Want a big bonus? Get yourself a public sector job

Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling rail against bankers’ bonuses. But, says Ross Clark, the really appetising salaries, perks, expense packages and pensions are to be found in the public sector. A terrible reckoning lies ahead for the last fat cats

Imagine for a moment that you are a banker in one of the bailed-out banks. You have seen a few of your colleagues disappear into the lift with a bin bag and every time you wander past a pub you have had to endure the thought that there may be drinkers inside demanding you be sentenced to cruel and more unusual punishments. Yet, for all the angst of the past year, you may be just beginning to wonder: will life in the public sector really be so bad after all?

Ministers may bark at the size of your salary and bonuses, but it is has taken a week of national outrage for them to force action on bonuses out of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and even then many will receive them, or will receive salary increases to compensate for the loss of a bonus. The most telling comment to come from the government was not from a minister, however, but from an unnamed Treasury official who told the Daily Mail that some bonuses couldn’t be cut because ‘it wouldn’t stand up in the European Court if Human Rights. We can’t come along and say we’re legislating to override someone’s employment rights.’ Oh, and then there was Harriet Harman’s complaint that female bankers are receiving bonuses that are too small.

Thank heavens for the public sector, where the pay is still great but where you can enjoy security too. You think you couldn’t find a more extravagant bonus culture and an even more absurd system for rewarding failure than exists at the banks? Just look at the public sector.