Fatcat gravy train only serves the needs of the few
COME austerity, recession or health emergency, the municipal gravy train keeps on rolling. While many households have gone through severe hardship and insecurity, the top bureaucrats in our town halls continue to rake it in from the public purse.
A report published this week by the independent pressure group the TaxPayers’ Alliance provides an insight into this expensive, self-serving culture. According to their study, no fewer than 2,802 local government officials were paid more than £100,000 in 2019/20, an increase of 135 on the previous year, and almost 700 of them earned more than £150,000.
This lavish generosity towards the privileged elite can be found right across the country. At Essex County Council, there were 40 senior managers on more than £100,000-a-year, while Glasgow City Council had 14 officials earning above £150,000.
The climate of extravagance is perfectly captured by the top structure at Westminster City Council in London, where the authority’s own documents reveal that chief executive Stuart Love, enjoyed a total package, including pension contributions, of £268,447. Alongside him at Westminster, the executive director for finance was paid £200,424, the director of growth £214,911, director of adult social care £218,679, and the director of policy performance £207,842.
IN ANOTHER indicator of how deeply this spirit of self-enrichment has gripped the top ranks of local government, it is now common for town hall bosses to receive far more than the Prime Minister, despite the huge gap in responsibilities.
Boris Johnson is currently on £161,401. Yet, according to the TaxPayers’ Alliance report, Fran Beasley, the chief executive of
PAY-OFF: Coventry’s civic building and, inset, Martin Yardley
Hillingdon Council in London, was last year on £260,513, while Buckinghamshire paid its chief executive Rachael Shimmin OBE £223,909.
The Alliance report also highlights those senior figures who were handed huge retirement packages, like Martin Yardley, the departing deputy chief executive of Coventry City Council, who left with a pay-off of £573,660, only to take up a business development job at Warwick University. Coventry is making a habit of such excess.
In 2017, finance chief Chris West left after a management restructure with an exit package of £448.230. All this largesse makes a mockery of the persistent whine from local government about “lack of resources”. What the Alliance report indicates is warped priorities rather than “chronic underfunding”.
In the classic style of heavily subsidised management hierarchies, the town hall bosses put their own self-interest before the needs of the public who pay their wages.
The tidal wave of avarice also helps to explain why council taxes keep on rising relentlessly. Over the last two decades, the average Band D bill has gone up by 111 per cent, with inflationbusting increases in each of the last three years. No fewer than 104 local authorities are now charging over £2,000-a-year.
In their defence, the town halls claim that they are under increasing pressure from the rising burden of social care, but that is only part of the story. Shameless entitlement at the top has also played a central role in cranking up the tax burden.
AS THEY boast of their complex range of duties and their multimillion pound budgets, the municipal fatcats claim to deserve their pay because “they’re worth it”, echoing the famous slogan of the L’Oréal advert. Big rewards are needed to attract the best talent, they argue. To be fair, most of them have performed well in the unprecedented pandemic, particularly in maintaining essential services like the schools and refuse collection.
But, contrary to their selfimage of dynamism, these are not thrusting entrepreneurs. Few of them have real commercial experience, but instead have worked their way up the municipal corporate ladder. Their organisations face no competition. Their income is guaranteed by the state. Nor have they been conspicuous by the success in reducing bureaucracy and mismanagement.
Despite austerity, too much money is still squandered on empire-building, social engineering, and featherbedding the workforce.
That is true throughout much of the public sector which still fails to provide value for money amid disproportionate rewards for its chiefs.
From university vice-chancellors to HS2 rail link managers, it is the same tale. The injustice for ordinary taxpayers, who have to bankroll this profligacy, is glaring. The gravy train needs to be put into a siding.
‘Too much money is still being squandered on empire-building’