ONE of the region’s most powerful civil servants will receive a £220k salary continuing at the helm of two major Greater Manchester authorities.

Eamonn Boylan has been interim director of Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) since last year, dividing his time between his role as chief executive of the GM combined authority.

The official merging of the two key roles was approved by city region bosses in March and the pay scale signed off on Friday.

Bosses say the move will save £280k and the salary is cost effective in comparison to similar top jobs in other areas of the civil service across the country.

A GMCA spokesperson said: “While the integration will make clear financial savings, the motivation for creating this new role is to enable the GMCA and TfGM to better deliver our ambition to become one of the best places in the world.

“Korn Ferry, a recognised world leader in job evaluation and reward benchmarking, have carried out a pay analysis for this role.

“While this will mean an increase to the GMCA chief executive’s salary, when the deletion of the TfGM chief officer’s role and its base salary are considered, a significant saving of around £280k is made.”

Mr Boylan, a former chief executive of Stockport council, took over as the first full time boss of the city region’s combined authority in 2017.

He replaced Sir Howard Bernstein who had been balancing his role as Manchester council chief executive with responsibility for the GMCA.

The salary recommendation was approved by council leaders and the city region’s mayor at a combined authority meeting on Friday.

A report tabled for the authority’s resources committee highlights that Transport for London employs 10 people with a salary of £200k or more with the combined GM role seen ‘as a step higher’ than some of those.

Meanwhile, a comparable role in the private sector would attract a salary of around £390k.

And ‘a slightly smaller job in the NHS would attract a salary of £230k to 260k’, the report added.

The current salary for head of paid service for GMCA is £187,272.

The GMCA spokesperson added: “A joint chief executive officer role covering executive leadership of the GMCA and TfGM will enable better integration and coordination across transport in the city-region and Greater Manchester’s wider strategy.”