our chief exec earnt £190k odd last year

[southeastastra]

a little two bit borough that has cut loads of front line jobs.

this salary is not justified in my eyes.

Southeastastra. Whilst the salary sounds like a lot of money, you have to look at what comparable jobs are paying.

You personally may think its unreasonable and that's fine. But I doubt the chief exec sat at British Gas, BT, Westminster Council or Barclays would get out of bed for £190k a year. In that context, he's probably being paid a pittance.

huh nope don't get it, spell out to me in plain english why they deserve this amount

Well, southeastastra, you sound as though you are unhappy with the decision that your job is not worth its salary (at least, not worth it from the public purse), so tell me, why does your job deserve its salary?

Are you sure the figure is actually just their salary? If it has been taken from the taxpayers alliance report, the figure includes pension contributions and payment of out of pocket expenses and benefits such as lease car etc. It might also include payment for other duties such as Returning Officer. For some councils the figures recorded were actually redundancy payments paid out in that year.

When considering whether you think they are worth that level of pay, think about:

how many staff do they employ? For many councils, it can be thousands.

the size of budget they control. This could be millions.

the services the chief executive is responsible for and the importance of those services (e.g social services, education, highways). Is the chief executive legally culpable when things go wrong?

the complexity of running a large organisation with such diverse services (hard to think of a private company that runs such a range of services)

the complexity of working with councillors, paid staff, the general public and having to have a public profile.

the experience and skills of the person.

It is a very stressful job and not one that you can ever totally switch off from. The buck stops with the chief executive.

I doubt any council chief executives could just walk into a chief exec job with British Gas, so that's a false comparison. (Although am quite willing to concede BG etc. etc. are overpaid too.)

Also doubt the excuse that they employ lots of people - so does David Cameron and he ain't on £190k. More like £142k or something last time I checked.

Oh, and the highest paid council chief exec is in Birmingham. Where social services have indeed gone very wrong. If by 'very wrong' you mean children have been killed who were on the at risk register and being visited by social workers. Did the chief exec lose his job? Or take a pay cut? Strangely, no. All these 'ooh but they work so hard and have such important responsibilities' are just so much flannel. They earn ££££ because they can get away with it. Just like all the other fat cats.

In the private sector, executive pay is set by people who have a vested interest in keeping pay high, and approved by people who have a similar vested interest. It's all 'you scratch my back'. Completely wrong, inefficient and not competitive at all.

What do you think a chief exec should be paid, Edam? Just out of interest.

David Cameron (and indeed Gordon brown before) opted not to take all of their salary and so not a fair comparison.

David Cameron lives rent, rate free etc. Add that onto his salary and it exceeds £190k. You can't compare as it's not like for like.

The comparison with the Prime Minister is a false one. Cameron's actual package has been worked out to be nearer to £580k when housing, travel, pension etc is taken into account.

I agree the salaries are high and in comparison to most public sector jobs the pay is very high but edam do you think there are scores of qualified people willing to take on the job of running a multi million pound organisation for pay of less than £100k? Because I'm sure if there were people willing to do it, councils would jump at the chance to hire them. Why would councillors (who are the ones who make the decision about what to pay the Chief Executive) want to pay more than they need to? It doesn't make sense.

they're not exactly superbrains, something has gone wrong

I think that you do have to look to make it more accountable, the pay of the top posts should be determined by the elected councillors.

Cameron is a political appointment and he does not employ civil servants, so it is incorrect to compare his salary to the chief exec of a local authority. A more apt comparison would be to local authority leaders, which are also political positions and do not attract anywhere near the prime minister's salary.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he has accounting officer responsibility for any budget at all.

It's a disgrace they are cutting essential jobs whilst lining their own pockets. Let him bugger off to the private sector, there are plenty of people who could do his job.

What do you mean, "lining his pockets"? He is doing a job and receiving the appropriate salary for that kind of job.

He is earning 8 times the national average, how is that appropriate? Considering hoe scarce jobs are there would be others who would do it for less. These greedy self important bastards take us all for a ride. Earning salaries like that when many council workers are on the minimum wage.

YANBU Southeast corrupt as hell.

How big is the budget? How many employees? How many residents? Compare to a similar sized private company and think how much their CEO is being paid - it will be a hell of a lot more.

Really, it's not a very big salary considering the responsibilities. In my industry there are plenty of very ordinary mid-level managers and individuals earning salaries like this.

The chief exec earns £190k because that is what his worth is for him to work for. It is what he would be paid if he was in the private sector, which is where most of the best people for this role come from, so in order to get them to move across into public services, they have to be paid competitively. Otherwise they wouldn't bother, and we'd have even more useless people running our councils. Would you leave your jobs, and take an equivilent position on a council for less pay? Plus the extra public scrutiny on everything you do that you wouldn't otherwise get?

There may well be people who would do it for less, however the very very strong likelihood is that they would be profoundly unqualified for the role and would run home crying and on the edge of a nervous breakdown at the end of the first week.

8 times the national average isn't really all that much, considering the pressure of the role.

Running a council is nothing like running a business. You don't have to find customers and if your captive clientele don't like your products they can go hang.

Equally, you can't decide to ignore your clients if they are not going to be profitable to you, and must continue to provide them a service regardless.

"8 times the national average isn't really all that much, considering the pressure of the role."

Seriously?!

There are many people who do pressured jobs for much less police, nurses etc.I appreciate it takes a certain amount of knowledge and experience but really they are not that exceptional. I'm sure the right candidate could br trained to do it for much less.

I wonder how many lolipop ladies we could have for 190k. Never mind, children are worth spit in comparison to fat cats.

patient griselda. Your snoberry and arrogance is astounding. I can't believe you think they do anything more skilled and pressured a lot of much lower paid professions.

The thing is, ambarth, is that it is far far easier to replace a lollipop lady than it is to replace a chief exec with someone who can perform to the necessary level.

I have worked closely with both frontline deliver people AND chief execs, so I'm speaking from a reasonably well informed point of view when I talk about what chief execs do and how relentlessly they have to do it. And it is that first hand experience which makes me ok with the fact that my taxes support salaries at those different levels for those jobs.