The report published today says the cost of paying these staff is the equivalent of 7.5% of council tax receipts. This is down from 12.5% the previous year, but 118 councils also increased the amount spent on staff earning more than £50,000.
The report shows Manchester City Council had the biggest reduction in the number of employees earning more than £50,000, a drop of 410 staff. This was mostly because of a large bill for redundancy payments in the previous year.
Leeds City Council reduced the number of staff earning more than £50,000 to 365, a fall of just 11. This left Leeds City Council with more than twice as many staff earning £50,000 or more as Manchester.
In London, Tower Hamlets Borough Council has almost twice as many staff earning over £50,000 (306) as the borough of Lewisham (160), while covering a smaller population.
Birmingham City Council increased the amount spent on staff earning more than £50,000 a year by more than £5 million. In 2011/12 an additional 73 staff received remuneration in excess of £50,000.
Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "Taxpayers are still paying far too much for bloated bureaucracies that have been established in too many town halls over the past decade.
"It is incredible that some councils have even increased spending on high earning staff this year after a decade in which council tax doubled across the country and when every local authority needs to find savings and ease the burden.
"In those cases where it is the result of redundancy payments, then we need to see the savings soon."
Local government minister Brandon Lewis said: "For too long the senior local government pay bill has spiralled up and up and taxpayers have been left footing the bill.
"While I commend those councils taking action, there are still many others failing to get a grip on costs.
"This report exposes the fact that town halls still have massive scope to make sensible savings to protect important frontline services and freeze council tax."
