You may not have ever heard of most of them, but today the officers taking home the highest salaries at Bristol City Council have been revealed.

And there are hundreds of council workers being paid the lowest wages – earning between £11,995 and £12,135 a year – the Evening Post can reveal.

At the top of the tree, chief executive Jan Ormondroyd earns £189,533, only £8,000 less than Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The rest of the top-10 earners, each earning six-figure salaries, are responsible for heading the council departments.

They are directors and strategic directors, in charge of budgets worth many millions of pounds and in charge of hundreds of staff across the city.

Since Mrs Ormondroyd arrived at the Council House, she has sat the top executives in the same room on the third floor, within almost touching distance of each other in a refurbished area where partition walls have been removed and purple carpet tiles laid down.

The idea is that other council staff can see their bosses at work and not hidden away in their own private offices.

The top 10 earners at Bristol City Council are:

● 1: Jan Ormondroyd, chief executive. Salary: £189,533.

● 2: Hugh Annett, director of public health. Salary: £135,000 – £140,000.

● 3: Jon House, deputy chief executive. Salary: £135,746.

● 4: Will Godfrey, strategic director resources. Salary: £124,982.

● 5: Annie Hudson, strategic director children, young people and skills. Salary: £123,192.

● 6: David Bishop, strategic director city development. Salary: £112,597.

● 7: David Trussler, strategic director transformation. Salary: £105,129.

● 8: Cathy Morgan, interim strategic director health and social care. Salary: £105,129.

● 9: Graham Simms, strategic director neighbourhoods. Salary: £105,129.

● 10: Terry Wagstaff, acting chief executive West of England Partnership. Salary: £98,197.

Director of public health Hugh Annett's salary falls within the band provided by Bristol Primary Care Trust (PCT). His post is jointly funded with the PCT and only a percentage of his salary band is paid by the city council.

The salary of Terry Wagstaff from the West of England Partnership is also not paid for entirely by Bristol City Council, but also by Bath and North East Somerset, North Somerset and South Gloucester councils.

But while the above executives are the highest earners at the city council, there are 320 council employees in Bristol (not including casual workers and school staff) who earn the lowest salary grade, between £11,995 and £12,135.

Staff at this range have a range of different roles, such as catering assistants, cleaning operatives, domestic services and sports coaches.

Matthew Elliott, head of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said that council executives such as Mrs Ormondroyd and her team are paid too much.

He said: "Top public sector executives are living in a parallel universe where they continue to receive sky-high pay while ordinary families struggle."

Council bosses said the salaries reflected market forces. A spokesman from the Local Government Association said: "We need the best town hall bosses to make sure councils give value for money, which means attracting talented people."