Society & Culture1 min ago
Job Title - Ethnic Minority Achievement Teacher - £37,000Pa
Domestic Abuse Assistants (no, me neither)
Just a couple of the more 'colourful' jobs amongst the more usual Diversity Officers and Project Coordinators that my local(labour) council, apparently, can never have too many of.
Then, tonight, I read about their wage bill. Number of people earning £100,000+ =34. £150,000+ =7. 200,000+ =1.
My question is; When do you think this dreadful (tory) austerity will be over?
Just a couple of the more 'colourful' jobs amongst the more usual Diversity Officers and Project Coordinators that my local(labour) council, apparently, can never have too many of.
Then, tonight, I read about their wage bill. Number of people earning £100,000+ =34. £150,000+ =7. 200,000+ =1.
My question is; When do you think this dreadful (tory) austerity will be over?
Answers
Best Answer
No best answer has yet been selected by Svejk. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.
If you are interested in how austerity is effecting your local council;
http://
And I'd love to hear about any 'interesting' jobs being advertised by your councils.
http://
And I'd love to hear about any 'interesting' jobs being advertised by your councils.
Svejk
Your Council's turnover is £261million and the Chief Executive Officer pay is over £200K. If the Council were a private company with the same turnover, then I am sure the CEO pay would be on ten times that.
I was going to compare your Labour local authority with a similar Conservative one in Wales. But I couldn' find a Conservative Unitary Authority in Wales. I guess people get the council they vote for. I notice the Wales Audit Office say your Council's Financial Management is much improved since its last audit in 2012 when the Council was a Conservative led coalition.
Your Council's turnover is £261million and the Chief Executive Officer pay is over £200K. If the Council were a private company with the same turnover, then I am sure the CEO pay would be on ten times that.
I was going to compare your Labour local authority with a similar Conservative one in Wales. But I couldn' find a Conservative Unitary Authority in Wales. I guess people get the council they vote for. I notice the Wales Audit Office say your Council's Financial Management is much improved since its last audit in 2012 when the Council was a Conservative led coalition.
Svejk, the salary you cite is on a standard point in the upper quartile of the teachers' pay scale. The scale reflects experience based on time in the job and responsibility. EMA is a long-standing and well respected aspect of state education. The simple overall pattern is that areas with high EMA needs tend to be poorer and tend to return Labour politicians at elections.
Someone famous and influential once said 'education costs, but so does the alternative'.
Placed against moat cleaning and duck houses, tax evasion and tax dodging, I'd suggest a well qualified and committed EMA leader is a snip at £37k.
You could do a day's work in a rough comprehensive school for further research.
Someone famous and influential once said 'education costs, but so does the alternative'.
Placed against moat cleaning and duck houses, tax evasion and tax dodging, I'd suggest a well qualified and committed EMA leader is a snip at £37k.
You could do a day's work in a rough comprehensive school for further research.
“If the Council were a private company with the same turnover, then I am sure the CEO pay would be on ten times that.”
And I’m sure you’re wrong. I cannot imagine a company with a £261m turnover (and a profit of probably only 10% of that) paying its CEO £2m. (Compare the package of Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT, turnover £18 billion– some 70 times the turnover of the council - profit around £2bn. He took about £4m last year).
However, there ends any meaningful comparison (such that it was). A company CEO is answerable to the company’s shareholders. He (or she, so won’t keep repeating it) has to do many things a local council “CEO” does not. Among the most important, for the purposes of this argument and your comparison are these: he has to ensure the business retains and maintains its customers; he has to ensure customer satisfaction; he has to retain and grow the company’s income stream; he has to secure new custom to grow revenue and profit so as to maintain shareholder value.
The boss of a local council has to do none of this. He (or she) has a guaranteed income stream (80% from central taxation, 20% from Council Taxpayers secured under threat of criminal prosecution). He cares not whether he has one or a hundred thousand customers (and in fact many of them would prefer to have fewer). He has no need to keep them happy. He has no need to secure new customers. He has no need to ensure a profit is made.
In short, the comparison is specious. People don’t have to go to Sainsbury’s for their shopping. They don’t have to use BT for the telecom requirements. They don’t have to use EasyJet to fly abroad. They don’t have to buy a Ford motor car. The job of the CEO of those companies is to make sure that they want to. By contrast most people have little choice but to use the services the local council provides (and even if they don’t use them they still have to pay for them).
So back to the question. There is no doubt that the salaries and benefits provided to senior local council staff are ridiculous. It is always argued that these sums must be paid to secure the best people. If, as Gromit suggests, considerably higher salaries can be earned by these people, if they have the talents and skills to do so, why don’t they become CEO’s of “proper” companies. (Answers on a postcard please, but the correct answer is that they would not last five minutes in the real world). Instead they move from job to job among local councils, each move providing them with a handsome payoff and a generous “relocation” allowance (effectively enabling them to buy a bigger house courtesy of the taxpayers' largesse).
Similarly there is no doubt that many of the mid-range jobs (£30-£60k) are total “non-jobs”. You only have to look through the Guardian situations vacant pages to see them. These are jobs which would never be funded in the private sector because they are simply unnecessary. Local government needs radical overhaul (in my view it should be abolished entirely and the services provided either taken under central government control, or put to private tender). Until that happens this scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money will go on.
And I’m sure you’re wrong. I cannot imagine a company with a £261m turnover (and a profit of probably only 10% of that) paying its CEO £2m. (Compare the package of Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT, turnover £18 billion– some 70 times the turnover of the council - profit around £2bn. He took about £4m last year).
However, there ends any meaningful comparison (such that it was). A company CEO is answerable to the company’s shareholders. He (or she, so won’t keep repeating it) has to do many things a local council “CEO” does not. Among the most important, for the purposes of this argument and your comparison are these: he has to ensure the business retains and maintains its customers; he has to ensure customer satisfaction; he has to retain and grow the company’s income stream; he has to secure new custom to grow revenue and profit so as to maintain shareholder value.
The boss of a local council has to do none of this. He (or she) has a guaranteed income stream (80% from central taxation, 20% from Council Taxpayers secured under threat of criminal prosecution). He cares not whether he has one or a hundred thousand customers (and in fact many of them would prefer to have fewer). He has no need to keep them happy. He has no need to secure new customers. He has no need to ensure a profit is made.
In short, the comparison is specious. People don’t have to go to Sainsbury’s for their shopping. They don’t have to use BT for the telecom requirements. They don’t have to use EasyJet to fly abroad. They don’t have to buy a Ford motor car. The job of the CEO of those companies is to make sure that they want to. By contrast most people have little choice but to use the services the local council provides (and even if they don’t use them they still have to pay for them).
So back to the question. There is no doubt that the salaries and benefits provided to senior local council staff are ridiculous. It is always argued that these sums must be paid to secure the best people. If, as Gromit suggests, considerably higher salaries can be earned by these people, if they have the talents and skills to do so, why don’t they become CEO’s of “proper” companies. (Answers on a postcard please, but the correct answer is that they would not last five minutes in the real world). Instead they move from job to job among local councils, each move providing them with a handsome payoff and a generous “relocation” allowance (effectively enabling them to buy a bigger house courtesy of the taxpayers' largesse).
Similarly there is no doubt that many of the mid-range jobs (£30-£60k) are total “non-jobs”. You only have to look through the Guardian situations vacant pages to see them. These are jobs which would never be funded in the private sector because they are simply unnecessary. Local government needs radical overhaul (in my view it should be abolished entirely and the services provided either taken under central government control, or put to private tender). Until that happens this scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money will go on.
I remember seeing in the Grauniad public sector non-jobs section an ad for a "Breast feeding co-ordinator"....ok ladies on my mark 3 2 1.....
these jobs are "invented" by people who for the most part just couldnt cut it in the private sector and thats why they end up in the public sector creating jobs for people of a simialr ilk..its an absolute disgrace and these jobs should not be allowed to be offered, and at the ridiculous salaries they seem to be able to afford..still its not their money is it !?
these jobs are "invented" by people who for the most part just couldnt cut it in the private sector and thats why they end up in the public sector creating jobs for people of a simialr ilk..its an absolute disgrace and these jobs should not be allowed to be offered, and at the ridiculous salaries they seem to be able to afford..still its not their money is it !?
-- answer removed --
Latest Posts
News14 mins ago
Body & Soul23 mins ago
Are Labour Preparing To Dump The P M ?
News25 mins ago
Crosswords29 mins ago
Related Questions
Sorry, we can't find any related questions. Try using the search bar at the top of the page to search for some keywords, or choose a topic and submit your own question.