£16M A YEAR
The SNP promised a ‘bonfire of the quangos’ but today we can reveal fat cats are costing us an astonishing...
SCOTLAND’s army of public sector fat cats is costing taxpayers £16 million a year.
Huge teams of directors are running Scotland’s quangos and government departments – all taking home bumper pay packages worth an average of £100,000 a year each.
Some are pocketing even higher salaries, with the country’s top ‘fat cat’ receiving basic pay of £240,000 a year plus bonuses.
It has sparked calls for the Scottish Government to take dramatic action to cut back on the boardroom costs of the organisations it funds.
It comes despite an SNP pledge for a long-awaited ‘bonfire of the quangos’.
An investigation by The Scottish Mail on Sunday has found that 166 people working for the Scottish Government, its quangos and public corporations cost the taxpayer up to £16.5 million a year.
Jobs quango Scottish Enterprise has the busiest boardroom, with 25 people at director level or above, each paid salaries of between £75,000 and £210,000.
Scottish Water pays its directors more than any other organisation, awarding them an average wage of nearly £160,000 a year.
Eben Wilson, director of the TaxpayerScotland pressure group, said: ‘It is extraordinary how quangos are able to reinvent missions for themselves that few people know about. Out of that nonsense, executives gain large salaries that we then hear very little about.
‘Taxpayers fund endless initiatives that have been invented by directors paid on the public purse who spend their time doing nothing but raising more money for new missions.
‘This “mission creep” costs a fortune for very little effect. The Scottish Government must install an oversight programme to put a limit on all quangos and double their efforts to measure their performance and output.’
Scotland’s highest paid public sector worker is Scottish Water chief executive Douglas Millican, who receives a salary of just under £240,000, followed by Scottish Enterprise chief executive Lena Wilson, who is paid almost £210,000.
But the investigation shows for the first time the huge scale of the director jobs just under chief executive level.
Aside from chief executives, Scottish Water’s asset management director Geoff Aitkenhead is the best-paid director, on around £175,000, followed by two of his colleagues, chief operating officer Peter Farrer and finance director Alan Scott, who both earn upwards of £170,000.
Scottish Enterprise has 25 members of staff at director level or above, followed by Creative Scotland, with nine. Highlands & Islands Enterprise, Scottish Water and Skills Development Scotland each have eight directors.
Gavin Brown, finance spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: ‘There seem to be significant numbers of people getting paid significant sums. In these straitened times, every pound of expenditure has to be weighed up carefully.
‘Therefore, if we’re spending large sums on salaries for a significant number of senior people then that is money that can’t be spent on the front line of public services.
‘Some of these directors will have probably been in post for some time and therefore have a contractual entitlement that can’t really be changed.
‘But what Government can and should do is look very carefully at the terms and conditions of new posts so we are not getting too many people with too high salaries.
‘Also, does every director that leaves need to be replaced, or is there a possibility to have a board that is slightly smaller but equally effective?
‘The Scottish Government is in a weakened position here because if you look at the size of its Cabinet, there are now ten ministers in comparison to six ministers eight years ago, when we were told it was streamlined and more effective.
‘So it is difficult for the Scottish Government to preach to public sector bodies when its direction of travel is to grow and become as bloated as possible.’
The Scottish Government itself has 38 directors, costing £4 million a year, while quangos and public corporations employ 128 directors, costing £12.4 million a year.
Some of the more obscure posts include a £90,000-a-year director of readiness at the Scottish Government, an £80,000 director of strengthening communities at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and a £60,000 director of heritage at Scottish Canals.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘The Scottish Government and NDPBs (non-departmental public bodies) are a significant employer in Scotland, and require strong and effective leadership.
‘The title and grade of “director” roles across different public sector bodies are not necessarily equivalent and therefore cannot be directly compared.’