Liberal Vision

The civil servant rich list…

I noted with interest today the Government’s “outing” of the “172 civil servants that earn more than the Prime Minister”…. A bit of a curious benchmark to choose I think. After all David Cameron gets a couple of houses thrown in, cars a-plenty, a rather nice pension and goodness knows how many millions when he finally quites on the USA lecture circuit etc etc.

If you ask me, I think a little longer in the compiling, a tad more thought in the publication  (and a little less of the “them vs Dave”) would have gone down better… and looked less like “a cheap shot”.

I do seriously hope we dont have another government that is so gung ho on “being seen to do stuff” that they dont end up like the last lot,…shoving out poorly thought through pronouncements for the sake of a catchy media hit. Rather than doing less “stuff”, but well.

But, charitably, as we saw from last Thursdays Question Time fiasco  -the media team are still on a very steep learning curve. Lets hope they catch up fast…

Turning to the content of the announcement – and just who earns what – I was interested to note which heads of department seem to be getting what.

And tell me is there generally an inverse relationship between the salary earned and the total incompetence of the department concerned..or is that just my imagination?

I note that  2 of the top ten are “in charge of” the highly efficient, world-beating NHS (irony folks, pure irony) . That’s Sir David Nicholson NHS chief executive who is reported to earn £255,000-£259,999 and Clare Chapman director-general of workforce, Department of Health £220,000-£224,999). About 10 or 11 in total from the Dept of health are in the “civil servants rich list”. Go figure.

There’s Joe Harley IT director-general & chief information officer of Department for Work and Pensions £245,000-£249,999. (Didn’t they not only lose tonnes of data but send out tax statements to the wrong people?)

Let’s not forget Sir Jock Stirrup Chief of the Defence Staff £240,000-£244,999 ..oh and laughably there’s another 20 or so “senior officials or generals” at the Ministry of Defence who “earn more than the Prime Minister” (haven’t they struggled to provide sufficient funding for troops,and made a total horlicks of procurement or did I dream that one?).

And my favourite.. the director-general of the Government’s Olympic Executive, earning ” up to £229,999″. (Well it’s only slightly over budget… but that’s OK because there was a “contigency fund”)

I could go on… But you see the point about these guys is (according to the trade union spokesman today) they need these kind of salaries (that’s minus their rather handsome pensions mind) because these departments need the best. Nice theory – not entirely sure it worked out that way in practice actually.