Now let’s cut salaries of 21 members of £100,000 club

Published: 2 July, 2010

• CONGRATULATIONS to council leader Councillor Catherine West for saying she will cut £50,000 off the salary of the next chief executive’s income (Salary vow as £210k council chief retires, June 25).

Cllr West goes on to say: “We’re not going to waste money employing expensive headhunters, we’ll be doing it in-house.”

Bravo, Cllr West, this is just what we like to hear.

With such concern expressed at the threat to front-line services by necessary cuts in government expenditure, it is important to point out that many council officers have been living the high-life off the back of the council tax-payer and these wages (and pensions) must be reduced in line with all other cost-cutting measures in this country.

With wage cuts of 30 per cent and more experienced in the private sector, the public sector must also share the pain in the drive towards a fairer Britain.

So, will my new hero Cllr West now turn her attention to cutting the salaries of the 21 other council officers who earn more than £100,000?

TIM NEWARK
Islington TaxPayers’ Alliance 

• It is excellent news that Islington Council now has the resolve to pay the next chief executive less than the current one. Nobody is worth £210,000 a year.

How long will it be before this myth of inflated pay is quashed for ever? We are constantly told, when figures like this are quoted, that pay has to go up to attract the “best” or “right” people. Previous Lib Dem leaders of the council even had the vanity to apply this argument to themselves.

How about attracting the right people by simply paying enough for someone who takes pride in their work? Let the breadheads look elsewhere, and ruin someone else’s economy/infrastructure.

STEVE TAYLOR
Dresden Road, N19

• SAVING £50,000 on a chief executive’s salary at the top may grab headlines in the Tribune, and the Lib Dems may jump on the cuts bandwagon now they’re not in power, but far more will be asked of the Town Hall over the coming months and years.

What is needed is a top-to-tail review of Town Hall expenditure.

The issue is not solely the pay of John Foster, but the 20 other directors of the council, all paid between £100,000 and £145,000 a year.

Then there’s the next level below, those 50 other staff in the range of £80,000 a year.

The key question should be not if we can save £50,000 on the chief’s pay, but save a whole lot more by reducing the number of directors and middle management. This would yield far more savings than a headline suggests.

To do this, Islington needs a capable chief executive who can deliver savings while protecting front-line services, not simply take the easy option and cut the numbers of the lowest-paid staff.

The salary of this key position should be judged fairly alongside ability to attract the best candidate.

RICHARD BUNTING
Chair, Islington Conservatives

• I HAVE read that to save money some councils are harnessing a new idea where they share a chief executive and managers. Sometimes I think all the public money for services is guzzled up by managers.

The services are not there for their exploitation but for the users.

If the council adopted manager sharing this would save a lot more than the £50,000 the council is contemplating by reducing the salary of the next lucky chief.

It would be decent of the current chief executive if, before he goes, he could explain how he justified receiving that incredible proportion of public money. Just what did he do?

MG MCELLIGOT
Amwell Street, EC1