Taxpayers in Kingston are funding trade unions to the tune of nearly £60,000 a year for representatives in public sector organisations.

Kingston Council is paying £28,000 a year for a full-time union secretary and a total of £27,000 to a further four staff working part time as reps, including nearly £14,000 to a teaching union.

Figures obtained by the Tax Payers’ Alliance (TPA) found that paid time off amounted to the equivalent of two full-time staff in 2010/11.

Union representatives are allowed paid time off for duties such as negotiating terms and conditions, helping staff with disciplinary and discussing procedures redundancies.

Unions have cited research by the Department for Business suggesting that union representation saves the public up to £400m a year by improving retention, training take-up and dispute resolution.

Khawer Siddiqi, of Kingston’s National Union of Teachers, said: “This organisation is trying to stir things up when they know money is at a shortage but what they don’t understand is the depth of work done by the unions."

Neighbouring boroughs pay slightly less to union official than Kingston, with Richmond paying reps £42,000 a year, Wandsworth £47,000 and Sutton £52,000.