The fire authority scrutiny committee has been told by its members that “there is a shortfall between what is currently published and what is required” under Government guidelines.

Tracy Raby, the authority’s scrutiny officer, says the Government requires not only details of what chief officers are paid to be published but a list of those earning more than £50,000 a year.

“There is a structure chart published but this currently only covers staff in the top two levels of the organisation, that is chief fire officer and directors,” she says.

“While the structure chart includes job titles, it does not specify salary grades or ceilings whether the roles are permanent or temporary or contact details.”

Ms Raby says members who looked at the code are recommending that the structure chart is expanded to include more information.

The authority is now expected to publish the numbers of its employees who earn more than £50,000 a year.

She says the members view is that the authority is not complying with the requirements of the code.

“In a small authority such as ours publishing about those posts for which the salary is at least £50,000 will make those holding those posts easily identifiable,” she says.

She wants approval to publish only the numbers of employees whose salaries are at least £50,000 without going into additional detail.

Councillors on the authority have accepted that in the main the Local Government Transparency Act is being complied with although “information published in relation to some areas requires expanding”.

Members agreed most information is available on the force website but is “fragmented across a variety of different sections”.