​The man in charge of Bath and North East Somerset Council is the third best paid local authority chief executive in the south west, according to a union survey.

B&NES chief executive John Everitt’s pay package added up to more than £211,000 last year – putting him third behind his counterparts at Cornwall County and Bristol City councils.

The GMB union – which represents thousands of lower paid council workers – has criticised the size of town hall bosses’ pay packets.

It looked at published accounts for 151 county councils, London and metropolitan authorities and found that 129 chief executives were paid more than £150,000 a year.

Its report said that two chief executives earned more than £300,000, 14 earned between £250,000 and £300,000, 62 earned between £200,000 and £250,000 and 51 earned between £150,000 and £200,000.

GMB regional secretary Richard Ascough said: “Council workers will be sickened to learn how much their bosses are creaming off and the levels of their bosses’ pay.

“This is at a time when councils say they are hard up and are slashing jobs and services while telling staff to put up with a pay freeze. These same chief executives have had the gall to say their lowest paid workers will not get any pay rise this year.

“I can’t believe that the council chief executives salaries have got so high with no obvious logic to explain this.”

Mr Ascough added: “There has to be restraint at the top combined with fairness at the bottom and there is no point having one without the other.”

Local government minister Bob Neill agreed that the issue was a concern, and said more councils needed to share chief executives.

He said: “Councils need to be leading from the front and exercising prudence in these difficult times.

“We need to stamp out a culture of duplication, which is why, in many cases, councils should be looking towards sharing chief executives.”

B&NES is to commission expert advice on the future of the chief executive’s role, with Mr Everitt able to exercise his right to retire from the job he has occupied since 1997 in a year’s time.

Mr Everitt – who is in charge of an authority employing nearly 7,000 people – was paid a basic £164,963 last year, the same as in 2008/9. His total remuneration package including pension contributions and expenses – of which he claimed £1,406 – takes the figure to £211,859.

John Ransford, chief executive of the Local Government Association, defended the size of local authority bosses’ salaries: “Chief executives are responsible for multi-million pound budgets in highly complex organisations, and councils are determined to attract the best and brightest people to deliver not only value for money, but the highest standards of public services.

“It is right that chief executive pay is subject to public scrutiny.

“Councils need talented people in top management positions and in deciding salary levels they have to balance this with other policy objectives, including the need, in a tight financial situation, for all salaries to be demonstrably reasonable.”

The GMB said it was awaiting figures for Wiltshire Council, whose chief executive Andrew Kerr started work only this February.