While the new Labour government continues to wax lyrical about the dire state of the country’s finances, it seems not everyone is feeling the pinch. For staff working in the Greater London Authority under Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, business is positively booming. In fact, according to a Freedom of Information response sent to Mr S, the number of GLA staffers on the top rates of pay in 2024 has more than doubled since 2016. Alright for some…
When London last had a Tory mayor in Boris Johnson, there were 45 staff on the top three rates of pay, with just 12 in the highest salary bracket. Yet under Khan’s eight year tyranny, almost 100 staff are on the top salary bands, with a staggering 28 earning more than £119,793 a year. Just under 20 City Hall staff are in the second highest pay bracket, raking in upwards of £92,307 annually, while more than 50 lucky staffers are sitting on pay packets of over £85,206 a year. And while Johnson had just one staff member in the Mayor’s Office on a top salary back in 2016, Khan has, er, eight. Four fat cats are receiving over £92,000 a year with another four on six-figure salaries. Talk about a splurge…
City Hall has defended the staff boom, insisting that the rise in top-paid employees reflects ‘the rise in powers and responsibilities since Sadiq Khan became Mayor, particularly regarding skills, housing and health and care’. If only Londoners had experienced any great improvement in any of these areas under Khan’s reign, eh? Certainly the TaxPayers’ Alliance remain unconvinced, with head of the group Elliot Keck blasting the Mayor over the revelations:
Taxpayers will be shocked that the Mayor of London is boosting the number of City Hall fat cats. All this while London struggles with the burden of rising crime rates, declining nightlife and unprecedented pressures on housing an infrastructure.
Quite. Mr S would remind readers that Khan has a history of paying his underlings overinflated salaries. London’s first ‘night czar’ Amy Lamé presided over the closure of 25 per cent of the capital’s nightclubs during the pandemic, according to one count – yet was rewarded with a 40 per cent pay hike which landed her on a six-figure salary. Khan’s ever the man of quantity over quality, eh?
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