And another 100 have a gross salary of between £100,000 and £120,000 annually.
The figures were published by Policy & Resources yesterday in response to written questions submitted by David Goy.
He had previously established that nearly 400 public sector staff earned more than £85,000 a year, and it has now been revealed that their gross salary totals £43.4m., about 12% of the States’ annual payroll.
‘For an island with a population of around 65,000, that is quite a top-heavy government,’ said Deputy Goy.
‘I am not alleging misconduct. I am not accusing individuals. This is about structure, cost and accountability because the government is not a private company.’
He accused P&R of continuing to withhold data he had requested about pay in the public sector, including more information about each of the roles carried out by the 389 employees with a salary of at least £85,000.
P&R said that listing job titles in the way requested would identify staff and risk breaching privacy required by employment contracts.
The questions submitted by Deputy Goy in recent months have already prompted the senior committee into publishing unprecedented detail about staff pay, and yesterday it pledged to go further by the middle of this year.
It said it was considering publishing an overview of the entire public service staff structure, including roles and reporting lines, a profile of leadership roles, and more employment data in an easily understandable format.
‘The aim would be to provide stakeholders and the wider community with a clearer understanding of how the public service operates, how its work supports political priorities, and how it contributes to the delivery of public services, while respecting the data of individual employees,’ said P&R president Lindsay de Sausmarez.
‘The committee considers that a regular pattern of publication will promote transparency, reinforce accountability, and build public confidence in the governance and performance of the public service.
‘There are valuable examples of best practice from other jurisdictions regarding the proactive publication of staffing information by public sector bodies which will help inform this work.’
P&R said the work was being led by States chief executive Boley Smillie.
The latest information published yesterday broke down the number of high-earning staff working for each committee or service area.
It showed that nearly two-thirds of the highest earners, who have a salary exceeding £140,000, and well over half of those earning more than £85,000 are lawyers at St James Chambers, or work for one of three committees – Health & Social Care, Education, Sport & Culture, or Home Affairs.
P&R itself has some 110 staff with a gross salary of more than £85,000, including 82 working in corporate services, for which the senior committee is responsible.
Deputy Goy said Guernsey ‘desperately needs’ the States to be less afraid of transparency.
‘In government, the people are the shareholders and we pay the salaries,’ he said.
‘That gives us the right to know who holds these roles, how much they are paid, whether they are performing, and whether the roles are necessary at all.
‘Right now, we cannot answer those questions fully, because the data was not fully provided.’
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