THEY are the public servants tasked with using your money to provide vital services.

And their expertise is more necessary than ever to navigate Hampshire through the current climate of cutbacks and redundancies.

But against that backdrop of austerity, the Daily Echo can today reveal how many of Hampshire’s top council officers have had pay packages worth more than £100,000.

And several earn more than Prime Minister David Cameron whose salary is £142,500.

Today the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) has released its 2013 town hall rich list, featuring the latest figures for how many public servants earned more than £100,000 in 2011-12.

The TPA’s figures report that the amount of money spent on officers in Southampton earning more than £100,000 a year actually increased from 2010-11 to 2011-12.

But the climate of widespread austerity is illustrated by the fact that three authorities in the county have cut the number of top-level public servants.

Hampshire County Council saved almost £1.5m from 2010-11 to 2011-12 by bidding farewell to ten staff on packages of more than £100,000 and scaling back payments to other staff members.

The TPA figures show that county council chief executive Andrew Smith was the top earning civil servant in the county, with a salary of £207,372 in 2011-12.

His yearly pay packet was increased to £234,538 by employer pension contributions.

Twenty-eight of his colleagues – including children’s services director and deputy chief executive John Coughlan, on £167,734 – were also on salaries of more than £100,000 for 2011-12.

But that figure had shrunk by ten from 2010-11.

No one from the county council was available for comment.

Fareham Borough Council and Gosport Borough Council also reduced the number of staff bringing in more than £100,000, from two to one.

Southampton City Council’s former chief executive Alistair Neill was the third best-paid civil servant in Hampshire in 2011-12 with a basic salary of £165,753.

But that was topped up to £188,919 by other payments and employer pension contributions. He left the council in March.

But despite the financial cutbacks which have cut Southampton to the bone in recent years, the TPA say the city council spent more on its top officers in 2011-12 than it did the previous year.

The organisation’s figures show the authority spent £2,214,936 on payments to its 15 top-earners in 2011-12, an increase of £86,196 on 2010-11.

And the TPA say New Forest District Council has bucked the national trend with the number of officers receiving £100,000 or more increasing from three in 2010-11 to four in 2011-12.

But the increase includes redundancy and released pension costs of £136,812 for former head of performance and strategic development Keith Smith, who had his post terminated on June 6, 2011.

Chief executive Dave Yates is reported to have taken £4,881 in other payments and £18,831 in pension contributions on top of his £143,927 salary – a total of £167,639. The figure is £18,905 more than his earnings for 2010-11.

Two executive directors on salaries of £89,829 for 2011-12 saw their incomes increased to £105,820 and £103,244 respectively as a result of other payments and pension contributions.

Council leader Barry Rickman said: “I don’t believe we will have these sort of commitments to pensions in the future, simply as I don’t believe any public sector organisation can maintain them at this level.

“New Forest District Council is one of the largest districts in Britain with 170,000 people to look after, and I believe we offer a really good value considering the services we offer.

“If you look at the council’s record over the past five years we have continued to reduce staff at all levels, and at the top in particular.”

Matthew Sinclair, chief executive of the TPA, said: “It is good news that the number of senior council staff making more than £100,000 a year is finally falling, although that may only be because many authorities have finished paying eye-watering redundancy bills.

“Sadly, too many local authorities are still increasing the number of highly paid staff on their payroll, some of whom are given hundreds of thousands of pounds in compensation just to move from one public sector job to another.

“Residents won’t be impressed if their council pleads poverty when it is demanding more and more council tax, only then to spend it creating more town hall tycoons.”