CHIEF executives' pay in the National Health Service was the focus of this column yesterday. Hospital bosses in our region are being paid almost a quarter of a million pounds a year because that is what the NHS says it costs to get leaders of the right quality.

Today, our attention turns to the grim reality of record numbers of people in our region having to rely on food banks. There could hardly be a greater contrast.

The growth in Britain's economy has understandably been played as a trump card by David Cameron in the election campaign. The UK is out-performing the rest of Europe in jobs growth and that, of course, is something to welcome.

But today's statistics from the Trussell Trust lay bare the other side of the austerity drive. The most vulnerable in our society are being hit hard by the depth and speed of cuts to the welfare state.

In our region, almost 90,000 people received three days' of emergency food from a Trussell Trust foodbank in 2014-15. That is an annual increase of 19 per cent and includes 35,246 children.

Across the country, the figure has topped a million for the first time.

These figures represent the minimum number of people who are so desperate that they have no choice but to resort to a food bank. They do not include those who were fed at food banks arranged by other organisations, or those who felt too ashamed to seek help.

The economic growth we are seeing is to be welcomed. But the record rise in the use of food banks is a scandalous price which cannot be ignored.

The gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' is growing – and it has widened disproportionately in the North-East.