Maintain pressure on reforms to protect NHSDarling signals pay restraint for most senior NHS nurses
Chancellor Alistair Darling has signalled that generous pay and bonus packages for top public sector posts will have to be reduced to preserve jobs.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Mr Darling acknowledged that some people in the public sector were earning “very large salaries” for jobs that were much more modestly rewarded a decade ago.
And he highlighted the example of private sector firms, two-thirds of which are planning wage freezes or cuts this year to avoid redundancies.
Mr Darling has already announced a 1 per cent cap on public sector pay rises.
But a wider study by the Senior Salaries Review Body, due to report to him before the Budget, is also expected to look at the issue of performance-related bonuses and the practice of linking the pay of top public executives with that of their equivalents in the private sector.
Mr Darling told the Sunday Times: “It is not altogether clear to me why we pay very large salaries to people to do the same jobs as were being done 10 years ago for rather less.”
And he added: “What is being paid has sometimes lost the relationship it ought to have with what someone actually does. Once that happens, it’s not only unfair, it’s actually grossly inefficient.”
In some quangos, local authorities and other organisations, top pay no longer passed the “next door neighbour test” of whether it could be justified in a conversation with a neighbour, he said.
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Readers' comments (4)
Anonymous | 25-Jan-2010 2:58 pm
Rather odd comments from the Chancellor, considering how weak the Government has been in preventing the Banks rewarding top level staff with money they got from the Taxpayer!
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Anonymous | 25-Jan-2010 3:18 pm
yes i agree with the above comment,
are mp s now refusing all expenses and perks
not forgetting of course they are taking a large paycut with no annual increase and paying all the expenses back that they have been claiming.
another hans christian anderson story
one rule for one and one rule for another springs to mind
get real mr darling
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Anonymous | 3-Feb-2010 11:26 am
Well I find this whole debacle incredible.
Why should nurses put up with below inflation pay rises, removal of incremental rises and squeezing to save the public purse?!
Where in in the article above, newspaper headlines and other media reporting are the squeezes on MP pay? What about the MP's expenses, or their Gold plated pensions?!!
It is about time the MP's and Government reduce their salaried pay, their pensions and provide for those in healthcare that looks after them when unwell or their families.
The average salary for an MP was £64,766 as of 1 April 2009, Personal Additional Accommodation Expenditure of
£24,222
The Prime Minister has been entitled to a salary of £197, 689 (including MP's salary of £64,766) from 1 April 2009
Contributions paid by the taxpayer amount to 27 per cent of an MP's £63,291 salary, around double the typical level of employers' contributions in the private sector.
The cost to the Treasury of MPs' pensions has risen by around 25 per cent in the past few years, from £9.8 million in 2003 to £12 million last year.
So where is the justice for Nurses when we are being asked to sit and smile when our incremental pay rises go or have below inflation pay rises!
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Anonymous | 20-Apr-2010 4:17 pm
Thing is with aFC the management awarded themselves fabulous pay increases in Band 8 and above while most of the plebs scored a 5 - funny I remember being sold the idea that the pay structure was being introduced to keep clinical staff on the shop floor? A bit of aestheticism might go in handy now, since collectively I see little evidence of increased productivity at the big table. Another meeting?
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