To think no council employee should earn more than the PM FFS?

[sevendwarves]

link here

She apparently earns more than DC, who has openly shown his displeasure, it said on the politics show including 'packages' her actual annual wage is nearer £300k.

Who decides these people's wages? If the taxpayers (who are effectively paying her 20k a month take-home) aren't happy, and the PM isn't happy, why the fuck does she get paid that amount???

I think Dave could spare a bit more OP. Just as an aside, he didn't know how many nappies his son received from the state and had to ask his wife. I question why he was getting any at all, given that he is telling us that we don't need tax credits, Child Benefit, decent DLA, properly funded further education etc.

Not saying that this woman isn't overpaid - I'm not in a position to judge her, just that the last person kicking off should be DC. He is living very well off the public purse while telling us the state is too skint to pay for anything!

Exactly Mainlymarnie. Its interesting how often it is the pay of senior management in councils that gets criticised rather than say that of surgeons who last time I checked earn significantly than the nominal salary of the PM.

It's obvious even from reading the press that there is no security in the public sector any more. I'd guess that public sector redundancies are currently way higher than private sector. Terms and conditions are also worse than they were as part of an attempt to save money. Salaries are frozen for two years with a plan to increase pension contributions and inflation at over 3%. So that will be an effective 10% or more pay cut over two years. Sick pay still tends to be better than private sector, but as sick days are used to select people from redundancy people obviously try very hard not to use them.

That stuff isn't really relevant to the OP though, as the CEXs situations aren't really in anyway comparable to the average public sector worker.

I'm just wondering how much the rent would be on Number 10, plus all the hundreds of other "perks". Does he pay for his food I wonder? What does all that make the PM's salary in real terms?

Also, as the issue of "gold plated" pensions for council workers has been raised. The Local Government pension scheme is "non funded" - it is the ONLY public sector pension scheme that is NOT guaranteed, topped up or otherwise funded by the taxpayer other than the initial employer's contribution.

I hate these posts.

If you want Rooney's salary, you should've trained as a footballer. If you want to work for the council (I can't imagine why you would) then you should've done what was necessary to do just that.

So many posts recently complaining about what other people are earning...drives me nuts!

Sorry, MainlyMaynie has already talked about pensions. I got my terms mixed up. It's FUNDED then, but the essential point is that it is NOT paid for by the taxpayer - so leave us alone!

"Exactly Mainlymarnie. Its interesting how often it is the pay of senior management in councils that gets criticised rather than say that of surgeons who last time I checked earn significantly than the nominal salary of the PM."

Yeah -- I think surgeons earn their money. A council chief exec on 200,000 isn't earning it. He's being paid it.

"So many posts recently complaining about what other people are earning...drives me nuts!"

It drives you nuts? More than the feckless waste of public money drives you nut?

Are you a tax payer?

Oh dear oh dear. It seems that as Dave is a Tory, and the local authority pay issue affects Labour supporters, suddenly we can all be very equivocal about over the top public sector pay and expenses, and start shuffling our feet and saying well it's not quite like that..

It is though.

Yes I am.

But I try to limit what I "take out of the pot", by trying to use public "things" as little as possible.

"Yeah -- I think surgeons earn their money. A council chief exec on 200,000 isn't earning it. He's being paid it."

Sorry - but what exactly qualifies you to say this, other than reading the Daily Mail?

Have you worked as a surgeon or a County Council chief exec?

I happen to think that the pay of executives generally is far too high - but that is largely a problem created by the private sector. Differentials in the public sector are much lower - rightly - but they still have a knock-on effect. If you could do the same job for five times the salary at a place up the road, which double the perks, would you?

And as others have said, comparisons to the PM are utterly meaningless. People do that for reasons which are nothing to do with the salary and everything to do with the power, status and knock-on effects. How much do you think Tony Blair is earning from consultancy and speaking these days?

I've worked with public money. It's a complete fallacy to compare with private sector differentitials. Public sector is not a place where your job is particularly at risk for failure to perform. If at all. It's very much a world of empire building, back scratching and shoe ins.

And really, you think there is nobody in the country able to run a council on 100,000? 80,000? Really?

The jobs should never be advertised at this amount of money. There would be absolutely no shortage of credible candidates. I would stake my mortgage on it.

I don't want Rooney's salary. I trained (for 5 years, as it happens) to get my job at the Council. I'm very good at what I do and could earn lots more in the private sector. I choose not to, because I am trying to improve, not worsen, our environment. I'm certainly not a feckless waste of public money and I also don't see why I should live on the breadline.

Try telling the 1000s and 1000s of local government employees that they have job security. Do they fuck. We're all at risk. And maternity benefits? Hahahahahahaha.

And no Appletrees, if there is any politics here is is that Dave is using the deficit as an excuse to whack the public sector as hard as he can, with the oh so kind backing of the DM and DE. And my Tory supporting DH agrees with that statement.

And don't bring out the Daily Mail line. Sure sign you're on a losing wicket when you resort to that.

It should be like John Lewis where the man at the top is constrained to 20 x the wage of the lowest paid employee.

Oh I don't talk about the mass of public employees. I know they often have the worst of all worlds. Crap pay, crap hours and crappy, overpaid management.

Appletrees

Why would anyone want to be the Chief Exec of a council for 80,000 when they would earn more being the head of a department within the council? Unless there is downward pressure on all wages a significant drop in chief exec salaries isnt going to happen, because you would then be asking people to do a more responsible job for no increase in salary.

wow, your Tory supporting dh agrees?

not

Hmmm

i'm inclined to agree but I don;t want the councils tun by people who aren't amrketable business people so you;d ahve to offer a amrketable salary to get them.

Would the alternative of hiring less effective and experienced people not potentially cost far more over the years in mistake rectification?

needs to be on par with the private sector to get the right calibre of person.

there aren't a lot of people who go to work in the public sector becuse they want to do a good thing

they do it cos they have to pay rent, mortgage gas, eccy and all the other stuff that people who dont' work int he public sector have to do.

you've worked with public money - what does that mean?

I work in the private sector. My sister and her husband both work in the public sector (in the civil service and local government).

I can tell you, my working conditions are a LOT more pleasant and less pressured than theirs. And my maternity package, pension and redundancy rights are comparable.

It's a total myth that all public sector jobs are cushy and all private sector workers are hacking away at the coalface for peanuts.

Most private sector CEOs are on 4 year rolling contracts so they CANNOT be sacked without a 4 year salary pay out. The last time I saw the salary and bonus package of my CEO (medium company, much smaller than your average council) reported, it was upwards of a million pounds.

I don't think you have any idea what you're talking about - but feel free to stake your mortgage. I'm sure they'd get plenty of candidates - whether any of them would have any experience of running a budget of many millions and a workforce of thousands, would be another matter.

Well quite -- there ought to be downward pressure across the council. Who made the John Lewis comparison? Lovely idea.

The chief exec in the OP is probably not earning 20x more than the lowest paid other council employee

appletrees - are you saying that you want the lowest paid workers at the councilto be paid less?

Appletrees - I'm not asking you to agree with me. It's blatantly obvious that we come from opposing viewpoints. What I was trying to demonstrate is that not all Tories have this massive urge to undermine, criticise and otherwise belittle the public sector.

And more than £80k as head of department? Not a chance. My boss (HoD) is on about £45k, maybe £50k at a push.