Interesting to see item 3...
I have been meaning for some time to put Freedom of Information requests into councils to determine numbers of staff in each department, upper and lower limits of salaries in each department, total salary cost for each department, total budget for each department, and management structure from Chief Executive down.
While some info has been available for years from city councils in N America, and much of the info is available from Education (part of Local Government back in the 80s and onward) the local Councils are extremely secretive. On Toronto and Chicago web sites, for example, I found e-mail, phone number, potted CVs and head-and-shoulder photos of staff in many departments. Now that really is 'freedom of information' such as would make UK Council staff go white as the blood drains away, I suspect!
While I can quite understand some reluctance to open their books to the public who pay for them, and feel sure the staff at the lower end of the salary scales are needing more, it's the middle and upper end which no doubt keep the locks closed on making management structure and cost out of public scrutiny.
I suspect I would have to submit a number of questions over a number of months to get all those categories answered, because in one go they could claim a fee of over 450 pounds for gathering it and say "pay up or forget it", but the figures should all be relatively easy to find, from the figures needed before a new budget is worked on. They have to have costs for every department, and number of FTE staff (to consider the effect of cuts).
The management reporting is another matter, and there are perhaps a load of well-paid posts based on past amalgamations and reorganisations where back scratching has kept some in posts 'created' for them but essentially unnecessary middle management costing us a lot.