Monday, 8 February 2010

Big snouts and deep troughs for London Council bosses

The Standard reveals today how London councils have boosted the pay of top officials whilst council revenues plummet and services are cut. Last financial year, 2008/09, 498 council bosses took a wedge of over £100k, an increase of 21% over the previous year. The demands of the recession were obviously onerous; Islington increased the number of £100k+ bosses from 9 to 23 (150% increase), Greenwich from 11 to 24 (118% increase), Westminster 17 to 30 (76%) and Tower Hamlets 15 to 26 (73%)

The ten highest paid London council bosses all earn over £220k.

Binmen and road-gritters, meanwhile, will get a pay increase of 0%.

I've blogged before on the increasing spread of 'differentials' in the public sector; the difference between the wage of the median admin grade and the top official grade used to be a factor of around 6x; since New Labour came to power, this has doubled to around 12x. Now, in a Boccaccio-like Danse Macabre, the snouts are having a final orgy of troughing in advance of cuts to come, and one thing you can bet your hat on - it won't be these fat piggies who go, but the binmen and road-gritters who actually provide our public services.


Scrobs... said...

These are the fat piggies, who are the most itinerant 'workers' of the lot!

They usually stay in one position for a couple of years, rack up a few more pensions uplifts, a huge hike in salary, perhaps a few more days off, or in ne memorable case, only do a four day week, then immediately move on to another council.

Repeat ad nauseam.

They are never found out.

Demetrius said...

How on earth did the top level jobs ever rocket to these kind of levels? It is an astonishing failure of local government never mind Whitehall.

Duncan said...

Whats'Boris going to do about it then?

Budgie said...

These people will squeal that top salaries have to be paid to 'compete' in the marketplace for talent. So where would they go if the salary was halved?

The special pleading by those earning enormous salaries, in both public and private sectors including MPs, is a scam. There are plenty of people ready to take over their jobs.