Cornwall Council has come under fire after its accounts showed that two members of staff had received pay packets of more than £200,000 each.

The statement of accounts for 2019/20 was published on the council’s website this week giving all details for the last financial year.

One page of the document lists the remuneration paid to the council’s senior employees.

This shows that the council’s Service Director Finance & Commercial and Deputy Section 151 Officer (Interim) Richard Williams was paid £233,585.

And it also lists Head of Financial Planning and Business Intelligence (Interim) Clare Williams as receiving £200,176.

Both pay levels are only for salary, fees and allowances and do not include any bonus, expense allowances or pension contributions.

In comparison council chief executive Kate Kennally received a salary of £180,423 but when her pension contributions are added her full package for 2019/20 was £211,987.

The total bill for the council’s senior staff for 2019/20 was £1,939,802. The previous year it had been £1,467,837.

Conservative councillor David Harris said he was “appalled” by the details included in the document.

He said: “I am appalled at the level of officer remuneration shown on page 93 of the accounts.

“How can it be possible to justify the monstrous amounts paid to the Deputy Section 151 Officer, £233,000 or his deputy, the Head of Financial Planning, £200,000. Nice work if you can get it but both amounts are well in excess of the Chief Executive’s remuneration of £180,000 and, no, I am not proposing a pay increase for the Chief Executive!

“In the end there is only one pocket that these huge salaries come from and that is the pocket of taxpayers be it in the form of council tax, income tax or whatever. I look forward to seeing any attempt to justify these ridiculous pay packets.”

The accounts also give the number of staff who are paid £50,000 or more. That shows that in 2019/20 there were a total of 305 earning £50k or more compared with 256 the previous year.

Of those staff 62 work in schools and 243 are other council employees.

It shows that there were 13 people earning £100,000 or more, up from 11 the previous year.

Cornwall Council was asked to comment on the salaries and respond to Cllr Harris’ comments but has not replied as yet.