Top Camden Council pay to remain secret
As other local authorities reveal the salaries of their top earners, Camden stays tight-lipped
Published: 18 March 2010
by RICHARD OSLEY
THE full pay and bonus package collected by Camden Council’s chief executive will stay secret unless the government orders otherwise, the New Journal has learned.
The exact pay of directors and other senior staff will also remain under wraps and only “ballpark” figures of who gets what have been published.
The size of “golden goodbye” redundancy packages will also continue to be kept under close guard.
Although other local authorities are publishing salary details for their high earners, Camden was last night (Wednesday) accused of having one of the most restrictive approaches to letting taxpayers know how much of their money is used to fund chief officer pay. More than 25 members of staff at the Town Hall take home more than £78,500.
On top of that, directors at the top table qualify for a bonus scheme and pension benefits.
Officials will not boil the statistics down into hard figures on the grounds that it would intrude on staff “privacy”.
In relation to chief executive Moira Gibb, the council will only provide a wide-ranging pay bracket which makes it impossible to pinpoint her exact salary.
Even some elected councillors do not know whether she is paid at the lower end of the bracket (an annual salary of £163,350) or gets the best possible wage for her job at Camden: a yearly wage of £199,650.
She was discussing her performance over the last year with council leaders in a private meeting last night.
Under a bonus system – the existence of which was revealed by a New Journal investigation last year – she is entitled to collect an incentive, which is usually 10 per cent of whatever her salary is.
Town Hall leader Councillor Keith Moffitt said last week that pay at Camden “was not the most generous” in comparison with other local authorities.
But Labour finance spokesman Councillor Theo Blackwell said: “It is clear that the view at the council is that they will not publish anything unless they are forced to by an order from government. The council says it pays a wage for good quality staff but it will not say what that is. In the whole country, Camden is taking more steps than nearly any other local authority to withhold this information.”
Some staff insiders at the Town Hall believe Ms Gibb and other top-ranked staff should “be confident enough to explain what they get and why” and should not be afraid of the scrutiny due to the high regard their work is held in both internally and in the wider field of local government.
Whitehall was considering sending out an order to make councils publish the pay details of staff earning over £50,000 a year but the likely threshold for that demand has since risen. Cllr Moffitt said: “The need to strike a balance between legitimate public interest and the right to privacy has been the subject of debate at a national level with the government moving away from its initial proposals for widespread disclosure of senior salaries.
“Camden’s chief officers are essential to the smooth and efficient running of the council and to the council achieving its objectives. Quite rightly, we have very high expectations of them.
“I can assure members that our pay is not the most generous; indeed there are a number of chief executives in far less successful boroughs whose salary ranges are higher than our own chief executives.”