HIGHLY-PAID state employees in the UK must “look afresh” at salary levels, Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable has said, following publication by the British government of salaries for the top 170 earners, including Irishman John Fingleton, the head of the Office of Fair Trading, who is the most highly paid.
“There has been massive pay inflation in top salaries, people in the public sector trying to emulate what’s been happening in the private sector and it frankly is not affordable,” said Mr Cable, speaking in Scotland yesterday.
“I’ve taken a pay cut, as have all senior members of the government. I’ve written to university vice-chancellors and college heads in England and Wales, explaining that in many cases they’re very highly paid in an environment of cuts and they need to look at this afresh.
“My first major appointment was the new chief executive of the Royal Mail, who has accepted a pay cut from the previous high levels.
“So, particularly at the top end of the pay scale, we’ve just got to accept that the money just isn’t there and people have got to be more restrained,” said Mr Cable, who added that “it may well be time” for pay cuts.
The publication of the names of those state employees who earn more than prime minister David Cameron is the first major effort by the new administration to curb pay bills within the public service, in a bid, Mr Cameron says, to “open up the corridors of power”.
The disclosure of the names has caused fury among many of them – and some refused outright to have their details published, as per their contracts.
Over the next few months, the government intends to publish the names of any civil servant earning more than £58,000 (€69,000) a year, while information about headmasters and general practitioners working for the National Health Service will be published in time.
So far, the new administration has tried to cut pay levels for those moving from one highly-paid state job to another, rather than cutting pay levels of everyone, but there are fears this approach will see people pull back from applying for new positions and leave top posts unfilled, or occupied by less-experienced individuals.
Mr Fingleton, who headed the Irish Competition Authority before he was head-hunted for the British post, is highly regarded.
The information about his salary, though it was presented in some quarters yesterday as being new, was publicised frequently at the time of his appointment.
He is followed on the pay list by NHS chief executive David Nicholson, who earns £260,000 and Joe Harley, the IT director general and chief information officer at the Department for Work and Pensions, who gets £249,999.
Civil servants who head government departments, known as permanent secretaries, earn between £150,000 and £200,000 a year, but officials elsewhere in the system – particularly in the Ministry of Defence, frequently earn more than the PM, who is paid £145,000, following his order to all ministers to accept a 5 per cent pay cut.
Some 28 people in the MoD earn more than that.