There are more £100k earners working for the council than ever before.

New research by the Taxpayer's Alliance has found that despite austerity measures and cuts to services Sutton Council is paying 15 members of staff more than £100k a year, up from 13 in 2010-11.

Chief executive Niall Bolger took home £156,195 of taxpayers money last year in basic salary, but on top of that received 33,582 in employer pension contributions, making a grand total of 189,777.

Executive head of human resources Dean Shoesmith was paid £140k including pension contributions.

Tolis Vouyioukas, the council's strategic director of children, young people and learning services, who was brought in after a scathing Ofsted report last year, was paid £104,909 including pension contributions.

Mr Vouyioukas was appointed in the role after Stephen Richards decided to leave the council "in order to pursue fresh challenges", two days after the damning Ofsted report was published.

Conservative Councillor Tim Crowley was critical of the council after seeing the figures.

He said: "This is taxpayer's money and the council are happily spending it on its own staff. The Executive Head of Policy and Communications earned 117,141 last yerar. I'm not even sure what they do. We are supposed to be giving tax payers value for money. We are also supposed to be cutting costs, but paying more people over £100k is not cutting costs."

Figures show that there were at least 2,525 council employees around the country who received total remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2011-12, a fall of 11 per cent on the previous year’s 2,839.

However 103 councils, including Sutton, increased the number of staff who received remuneration in excess of £100,000 in 2011-12.

A council spokesman said: "These figures are misleading for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Sutton figures include staff who were made redundant.

Secondly, our senior officers are paid less than most of their counterparts across London. Finally, our success in delivering real value-for money is demonstrated by the fact that council tax has been frozen for the past four years.

"Also in common with all other local authorities in England, most senior officers have not had a pay increase for the past five years."