The civil service talks cuts

glenlivetguy

If a director of a Limited company carries on trading and committing the company to more debt, when he knows the company is insolvent, he can be fined, imprisoned and banned from future directorships. If a Cabinet Minister has done the same thing with the taxpayers money, surely similar penalties should apply?

barnacle bill

Name and shame please!

Snowman

glenlivetguy @ 5.28

in your dreams, yes, in real life, no.

The PM pay stood at £210,000 (£145,000 plus £65,000) before the Con/Lib Coalition went for a cut. The pay of the Chief Executive of the Suffolk Country Council where I live tops it with £220,000. And why not, my council tax got hiked over 3fold since 1997, whilst the roads got progressively worse.

Richard of York

Most fair minded people would wait for both sides of the story before reaching a verdict.

perdix

Why can't new hires be asked to "bid" a required salary? That way the employer can review past experience and achievements, and balance that against the salary requested. In a tighter labour market many high performers might be willing to accept less.

TGF UKIP

Speaking of "personal and moral integrity", and somehow the mind goes straight to Francis maude.

denis cooper

TGF UKIP, how can you say such a thing about somebody who is now back in government as a Cabinet Office Minister?

davidk

Mr Baume would be wise to just do his job. He isn't paid to make political statements.

David Ossitt

“There really is no logic to why a Permanent Secretary might be paid a £180,000, a local authority chief executive £250,000 and a university vice chancellor £350,000.”

I think that the above should read as “There really is no logical reason as to why” etcetera.

If it had then the answer would have been simple; that they do it because they can, and more importantly because they can and have been allowed to get away with it.

David Cameron has recently announced that civil servants bonuses will be cut by, was it a third or was it two thirds, it matters not, what matters is that they are paid bonuses at all, for what?

The civil service are well paid; have, on the whole job security, guaranteed golden egg pensions, and many maximize their annual sick leave.

If they want bonuses let them join the real world and work in the private sector.

David Ossitt

glenlivetguy

“If a Cabinet Minister has done the same thing with the tax payer’s money, surely similar penalties should apply?”

glenlivetguy; you are measuring these bastards as though they are as honest and as honourable as yourself, they are not.

They resemble more the politicians of the old USSR, they can do no wrong, they are superior beings who seek to rule not to serve, to control not to help, the labour lot were nearly all bastards.

Beer Moth

For exercise, I would like to ask the males amongst us, to look at the photograph which heads this page.

Try to sit, adopting the same posture as the two 'gents' portrayed.

Difficult? Yes, I thought so.

Conclusion: Ladyboys, both.

Chuck Unsworth

@ davidk

"Mr Baume would be wise to just do his job. He isn't paid to make political statements."

And his job is?

NicholasV

"And his job is?"

General Secretary of the First Division Association, the union which represents the higher (ie "mandarin" and would-be mandarin) grades of the civil service. He is not a civil servant and has every right to express opinions about policy, especially where these impact on his members' interests. In fact that is what he is paid for (by them).

davidk

@ Chuck Unsworth -

"And his job is?"

...a full time controversialist by the look of his biography.

George Laird

Dear Peter

“Jonathan Baume is fast becoming one of the political celebrities of the LibCon era”.

Isn’t it a bit too soon to call this an era?

“If you recall, he's the union chief who revealed that the senior civil servants had written letters to Labour ministers in concern at spending decisions made close to the election. And now he's popped up again, with more unflattering comments about the previous administration”.

Perhaps he is climbing the social ladder, isn’t Gus ‘Labour’ O’Donnell getting sacked at some point?

“Speaking at his union's annual conference, he said that "new ministers and MPs must begin to display the personal and moral integrity that was so obviously lacking in the previous Parliament, even within the Cabinet."

What difference a few weeks and a General Election makes!

Baume finds a voice, if Labour had retained power would the dear boy have rattled off such condemnation of the former masters of the universe?

“Hm, I wonder who he could mean”.

I would say just commenting on the lack of talent of both Labour and their cronies, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.

“The most revealing comment Baume makes, though, is about public sector pay;

“There is often no rhyme or reason for a salary level being offered. There really is no logic to why a Permanent Secretary might be paid a £180,000, a local authority chief executive £250,000 and a university vice chancellor £350,000”.

The rationale is that we have to pay big bucks to employ the best but given the management of some institutions are very much along the lines of inbreeding and interconnecting social networks; then Cameron’s Office of Budget Responsibility may have a role in making senior management in the university sector to reapply for their jobs again.

On reduced pay and conditions of course.

“People in this country have a strong sense of fairness. I don't believe they begrudge many senior salaries. They understand that hospital chief executives or permanent secretaries are running large complex organisations”.

Perhaps people should look more closely at how “fairness” in “Broken Britain” is achieved when this country is at its most unfairness in 50 years.

Is it not time to tackle those in authority who have for so long abused their positions with impunity?

Then people can start talking about fairness as more than a soundbyte.

This country is rotten and corrupt.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Lizzy

Oh come on George Laird - Gus O'Donnell is the epitome of a top civil servant and will act professionally and impartially.
Snowman i too am resident in Suffolk and the Chief Execs salary is staggering and has been a bone of contention for a long time. Her name is Andrea Hill and God knows why she attracts such a renumeration. Suffolk is mainly rural has no cities except Bury-St Edmunds which only qualifies on account of its wonderful cathedral.
Ipswich is the biggest town and Lowestoft has pockets of deprivation but is attracting EU funding (that's a laugh EU funding to make up for the destruction of its fishing industry) but the rest is farming, idyllic villages and lovely seaside resorts.
Theresa May has already had a positive response on the issue of bonuses from many of the country's top police chiefs who say it is against the spirit of public service - which is why civil servants shouldn't get them either.
Does anyone know who started beefing up these salaries and why (apart from the obvious one of a pathetic attempt by Labour at currying favour and buying loyalty). Public servants salaries have become eye watering in recent years so it will be interesting to see how the Coalition attack this issue.

DavidDP

David Ossitt- are you suggesting that performance related pay has no place in the public sector? You are Mark Serwotka and I claim my £5.......

David Bouvier

A bit innocent James: his real message is the last paragraph you quite:

"I hope we will see even fewer of those of the eye-watering salaries - and off-the-books contracts - that have been offered in recent years to some appointments to the civil service, sometimes twice the salary of the Permanent Secretaries themselves."

The mandarins hate it when people without outside experience are appointed in rather than all appointments being made from the rank and file - and this is trying to link that to the cut/salary agenda...

Osred

Baume represents a very narrow self interested group of 1st Divisioners whose noses have been put out of joint somewhat by non-union members leapfrogging his own as regards pay.

He will represent a problem when it comes to real cuts. Mark Serwotka is a bigger problem as his guiding 'philosophy' is that C Servants must share in the proceeds of growth on grounds of fairness (yes - that effing word again) but must not suffer now because they are a bulwark of spending and economic activity stopping us falling into the abyss.

Osred

RE: Beer Moth @ 8:23pm

Politicians are well known to be modestly endowed and this, combined with a capacious cut, allows them to cross their legs thus.

I'd like to see them try it in jeans.

Why does Osbourne always look like a bloke who's just remembered he's left the gas on?

Robert Taggart

The civil service talks cuts ?
Hm... talk be all so far !
Take the chopper to them... NOW !

David Ossitt

DavidDP

"David Ossitt- are you suggesting that performance related pay has no place in the public sector?"

Yes.

Chuck Unsworth

@ davidk

In that case he deserves a raise.