Overpaid councils
From Alderman Paul Sainsbury
Sir: By coincidence the salaries of newly appointed Cabinet and other Senior Ministers were published on the same day as the pay structure of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan County.
Let it be clearly understood that the Chief Executive Officer of West Yorkshire receives a larger salary than the Secretary of State for Energy, and further down the scale, the Directors of Transport, Planning, Finance and Administration in the local government sector earn more money than the Ministers of State for Energy or Defence; indeed even the deputy director of Finance, West Yorkshire is better paid than the Parliamentary Secretaries of Defence or Agriculture and of course all the Parliamentary Under-Secretaries.
Not only are these local government officers receiving more money for doing less important work, they are vir tually unsackable, whereas the Ministers are all in a very vulnerable position. It has been my contention for some time that senior local government officers' should be employed on a contract basis (say renewable fiveyearly) so that when a mistake in selection is made, as is inevitable from time to time, it is possible to replace an unsuccessful officer by a better one.
I am very much in favour of the proposed examination into local government salaries which is right in line with government policy of controlling excessive pay demands, especially as it has always been my view that the majority of Nalgo officers are over-paid, over-pampered, and over-secure, but by jingo they've got a strong union!
Paul Sainsbury Chairman, Local Government Reform Society, 14 West Street, Stratford-onAvon
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