CNJ Comment - A welcome spotlight on inequality and secrecy

Published: 17 June, 2010

THE aftermath of the scandal over false claims for allowance by MPs last year can be said to have filtered down to the wider shores of local government.

A breath of fresh air came this week from the Labour council’s finance chief Councillor Theo Blackwell who announced plans – courageous in scale – to publish all council expenditure over £500.

It is difficult to understand how this can be achieved considering the sheer enormity of the task but Labour is on the right track.

For years people have learnt to expect the worst of politicians.

With politicians embedded in the political machine came arrogance and secrecy.

Along with the secrecy over MPs’ expenses came secrecy over the earnings of both politicians as well as civil servants.

Only in the past year has the issue of public sector pay become a subject for debate.

Here in Camden secrecy hung over the pay of our senior Town Hall executives

Even though, eventually, figures were released they did not give the full picture.

This week we are able to publish the full earnings of top officers.

We discover that on top of an annual salary of practically £200,000, chief executive Moira Gibb was awarded nearly £16,000 as a performance bonus.

Growing inequality of earnings in Britain is reflected in these figures.

At £200,000 Ms Gibb will earn about 12 times that of the lowest paid at the Town Hall.

Her bonus would equal the annual salary paid to a number of council workers. 

Her basic salary and that of other senior officers would also show, on investigation, that Town Hall top salaries have doubled since the 1990s.

Inequality and secrecy have been exposed as the dark corner of Town Hall economics.

Labour are now set to battle with secrecy. But it will probably prove beyond them to substantially alter the pay structure.

Failed by police

THE acquittal verdict on three young men charged with the murder of Sharma’arke Hassan brings in its wake questions that should require a review of both prosecution and police procedure.

From the start it appeared to have been treated as a black-on-black crime and left to the special police team, Trident.

While this may have been well-founded, this did not appear to have been made absolutely clear during the hearing.

Was a false trail laid here? Either way, the parents of all the parties may well have been failed by the police.