Angus Council has refused to disclose details of pay rises granted to employees over the last three years claiming the process is too expensive.
Officials said they had consulted with all departments following a freedom of information request from The Courier.
However, a spokesman has said the information could only be “specifically collated by analysing individual personnel files of approximately 5500 council employees.”
He said, “The council does not have to provide you with the information requested in terms of Section 12(1) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 where it would cost the council over £600 to do so.”
The Courier asked the local authority several questions about salaries in the wake of its announcement that it hopes to axe around 500 jobs by 2014 part of a wider plan to save £23 million in the wake of budget cuts from Holyrood.
Scotland-wide, all employees earning over £21,000 have now been told they will face a two-year pay freeze.
Among the documents to which access was denied were the details of any employees who received a yearly wage rise of greater than £1000 over this period, the amount by which their salary increased, their department and job title and any guidance which might suggest why the rise was granted.
And although the local authority was also unable to issue detailed projected annual wage bills for each department this year, it did provide a copy of its revenue budget.
Employee costs were greatest in education, totalling around £73 million of the staffing budget valued at around £150 million during the last financial year.
This was followed by social work and health at almost £37 million.
Included in these totals is the amount spent by the local authority on hiring temporary staff, which was revealed last year as being in the region of £17,000 every day.
However, the council said it was unable to disclose details of any positions which had become vacant over the last three years which it had decided not to re-advertise.
Although it has not completely ruled out compulsory redundancies, the Angus Alliance administration has said it hopes to meet targets on job cuts by “natural turnover” and not replacing those who leave or retire from their posts.