Osborne clamps down on public sector fat cats

Wily Trout

It isn't just the benefits, job security and working conditions of the public sector fat cats that annoys - it is the fact that these huge packages don't seem to come with any sense of responsibility or professional performance expectation. These people seem to think they are being paid just to be themselves.

luke

Trouble is, if you accept that the best people should be paid more than 190k (which is presumably why top whitehall mandarins are exempt, bank of england etc) then what is your argument for why the people running the NHS, Royal Mail, Network Rail, Ofsted, Our Worl-d-Leading Hospitals shouldnt have the best people?

TomTom

Should apply to BBC also. it is after all insolvent without taxpayer bail out

se1man

does that include the people at the top of the nationalised banks? Do they qualify as 'public servants'? Quite a big pay cut for them...

John Adlington

It's not Osborne's flaming business. If someone in the private sector can demonstrably achieve efficiencies that run to the millions Osborne is saying that we cannot de facto employ the same person in the public sector because we won't be able to pay him/her what they deserve. Grandstander! Centralist!

John Lea

George Osborne and David Cameron need to get their own house in order before they attack others. Did anyone else see Eric Pickles (the Chairman of the Conservative Party) on Question Time last night, trying to defend his second property allowance? His constituency home is 37 miles from Westminster, but he said that he tried commuting a few times, but it just wasn't for him. Utterly shameful.

Publius

Shock horror, I am going to agree with Luke here. What is needed is a return to the belief in public service, and the belief in caring about the common good. And that belief comes from a proper education. Nobody is so special or indispensable that they deserve multi-million pound salaries.

If they don't like it, let them go elsewhere. They'll soon realise that life is about more than loads-of-money.

For similar reasons let our politicians give up their motorcades and use the Tube like the poor sods they govern.

This is not envy on my part. It is a distaste for vulgarity and ignorance.

William

'a public that is increasingly angry and frustrated at the excesses of the public sector boss class'

There isn't any anger at all. It's not the public sector that has brought the country to its knees. We have the 'wealth creators' to thank for that.

'the Tories have exempted permanent secretaries, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority from this measure'

Of course. You couldn't have the civil service and the bank, i.e. Tories, getting affected by this. That would be awful.

Profit must be personal and private and loss must be public and social, right? And repeat.

Rupert Boles

And he should cancel the BBC plan to provide a small fortune to their staff to buy second homes in Salford.

Retired

While this is ok as far as it goes, it doesn’t go very far.

There is clearly a need to reduce public spending. There is clearly an enormous amount of waste and inefficiency within the public sector.

The Conservatives need to specify how they are going to address these deep rooted problems.

This is just window dressing.

David

Based on the arguments put forward by Fraser on the bankers, all this will do is drive the very best people away from working in the public sector.

Great for me; as a mediocrity I may be able to get a top job ....

Denis Cooper

Sorry, but this is just as another distraction from the central issues that Osborne should be addressing:

1. Instead of removing "toxic assets" from the banks, Darling has left them in place but insured them, for a derisory "premium", at massive risk to the taxpayer.

2. Instead of using "quantitative easing" as part of a process of removing "toxic assets" from the banks, Darling is using it to rig the gilts market so that he can carry on borrowing and spending.

Until the banks have been sorted out, the prospects for economic recovery will remain distant; so the government will desperately seek to avoid cutting public expenditure, because it knows that any significant cuts at this time would necessarily mean consigning millions of people to the dole queue - private sector, as well as public sector, workers; so it will have to borrow as much as it can, to fund as much public spending as possible, in the hope that somehow it can carry on doing this for long enough to ride out the crisis.

If Gordon Brown announced today that we were having a general election, and in a few weeks time Cameron became Prime Minster and Osborne became Chancellor, what would they do to mitigate the economic catastrophe facing the country?

Forlornehope

And at least a third of it should be based on performance.

Slim Jim

James, the reason that the chair of the Carbon Trust can receive such an obscenely large salary is due to Nanny. She offers her 'bitty' to any apparatchik or crony who is willing to suckle. Oh, and they are so willing to suckle because if they are naughty, then Nanny will make them sit on the Naughty Step, where they will be rewarded with a nice big fat pension for NOT doing their job properly. Or packed off to another cosy sinecure. No wonder cats eat their kittens!

TrevorsDen

"Sensibly, the Tories have exempted permanent secretaries, the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority from this measure" -- nice argument but this sentence just shoots it in the foot.

And as someone says - have you seen what the BBC pays itself?

The point about the Carbon Trust is it should not exist at all.

If the government did less ie fewer quangos (and indeed fewer departments and ministers and permanent secretaries and mandarins) then those left could have a suitable salary.

THX1138

Typical knee jerk populism from the useless Osborne. This hasn't been thought out. Do we really want drongo journeymen running these huge organisations with massive budgets like the NHS or TFL or do we want top talented mangers, if so we have to pay the going rate for the job or they will just go to the private sector who will pay. Think of the savings in money and efficiency that a top manger could bring to an organisation like the NHS they could save a hundred or a thousand times the additional 200k we would have to pay them.

Kevyn Bodman

I don't accept that the best people should be paid more than 190k, in the public sector.

If they really are worth more, and they want more pay, then they can go and get it outside.

Some will go, some will decide that 190k is quite enough and is compensated for by other factors.
It'll sort itself out.

This is in some way analogous to Jonathan Ross being paid £6m a year to stop him going to ITV.
It's nonsense;let him go to ITV for £6m a year if he can.
I would bet he can't get that.

Same for many others in the sector being discussed in this post.

Dave-El

Absolutely fabulous idea.

charles Howie

George Osborne attended Eton College, if we are to believe the press. You need serious funds for that. Question: Does George live just on his MPs sakary, or is he living on family funds? What is George worth? Here he is talking about 'fat cats'. Lets hear, from him if possible, is he a 'fat cat'?

Alfred T Mahan

William, I don't know what planet you're on but here on earth the public is most definitely angry and frustrated. Try, for example, negotiating fee levels for care for people with special needs with council officers who are paid more than you; who are less qualified; who take no risks; who have greater job security; who have inflation-busting pay rises year after year yet demand fees rises by less than inflation, if at all; who don't have to struggle to find money to keep up with the minimum wage for staff; and who actively hinder the performance of a good job - and you'd see why people in all walks of life are angry.

Their salaries are taken from me and my staff (not well paid, but we do our best) by force via taxation and there's nothing I can do about it. In the private sector, if I think someone's paid too much I can move my custom elsewhere. That's a vital, vital difference.

Hysteria

It's not the absolute cost of the paycheck that is the point - this is just the easy target.

the conversation should be about value. And by all means have a lower base salary but the opportunity to earn the big money based on results. (And these need to be serious metrics - not just for "being there")

Or - if we are going to pay private sector senior rates (and I am ok with that) then you need to have private sector everything else - pension fund, job security (or lack thereof) and all the rest of it.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

IIRC in the past those at the top of the Public Service tree did not get a high salary but did get a very nice index linked pension and the chance of a gong which would open doors to sinecures or at least plenty of stroking.

Now they want the high salary, the index-linked pension based on same, AND the job security AND the gong.

They want to have our cake and eat it.

The real way to deal with this is to go about doing what should be done anyway - reduce the size and scope of government. Stop funding unnecessary QANGOs and re-absorb those that have statutory functions back into the Civil Service so they can be properly scrutinised by Parliament. This will reduce the number of posts. It is far easier to push for a high salary as "CEO of The Pointless Trust" than to be a senior man from the ministry.

Trumpeter Lanfried

"Can any CoffeeHousers explain why the chief executive of the Carbon Trust has to be paid £262,350 a year?"

He doesn't, of course, but-

(1) It is in the interest of the people who fix these salaries to drive up the market generally; and

(2) The head hunters probably run rings round the civil servants.

Fergus Pickering

But THK, the chaps at the top of the Health STrusts and the chaps at the top of the Education trusts are bloody rubbish and the Town Claeks who now call themselves Chuief Executives are bloody rubbish too. You don't have to be brilliant to run these things and, by God, they are not brilliant. If they want to go to the Private Sector, let's see them go. Who would want them? Tell me who these brilliant managers are and what they have done? Well now, there are those two chaps at the top of the Post Office. And there are the fellows who run Rail Track on a million each. Bloody good jobs they are doing, eh? Oh, and there's the Carbon Trust. Remind me what exactly that does? Then there arwe thechaps who run the Stafford Hospital, and the woman who, till recently ran theCambridgeshire Social Services. Heavens! I am dazzled. Management kills my arse. And I can't say fairer than that.

HJ

Charles Howie:

"George Osborne attended Eton College, if we are to believe the press. You need serious funds for that. Question: Does George live just on his MPs sakary, or is he living on family funds? What is George worth? Here he is talking about 'fat cats'. Lets hear, from him if possible, is he a 'fat cat'?"

It is well known that Osborne went to St. Paul's, not Eton, and that his money comes from the Osborne & Little furnishings company.

The solution to this situation is to move much of the public sector into the private sector, e.g. hospitals, schools, etc. and to ensure that there is a competitive environment. If people can then earn large salaries because they run their organisations better than their competitors, then good luck to them. At the moment, we have no way of telling what people in the public sector are worth.

Susan Hill

@rupert boles. Only thing is you don`t need a small fortune to buy a house in Salford.

dexey

Osbourne hasn't "clamped down" on anything. H eisn't in a position to do anymore than say he will clamp down and when he gets to power he may, or may not.
is he to be trusted anymore than any other politician?