A REPORT has criticised the “high cost” of police authorities and in particular their chief executives.

The report by lobby group The Taxpayers’ Alliance highlighted the cost of chief executive salaries and set it against authorities’ annual budgets.

The group said that in 2009-10 Cleveland Police’s then chief executive, Joe McCarthy, drew a salary of £163,011. Together with his pension this equated to 14 per cent of the authority’s £1.27m total budget.

Only the remuneration paid to the chief executive of Gwent Police Authority as a percentage of its total budget was greater – 16 per cent.

The salary paid to Mr McCarthy, who left the authority last year, dwarfed that paid to chief executives in Durham (£60,000), North Yorkshire (£83,000) and the much larger police authority in Northumbria, where only £27,704 was paid to its chief executive in 2009-10.

The report also detailed allowances paid to police authority members, which totalled £902,813 between the region’s four authorities.

The Government wants to replace the police authority structure with directly-elected police commissioners, who would set targets for forces and control their own budgets.

Matthew Sinclair, director of The Taxpayers’ Alliance, said there would be a cost to such a move, but it was “far better than sticking with the status quo”.

He said: “Police authority chief executives enjoy generous pay and perks at taxpayers’ expense. But despite the cost, police authorities aren’t properly accountable to the public who pay for them.”

Councillor Mark Burns-Williamson, chairman of the Association of Police Authorities, said the alliance’s “presentation of partially accurate and publicly available information [told] only half the story”.

“It collates cost, but reveals nothing about value,” he said.

He said police authorities had helped deliver record falls in crime, played a crucial role in raising public confidence in policing and had hit every Government efficiency target to date.

A spokesman for Cleveland Police Authority also criticised the report and said it did not reflect the current position.

He pointed out that Mr McCarthy’s recently-appointed replacement, Stuart Pudney, receives a salary of £90,000 per year.

Meanwhile, members’ allowances costs, staff numbers and overall budget were all significantly below the national average.