By David Williams
16 February 2011
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has come under fire today after proposing new scrutiny on pay settlements for senior local authority staff.
Pickles announced that he would amend the Decentralisation and Localism Bill, currently before Parliament, to require a full council debate whenever an authority plans to hire a new employee on a salary of £100,000 or more.
He said this morning: ‘Local government jobs will now have to be “democracy-proofed” before mega salaries are paid out. Councils need to make sure they don’t sully their reputation by taking decisions behind closed doors to reward chief executives when they should be focusing resources on protecting frontline services.’
He cited data from Local Government Employers calculating a total pay bill for senior council managers of £626.9m a year.
It is the latest in a series of statements from the Department for Communities and Local Government on local authority pay. Last year Pickles called for all chief executives on more than £200.000 a year to take a 10% pay cut, and those earning £150,000 or more to agree to a 5% reduction.
Mary Orton, honorary secretary of the Association of Local Authority Chief Executives, called the announcement ‘spin and bluster’, and said that the potential savings were a ‘drop in the ocean’ compared to the budget cuts faced by councils in 2011/12.
Town hall bosses were fed up of being ‘hounded’ by ministers, she told Public Finance. ‘This is becoming not just a fixation, but an obsession,’ she said.
She added that there was now a ‘real risk’ that some would be driven out of local government ‘and it will deter people in middle management from wanting to progress through the ranks’.
‘The longer government goes on bashing chief executives the less desirable the job becomes – and just as we need the best people to stay in local government,’ she said.
Andy Sawford, director of the Local Government Information Unit, said the move was ‘good politics’ for Pickles as the message of efficiency would resonate with the public.
But he cast doubt on its value in practice since council leaders already appoint the chief executive, and pay and conditions have to be approved by cabinet. ‘The chances of there being a full-council debate that leads to a vote that changes policy around this is very unlikely,’ he said.
Sawford also said it was inconsistent for Pickles to be handing more power to councillors in this instance, while the rest of the Localism Bill emphasised stronger council leadership and the elected mayor model.
Sir Steve Bullock, chair of the Local Government Association’s group workforce board, said: ‘This kind of top-down interference is simply unnecessary. Many authorities already have remuneration committees with independent members from outside the authority that examine senior salaries.
‘We look forward to hearing from ministers whether other parts of the public sector are going to be as transparent as local government.’
