27 February 2009
By Alex Klaushofer
Guidance published by the information commissioner this week might force public bodies to reveal previously undisclosed details of senior staff salaries.
When should salaries be disclosed?, issued by the office of information commissioner Richard Thomas, said that salary scales should be published as a matter of routine.
It added that details of an individual’s earnings to the nearest £5,000 should be disclosed if doing so fulfilled a public interest. However, revealing the exact figure would be appropriate ‘only in exceptional circumstances’.
Senior staff responsible for major policy initiatives or decisions about public spending should expect their salaries to be scrutinised, but revealing junior employees’ exact pay would generally be unfair, the guidance stated.
‘Those who are paid from the public purse should expect information on their salaries to be made public,’ said assistant information commissioner Gerrard Tracey. ‘There is a legitimate public interest in knowing how public money is spent, how public sector salaries compare with other areas.’
The senior civil servants’ union, the FDA, welcomed the ruling. ‘There will always be a balance to be struck between the legitimate expectation of privacy from public servants and justified public interest,’ said head of operations Dave Penman. ‘The guidance… helps organisations balance these interests, taking account of reasonable expectations given the seniority of individuals and the nature of their role.’
But the director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, Maurice Frankel, said that – while the guidance was needed – it didn’t go far enough. ‘There are local authority chief executives who resist disclosing their salaries in response to FoI requests,’ he said. ‘The problem is they’re saying it should be disclosed in exceptional circumstances. I think one should just expect it to be disclosed.’
According to policy analyst Ben Farrugia at the Taxpayers Alliance, which publishes annual public sector and town hall ‘rich lists’, local authorities are by far the ‘worst responders’ in the public sector where requests for information about pay are concerned.
‘At least 50% will be of the class that don’t want to give the information,’ he said, citing Essex, Hampshire and Kent county councils as examples.
In the case of Kent, an FoI request resulted in a ruling from the information commissioner that the authority must disclose details of senior staff pay, he added.
A spokesman for Kent County Council said that chief executive Peter Gilroy had no objection to people knowing he received £240,000 to £249,999 in 2007/08. But while the salary ranges of chief officers would be made public, Gilroy would not agree to releasing their names, the spokesman added.
Farrugia also criticised the new guidance for failing to cover the pay-offs of departing executives.
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