PLANS to publish the salaries of council chiefs in Kent and across the country have been dropped by the Government.

Ministers have abandoned a proposal which would have compelled all councils annually to list the earnings of chief executives and senior officers as part of their agenda for more openness.

But local authorities complained it would amount to an invasion of privacy and succeeded in persuading the Government to drop the idea.

A row broke out earlier this year when it emerged the chief executive of Kent County Council, Mike Pitt, had been awarded a 29 per cent pay rise which took his salary to around £180,000 a year. The salary package also incorporated retirement grant worth £270,000 and an annual pension worth some £90,000.

Although the details were initially kept private, they were subsequently leaked to the press.

Had ministers pushed ahead with their plans, this information – along with details of all council senior officers - would have been published as a matter of course, as would the salaries of all other district and borough council chiefs.

The Government about-turn has angered union leaders and opposition parties at County Hall. David Buss, the secretary of the Kent Unison branch, said: “One person’s salary doesn’t make much difference to the council tax bill but it is right that people know the chief executive of KCC has had a big pay hike at a time when services are being cut.

“If the public had access to that information year-on-year, it would be much harder to push through that sort of pay rise for a small number of people at the top while trying to keep pay down for the rest of us.”

Opposition Labour group leader Cllr Mike Eddy said: “I do understand there may be an argument about identifying lots of individuals. However, every council has an individual who is at the top of the tree and it is right and proper that the public should know what that person is getting in an open and transparent fashion.”

Liberal Democrat spokesman Cllr John Frisby said he was appalled at the decision. “It is a retrograde step. Local government officers are becoming the new fat cats of industry and this is not what should be happening in an era of supposedly more open government,” he said.

A spokesman for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister said the plans were dropped because the publication of named individuals could breach data protection legislation.