ALMOST 1,000 senior officers at cash-strapped councils are being paid more than £50,000 a year.

The growing army of directors and senior managers at Staffordshire authorities has swelled from 578 to 958 over two years – a rise of 65 per cent.

And The Sentinel has learned that the taxpayer paid out £70 million in salaries to top officials in the county last year.

Data obtained under Freedom of Information laws shows that was up 55 per cent from the £45 million handed over in 2008.

But councils' overall payroll costs have shrunk by £5 million to £961 million over the period. And the figures come as the city council looks to purge 14 top posts to save £1.3 million.

A breakdown of the data shows that:

Staffordshire County Council, which is trying to save £120 million in three years, paid 671 senior officers a total of £50 million last year – compared with £31 million for 418 staff two years earlier;

Stoke-on-Trent City Council, which needs to cut £30 million by 2012, has 269 staff earning more than £50,000. This is up 87 per cent in two years from just 144. Their pay has also jumped from £12.9 million to £19.3 million;

The top seven officers at Newcastle Borough Council claim £483,612;

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council cut its senior posts from 13 to 11 by merging key services with High Peak Borough Council last year.

Meanwhile, across the border, Cheshire East Council employs 226 senior officers costing £18.75 million.

Unions last week attacked the "obscene" £242,842 salary and pension payments made to former Staffordshire County Council chief executive Ron Hilton.

In Stoke-on-Trent, chief executive John van de Laarschot admitted the authority was "management top-heavy".

The authority's deputy leader Ross Irving said he was "very concerned" by the surge in higher salaries.

The Conservative member, pictured left, added: "There is an employment market in local government that really sets the level of pay.

"But if the market is running away with itself at a time when we are trying to save money, then we would have to look very closely at that.

"These figures are worrying at a time when we have to save up to £30m."

Staffordshire councils are understood to pay directors between £100,000 and £120,000, while heads of department can earn more than £80,000, and managers receive between £40,000 and £55,000.

Lower down the scale, social workers earn around £30,000, customer services staff are paid about £16,000 and administrative assistants around £15,000.

Community Voice councillor Peter Kent-Baguley supports the city council plan to shed senior staff. "It isn't sustainable. We need a slimmed-down bureaucracy where more of the wages actually go to the staff who deliver the services," he said.