Fat Cats, Getting Fatter?

[Mkapaka]

£250,000, come on. 

[Anna B]

7 hours ago, SheffieldForum said:

The undisclosed names by the disclosed job titles is strange - for instance, we know that Greg Fell is the Director of Public Health and could probably work out who the rest are with a quick Google.

 

On the topic though - I have no qualms with these salaries personally. If we are to attract the best talent to run what is essentially vital services for the city we should be willing to pay for it to convince people with the right skills to come from the much higher paid private sector. We had many years of underpaying and not being able to compete with the private sector, which led to some... lets say poor quality... officers and executives in the past.

 

 

I have to disagree.

This fallacy about 'attracting the best talent' was started by the executives themselves, to justify the extortionate salaries that they had also awarded to themselves.

It has proven to be a false assumption over and over again, as our stock in the world has declined markedly in most areas. Just look at the debacle over the post office for example, and the mess this government has made in so many areas of their remit. We have never been in such a sorry state.

 

They have used their power simply to feather their own nests, and care not one jot about the broader picture and the people they are meant to serve. We also have the arrival of such gems as 'Police Commissioners' and 'Super Mayors' and other very expensive jobs for the boys though nobody seems to know what they do, and have seen no discernable improvement in their field of operations. 

 

Every grandiose pen pusher costs tax payers any number of truly useful workers in the public sector such as nurses and police and teachers. I know which I consider to be the more valuable.

     

[Planner1]

We get this debate every year when the taxpayers alliance / similar do their annual foi requests and publish the salaries of senior council staff around the country.

 

Last time I looked, SCC had a budget circa £1.5 billion. 
 

Find a private sector company with a similar budget and I think you will find the senior manager salaries are an order of magnitude higher. 
 

I’ve worked in local government for many years and have worked closely with Directors and Chief Execs at several different organisations including SCC.

 

I have always found Chief Execs to be very smart, very dedicated people, who dedicate their lives to public service. They put in huge amounts of hours, I was always getting mails from senior managers late at night as they invariably go home when the office closes and log on remotely for several hours each night. The job essentially “owns” them.

 

I have never met a Chief Exec I thought wasn’t smarter than me. They are very bright people. ( Bob Kerslake was especially good)
 

I think they earn and deserve every penny they get and deserve a lot more.

 

The comparisons with the Prime Minister are ridiculous. The PM’s salary is dwarfed by the millions they earn after they step down by writing their memoirs, becoming directors of various companies  and going on the speaking “circuit”. 

[Planner1]

2 hours ago, Anna B said:

Every grandiose pen pusher costs tax payers any number of truly useful workers in the public sector such as nurses and police and teachers. I know which I consider to be the more valuable.

     

So how would you propose that the “truly useful” people and their organisation are managed?

 

A workers co-operative?

[crookesey]

I earned a fair bit more than most in the organisation of which I was a director, I assumed that the M/D earned a fair bit more than me, our salaries were not known by our staff members. In The Public Sector however, the higher paid seniors are obliged to rub the noses of the lesser paid into the dirt.

[hauxwell]

10 hours ago, Longcol said:

And because the comparison should be between the PM and civil servants eg a good dozen of civil servants working for Network Rail and on HS2 are on over £300k, top one £650k.

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/senior-officials-high-earners-salaries

Yes I remember reading a few years ago civil servants being paid a lot more than the PM.  I can only presume they are super talented, not sure I agree tho civil servants being paid more than the PM

I’m expecting a reaction from other posters for saying I am one of  those who believes a Member of Parliament, from all political parties,  who is seen to be actively busy working in his constituency isn’t overpaid.  The ones who don’t put the hours in should be kicked out.

[Grumpycatweasel]

We pay those salaries yet receive inconsistent management & planning of Sheffield 

 

 

[Grumpycatweasel]

Why should i pay council tax for some council member to take home a 6 figure salary?

 

I’m all for paying for essential services but the incompetence of SCC do not deserve 100,000+ salaries 

 

Should we collectively stop paying CT until salaries are adjusted / normalised 

 

 

[prince al]

Super talented? Ha ha ha! Fargate containers? If they didn’t know about it they should have. 

[Anna B]

IMO a lot of the rot set in when they stopped promoting exceptional workers from the bottom, up the greasy pole, to the top, so that ability was matched by a wealth of experience at all levels.

 

Too many senior executives are graduates with plenty of 'book learning' and qualifications but precious little else. They go straight in at a senior level. Old school coppers for example insist that working from the round up gives them 'a nose' for policing which graduates lack. I think that's probably true of a number of professions.

To add to that, they are often recruited from a very few 'top drawer' Universities, so you have the same elite crew doing the rounds of all the top jobs. Before anyone reminds me that these Universities only accept exceptional students, I beg to differ. There are a fair few 'Hooray Henries' and Henriettas in there as well who only got in there because Daddy knows all the right strings to pull....  

 

7% of the population went to private schools, but fill 70% of all the top jobs.

Class discrimination is still very much alive in Great Britain and always has been..