Patel demands restraint on civil service pay
Political correspondent
THE “crazy” salaries of some Whitehall mandarins should be capped because they are “out of step with public opinion”, according to Priti Patel, the International Development Secretary.
Sources close to Ms Patel told The Daily Telegraph she believes the pay packages of around 150 senior civil servants earning up to £300,000 should be “restrained”.
Some 405 civil servants, officials and “quangocrats” earn more than the Prime Minister’s £150,000, according to the latest Cabinet Office data.
One source close to Ms Patel said she believed the Cabinet Office must get a “grip” on senior pay. However, the revelation comes as the Government’s own Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), which reviews public-sector pay, called for an end to a 1 per cent salary cap, which it said left even well paid civil servants “demotivated”.
The SSRB warned of “recruitment and retention risks and fragile morale” and called for future “targeted” and “innovative” pay increases. However, the source said that while pay levels are set by the Cabinet Office, there was an understanding that every department negotiated its own pay rounds and added that there were “discussions
going on right now” in the Department for International Development over the current levels of pay. They said: “Priti has clearly stated she does not support senior-level pay increases.
“Some director generals [in the Civil Service] are paid almost twice as much as the secretary of state to do their job, and yet they do not take full responsibility for their actions and screw ups.
“Her view is that the PM has rightly capped ministerial pay, to around £60,000, yet director generals last year were paid in the realm of £180,000 and received bonuses – so at that level they should be subject to restraint.
“High pay and bonuses come on top of their enormous pension pots and it’s not as if they are either going to go on strike or walk into better paid jobs in the real world,” the source added.
“The Cabinet Office is crazy and wrong on this stuff. Salaries are too high and way out of line with public opinion.”
The Cabinet Office said those earning above £150,000 in central government had fallen by 26 per cent (or 95 staff) since 2010.
Over the same period the salary bill for people earning £150,000 and above has reduced in real terms by around £12 million, or 19 per cent, the A spokesman said.