The more Town Hall bosses cut services, the more they line their own pockets

WHINGEING by our local authorities about cuts to services has long been one of the depressing soundtracks of daily political life.

Constantly, they indulge in a collective moan about ‘ lack of resources’ and ‘ under-funding’. In recent months, as post-financial crash austerity policies have begun to take effect, the orchestrated gripes have increased in volume.

Amid dire warnings that basic frontline services are under threat, Town Hall chiefs complain that they have no alternative but to increase the council tax bills of families.

Yet all this bleating could hardly be less justified. The reality is that when it comes to spending, too many councils concentrate on the interests of their senior staff rather than the needs of the public.

What exists across much of local government is an out-of-touch culture of entitlement paid for by taxpayers. How else can we explain why the number of council bosses paid more than the Prime Minister has soared?

A shocking audit by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, an independent lobby group, this week revealed that 539 council staff pocketed at least £150,000 in pay and benefits last year — and 2,314 employees are on at least £100,000 a year, up 89 on the year before.

This obscene pay bonanza exposes the warped priorities that mean key services such as social care, schools, housing and rubbish collection are suffering. This subsidised extravagance makes a mockery of the protests about lack of cash.

In some respects, that has always been the way with local government, as I know from my own experience.

Before I became a writer in 1995, I spent almost a decade as a councillor and an official in a number of local authorities.

I had entered public service with a sense of idealism, but gradually became disillusioned with what I saw as an inward-looking, badly mismanaged system that seemed relentlessly focused on the interests of its staff. In contrast to all the hysterical propaganda about ‘Tory cuts’, I saw inefficiency and abuses.

One of the first articles I produced for this paper 22 years ago was on how tax revenues were lavished on ‘absurdly top heavy structures’. Councils, I wrote in 1995, ‘seem to have money to waste’.

Of course, local authorities are desperate to convince us they’ve changed dramatically over the past two decades. They say they have become lean machines, stripping out management hierarchies and ensuring value for money.

Squandered

But as the TaxPayers’ Alliance report demonstrates, this is hollow rhetoric. A vast edifice of greed is still being maintained at public expense.

In Sunderland, one of the most disadvantaged parts of the country, the council squandered £1.2 million on payouts for two senior managers who quit after an incriminating Ofsted report on the running of children’s services.

One, former chief executive Dave Smith, received a golden farewell of £625,000, a payout that rewarded failure and showed contempt for the public of Sunderland.

In nearby Hambleton District Council, £757,000 was dished out in redundancy payments to three officers.

In the Potteries, John van de Laarschot was given a £350,000 package on leaving as Stoke’s chief executive in 2015, only to turn up months later as the head of Nottingham College.

John Sinnott, chief executive of Leicestershire County Council, is on £231,000-a-year, made up of a salary of £187,000, and £44,000 in pension contributions and other benefits.

And this racket is happening all over the country. The London Borough of Southwark, which, like Sunderland, is a deprived area, has 45 staff on packages above £100,000. Essex County Council has 36 employees on six figures.

The gravy train continues to roll, despite all the handwringing talks about ‘cuts’.

Among jobs being advertised in local government are a director of corporate affairs (press officer) at Barnsley Council on £96,200 a year, an executive director at the London Assembly on £130,000, a ‘head of partnerships and integration’ at Brent Council on £91,000 and a director of housing at Sandwell in the Midlands on £103,000.

Racket

Last month, Sir David Carter, the national schools commissioner, spoke of a recent visit to a secondary school with 45 people on its leadership team.

At a meeting to discuss the school’s deficit, he said he was the only person in the room who realised there must be a link between the financial black hole and over-staffing.

Equally worrying, many of these jobs are not directly involved with the delivery of services. Instead, they are part of empire-building and self- aggrandisement. A survey by Press Gazette in 2015 revealed more than 3,400 communications and media officers were employed in Town Halls — double the number working in central government.

Manchester City Council had 77, while the 47-strong media team at Leeds City Council included 20 communications officers, ten communications managers, nine senior communications officers, two senior communications managers, five communications assistants and one head of communications and marketing.

There is no defence for this jobs-for-the-boys racket. Some council chiefs try to draw an analogy between running a company and a local authority — but there is no comparison.

A commercial enterprise has to fight for business in the marketplace, while a Town Hall has a guaranteed revenue from the Government and council taxes and an effective monopoly on its local services. And customers go to jail if they don’t pay what they’re told to.

No great initiative or creativity is required, just basic administration — but even that seems beyond them. Council bosses often speak of the need to attract the best talent, but most well-rewarded bureaucrats are drawn from a narrow pool of experienced officials.

Neil Schneider, the £193,000- a-year chief executive of Stockton Council, worked for 21 years for the same authority before his appointment.

If anything, top pay rates should be falling because of the diminution of municipal responsibilities in recent years. At Sunderland, the council has

halved its workforce since 2010 from 8,000 to 4,000.

The number of staff in local government is 2.2 million — its lowest level for 18 years. This should have been the cue for salary cuts at the top. Instead, the opposite has happened.

Similarly, the move towards giving elected councillors more executive responsibilities should have lowered the workload — and the financial rewards — of the bureaucrats.

Decline

But the rise of these professional local politicians has spawned new hierarchies.

In London, the Mayor is assisted, among others, by a £133,000-a-year chief of staff, a director of communications (£121,000), a deputy mayor for social integration (£126,000) and a director of external and international affairs on £107,000.

Traditionally, local government staff have been respected for their sense of civic pride. Town clerks of the past were far more impressive figures than today’s panjandrums. The borough secretary had more stature than any ‘head of transformation’.

Fancy titles and lavish pay are no substitute for a sense of public duty and integrity. As this bloated bureaucratariat looks after itself, we witness a decline in the public services they are meant to provide.