A report by the Taxpayers' Alliance revealed there were 80 local authority workers who earned more than £50,000 during the last financial year – up from just one a little more than a decade ago.

And per head of population, the borough paid out the most in the county to fund them.

Council bosses today said three of those were down to redundancy packages, with many of the rest senior teachers and headteachers.

And they insisted the 32 remaining £50,000-a-year staff were justified.

The bill for 2006/07 worked out at £32.72 for every man, woman and child in the borough – more than North Tyneside and Gateshead councils combined.

Residents even forked out more per person than those living under the city councils of Sunderland and Newcastle.

The figures made South Tyneside Council the costliest authority per person in Tyne and Wear, and third costliest out of North East England's 25 authorities.

Only Hartlepool and Redcar council spend more.The report shows that in 1996/97, only the chief executive of the council earned more than £50,000 in salary, bonuses and benefits.

The Taxpayers' Alliance today accused local authority chiefs of "feathering the nests of an elite group of bureaucrats", but the council hit back claiming "high performing councils need high performing teams."

A spokesman for South Tyneside Council added: "The accounts declare 80 posts. That includes three redundancies where the salary plus redundancy payment brought it into the salary range.

"This brings us down to 77 of which 45 are headteachers or senior teachers.

"This then leaves us with 32 senior manager posts within South Tyneside Council, which is reasonable for an organisation with over 6,000 employees.

"We are a high performing and much-improved council. We challenge all our spending to ensure we deliver value for money for our residents. High performing councils need high performing teams."

A spokesman for the Taxpayers' Alliance said: "South Tyneside taxpayers will be shocked that so much of their council tax goes on middle managers earning salaries far above the average wage.

"When people hand over their hard-earned money they expect it to be spent on schools, policing and bin collections, not on feathering the nests of an elite group of bureaucrats.

"With council tax at record levels, the council really should try to control its spending."

"If the council are dis-satisfied with the content of the figures, they only have themselves to blame as the numbers were from their own accounts.

"We would gladly have excluded educational staff from the calculations if they had been willing to publish the relevant numbers, but they weren't.

"We would urge them to be more open with the public in future years.

"That said, even the reduced figure is still vastly higher than 10 years ago, and for a supposedly cash-strapped council a lot of money is being handed out."