Quango bosses have been awarded pay rises of up to 20% over the past year – almost eight times the amount given to frontline workers.

Accounts filed in the past few days show that, despite the onset of the economic down-turn early last year, many regulators and government agencies awarded double-digit pay hikes to senior executives in 2008-09.

The largest pay rise disclosed so far was awarded to Richard Judge, the chief executive of Cefas, the government’s fisheries research agency.

Judge’s pay, which included a bonus of up to £20,000, rose to £137,500 last year, up 22% on the previous year.

News of the soaring pay packets that quango boards are awarding themselves has caused anger. Nurses, civil servants and many other public-sector workers had wage rises capped at 2.7% in 2008-9. Millions of workers in the private sector have seen their pay frozen or even cut.

Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union, said many staff at Cefas earned little more than the national minimum wage of £5.73 an hour.

“There is an unacceptable and growing gap between the pay at the top of many government departments and agencies and the rank and file of staff,” said Serwotka.

Mike Robinson, the chief executive of the UK Hydrographic Office, was paid a salary and bonus worth £252,500 in 2008-9. This was 16% more than in the previous year.

A spokeswoman for the agency said that the terms of his contract had not changed and that the pay increase reflected a bonus accrued in previous years.

Three board members at the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse received pay rises of about 17%, according to the drugs quango’s new accounts. The agency also said the rises reflected bonuses earned during the previous year.

Estimates of the number of quangos – public bodies that are outside mainstream government organisations – range from 790 to 1,162, with their cost put at up to £64 billion a year.

Boardroom pay at quangos is set by remuneration committees drawn from the agency’s own board, although members are not allowed any direct role in setting their own pay.

Monitor, a regulator set up to watch over NHS foundation trusts, awarded an 8% pay rise to all its board members and staff last year, according to accounts published last week.

A Commons health select committee report published last month criticised the watchdog for “serious shortcomings” in its oversight of Mid-Stafford-shire NHS Trust, where hundreds of patients died unnecessarily because of poor care.

William Moyes, Monitor’s executive chairman, was paid about £237,500 in 2008-9, up from about £217,500 the previous year. Monitor’s remuneration report states that the deal was approved by Alan Johnson, then health secretary.

Moyes has also claimed more than £35,000 in expenses in two years, including £16,500 on chauffeur-driven cars and £2,600 for 24 meals at the Cinnamon Club, an Indian restaurant in Westminster.

A spokesman for Monitor said: “The pay awards for senior management at Monitor are decided within a predetermined structure covering the whole organisation and based on performance for the previous year.”

Last week David Cameron announced he was looking for ways to slash the amount of money spent on public bodies – particularly the pay of their executives – if the Conservatives come to power.

“Many quangos will be slimmed down radically, pay levels will be completely different and some of them will be abolished,” said Cameron.

The Tory leader singled out Ofcom, the media regulator , as one expensive public body that could be pruned.

Mike Penning, the shadow health minister, said yesterday: “This is taxpayers’ money. These organisations must show pay restraint, especially during the recession when millions of workers have seen their pay frozen or even cut.”

Gordon Brown, who on various occasions over the past 15 years has promised to cut back quangos, has ordered his own review, due to report in the autumn. The cost of public-sector wages is becoming a fraught political issue as the government tries to reduce the soaring budget deficit.

Alistair Darling, the chancellor, said last weekend that, with inflation close to zero, a freeze in pay for government employees could be “pain-free”.

He said: “At a time when inflation is likely to be between 2% and 3%, a pain-free way of cutting public spending would be to freeze public sector pay, or at least impose severe pay restraint.”

More money for Baby P official

The official who gave Haringey children’s services a clean bill of health three months after the death of Baby Peter was given a 21% pay rise.

The increase took the earnings of Michael Hart, director of children at Ofsted, to £142,500 in 2008-9. This was in addition to a £73,000 severance cheque when he left in January at the height of the scandal over the failure to protect the boy.

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