More fat cats than ever says Tax Payers Alliance

A host of public sector executives have defended their six figure salaries as a report by the Tax Payers Alliance (TPA) whips up criticism.

The highest paid, non-bank, employee in the public sector is the Royal Mail's chief executive Adam Crozier, who takes home £1.3 million, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown was 323 places below him.

A spokesperson for Royal Mail said Mr Crozier's renumeration package was “less that the previous year despite the group doubling its operating profits in that period”.

The campaign group's annual Public Sector Rich List showed that the number of workers earning over a million each year has doubled in the past year, from four to eight and the number earning over £500,000 has grown by a third.

Policy analyst for TPA, John O'Connell, said that the salaries were “completely divorced from the reality” of the economic downturn.

Mr O'Connell said: “Ordinary families, struggling to make ends meet in the recession, don’t pay their taxes to fund gold-plated deals for public sector fat cats.

“All parties now agree that excessive pay packages must be tackled but the time for action is now, not next year.”

Politicians have seized on the topic to call for more modest salaries. Liberal Democrats shadow chancellor Vince Cable has called for tightening to begin at the top.

George Osborne, the Conservative shadow chancellor responded to the fact that the leader of the country is at the bottom of the pile, by stating in October that “anyone who wishes to pay a public servant more than the prime minister will have to put it before the Chancellor”.

Other institutions to feature highly in the release were the BBC and Channel 4 Corporation (a publicly owned body it is commercially funded). The former has at least 53 employees earning over £150,000 with the latter's executive board member earning over £1.2 million each year.

A BBC has said that the company had frozen the pay of senior managers as of this month, a decision which will not be reviewed until 2013.

A spokesperson said: “For the record, Mark Thompson, as Director-General [earns £834,000], has never accepted the bonus to which he would be entitled under his contract.

"The Director General of the BBC is responsible for the BBC's services across television, radio and online and a global workforce of 25,000 people that provides over 400,000 hours of content each year.”

The report this year was far more detailed this than in any other due to a higher amount of Freedom of Information returns providing more information on bodies and total pay packets.