North Wales council leaders paid £30k more than English local authority chief

North Wales council leaders are paid almost £30,000 more than the leader of a large metropolitan borough council in England. A Conwy town councillor says the pay gap between the Conwy County council leader and the leader of Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, where he used to be a councillor, is "unsustainable". Councillor Gary Willetts also criticised the "obscene amount" paid in pension contributions to North Wales councillors. Every council leader in North Wales receives £71,025, except on Anglesey , where the pay is set at £67,079. Councils in Wales are grouped by population. Five North Wales authorities are in category B (with populations of between 100-200,00). Anglesey with a population of less than 100k is in category C. Only three Welsh councils, including Cardiff, are in category A (with populations higher than 200k) and their leaders are paid £78,917. In Dudley, where the population comfortably exceeds 300,000, the leader receives just less than £42,000. Join the North Wales Live WhatsApp community group where you can get the latest stories delivered straight to your phone Cllr Willetts believes the current pay levels and structures in Wales need to be overhauled to give taxpayers better value for money. Councillors pay in Wales is set independently from councils, by the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru (DBCC) in contrast to England, where authorities set their own pay. His criticism comes after Conwy County Council rubberstamped another pay rise last month , where councillors’ basic salary increased from £19,771 to £21,044. Conwy cabinet members’ wages also increased from £40,036 to £42,615. The leader’s salary increased from £66,727 to £71,025 and the deputy leader from £46,709 to £49,717. Cllr Willetts pointed to the fact councillors in Dudley are paid much less. For instance, according to figures included in Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council’s constitution, the leader earns £41,961 (£29,429 plus a basic of £12,532), cabinet members £29,287 (£16,755 plus £12,532), and backbench councillors £12,532. Over the border in Chester councillors are paid much less than their Welsh counterparts. According to the Cheshire West and Chester Members’ Allowances Scheme 2023 - 2027, the council leader is paid £47,647 (£33,194 plus a basic of £14,453), the deputy £39,348 (£24,895 plus 14,453), and cabinet members £28,906 (£14,453 plus £14,453), with back benchers receiving £14,453. Although county councils in Wales have control over whether certain positions receive extra remuneration, such as chairs of committees, councils in England set their own pay, but the figure is suggested by each authority’s own independent remuneration panel. This panel will then provide the council with advice on amounts to be paid and pensions, which is then voted on by councillors. This often means councillors in England are paid considerably less. Cllr Willetts, who doesn’t receive pay as a town councillor, said: “Dudley has probably got twice the population of Conwy. It is in an urban area. It has far more problems, and it is harder to run than an authority of that size. “If the leader of the council in Conwy gets £71,000, which is probably as much as most top managers get in Conwy, why do we need a chief executive on high wages to run the council? “It just makes me convinced that local government in Wales is in chaos, and it all needs sorting out. But the administration is loath to do anything about it. Some action needs to be taken to reduce the cost on the council tax payer. The council tax payer is paying this, and I object to paying all this money when the service we get is poor. You can’t go on paying all these people in Wales this much money.” He added: “The responsibilities in a metropolitan borough with all its urban environment are far greater than they are in a semi-rural Welsh establishment. You’ve got far more problems. We don’t have that many immigration issues in Conwy. But immigration in metropolitan boroughs is spreading quite considerably, and they have all those problems to sort.” Cllr Willetts was also critical of the amount Welsh councillors received in pension contributions, which he called an “obscene amount”. Figures provided by Conwy County Council to the Local Democracy Reporting Service show that between 2021/22 and 2025/26, the total cost of councillors' pay and pensions rose from £1.2m to £1.57m – an overall increase of £369,000 (31%). The total salary bill also grew by 25% (from £1.11m to £1.39m), while the cost of councillor pensions doubled, jumping from £89,000 to £178,000 in the same period. Data for 2026/27 is not yet available. According to Conwy County Council, 35 of its 55 councillors are on the pension scheme, which has an employer contribution rate of 16.6%. A spokesperson for the DBCC said it "determines salaries for councillors in all of Wales' 22 councils, as required by the Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru etc. Act 2013. “Our annual remuneration report for 2026-27 aligned these to three fifths of the mean full-time wages of workers living in Wales, using previous research which showed that councillors, on average, work a three-day week.” He added: “This maintained the position of our predecessor, the Independent Remuneration Panel for Wales, and kept councillor salaries aligned to those of the people they represent." A Conwy council spokeswoman said: “The DBCC is the responsible body for determining pay, expenses, and benefits for members of principal councils, community and town councils, fire and rescue authorities, and national park authorities in Wales, and it is a DBCC direction that elected members can access the pension scheme.” The Welsh Government declined to comment.