.

That is less than in 2009/10 though when more than £12.5 million was spent on employees receiving £50,000 a year or more, including pension contributions.

Back then, there were 182 high-earners working for the six district councils in Worcestershire and the county council, but in 2010/11 that had been reduced to 154 employees.

The figures published by the TaxPayers’ Alliance buck its overall findings that the number of staff on £50,000-plus packages has increased across the Midlands.

Unsurprisingly, the biggest employer of high-earners in Worcestershire is the county council. In 2009/10 it had 125 people on generous wages costing it a little more than £8.1 million, but that has since come down to £7.1 million after 15 posts were axed.

By dividing that combined wage total by the county’s population, the TaxPayers’ Alliance say these high-earners cost each taxpayer in the county £12.84 a year.

While staff at Worcester City Council earning more than £50,000 a year has stayed the same, its annual costs have come down from £697,500 to £567,500.

Wyre Forest District Council has also kept the same number of employees earning more than £50,000, but those six now earn a combined £460,000 compared to £530,000 the year before.

At Malvern and Wychavon, there are now seven high-earners when there were nine, bringing costs down from £652,500 to £542,500, and £727,500 to £537,500 respectively.

From April 2010, Redditch Borough Council and Bromsgrove District Council have employed a joint management team, sharing the costs equally. The number of employees at both councils has come down from a combined total 24 to 15.

As a result, combined costs have been reduced from more than £1.7 million to more than £1.2 million.

Meanwhile, in Herefordshire costs have increased from nearly £3.7 million to nearly £4 million as the number of staff earning above the £50,000 threshold went from 47 to 58.

However, that rise might be due to employees receiving redundancy packages as the council said 61 of its employees lost their jobs in 2009/10 and another 67 in 2010/11.