Yes
Dave Prentis
General Secretary Unison

I am sure that Kent County Council thinks that its chief executive is worth every penny of his £238,000 salary. He apparently works so hard that he was unable to take all his holiday entitlement. But he was able to sell his lost days off for £12,000, the equivalent of the annual salary of one of the lowest-paid council workers.

I believe in paying the rate for the job and that people should take the holidays that unions fought for years to establish. I am always arguing that public servants should be valued more than they are. Providing quality public services that people rely on is the mark of a civilised society.

Running a huge council department cannot be easy and the rewards will never come close to the huge bonanzas enjoyed by those in the top echelons of the financial sector. Of course you have to pay enough to attract the right people to do the job.

But why does that apply only to the people at the top? There are problems with recruitment and retention throughout local government, particularly in child protection.

It is an all too familiar reflection of the way society values people. Sit at the top desk in the warm and dry and get paid well, go out in all weathers sweeping the streets, clearing up filth and get paid a pittance.

All the caring and so-called “dirty” jobs – looking after children and the elderly and the people who clean up after us – have always been undervalued. They are all part of the team we rely on to provide public services, without whom no chief executive could do the job. Without them, our infrastructure would collapse. If a chief executive is worth so much, why are they worth so little?

I am sure chief executives face much pressure and stress. But what of the pressure and stress of having so little money that you cannot make ends meet, that you have to rely on state benefits or that you are always in debt?

The lowest paid spend the greatest portion of their income on the essentials of life, food, fuel and housing. These are exactly the items whose prices have rocketed.

The huge disparity in pay cannot be justified. The highest-paid should not earn 20 times more than the lowest-paid. There is something fundamentally wrong with the core values of an organisation that has such a gaping chasm between the top and the bottom. More than half (57 per cent) of local government workers earn below £16,614 and Kent will be no different.

This year, across local government in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, employing authorities are dealing yet another blow to their long-suffering staff. They have offered them a 0.5 per cent pay increase – worth 3p an hour extra or £60 a year – despite the fact that most of them have budgeted for a 2.5 per cent rise. That 2 per cent is earmarked for pay, and I think it would be shameful and unjust to use that money to reward only the top few.

No
Jan Parkinson
Managing director of Local Government Employers

As the recession continues to bite, councils up and down the country are stepping up to support people on low incomes, to ensure families keep a roof over their heads, to assist small businesses and to help the unemployed to find work.

Not for decades has there been a time when so many people have been so reliant on efficient and effective local authorities to help them through difficult times.

As a sector, local government spends more than £100 billion of taxpayers’ money each year, and employs 2.2 million people to deliver services to some of the most vulnerable sections of society. A typical council provides more than 800 services for local residents and many authorities have bigger budgets than FTSE 100 companies. In some towns and cities, councils are the largest employers.

It goes without saying that we need to attract the brightest and best people to run such large and complex organisations but with financial pressures on the public sector and with households across the country facing tough times, it is only right that questions have been asked about the pay packets of people running councils.

Scrutiny is absolutely appropriate. Pay deals need to be totally transparent and to take into account the facts. A multibillion-pound sector needs to pay appropriate wages to its top officials if it is going to attract the type of people who can deliver 800 different services, often at the cutting edge of public policy.

It is right that chief executive pay is transparent and subject to public scrutiny. Ultimately it is councillors – all of whom are accountable to the electorate – who have the final say over salaries within local government.

Looking at the wage packets of a few senior staff in isolation also does not begin to tell the whole story. If this issue is to be taken seriously we need to look at the whole of the public sector. The average basic salary for a council chief executive is £106,176 – compared with £133,435 in the NHS. People in top management positions in the public sector need to show that they are delivering high-quality public services and value for money so the public can have faith in rewarding them fairly for the job they do.

According to both the Treasury and the Audit Commission, local government has led the public sector in recent years in becoming more efficient and delivering value for money for the taxpayer. This has not happened by accident.

Councils have a vital role to play in helping the country through this recession. All of our staff are doing their utmost to provide people with the services they need.

Particularly now, more and more people are relying on council services, many of whom are the most vulnerable in society. This must be the priority for councils.

It will be precisely these people who benefit from the efficient and effective running of local authorities.

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