The decision by the chief executives' union ALACE to refer the employers' 0% pay offer to arbitration is, to put it mildly, odd. There is enough already for ALACE to grapple with, from assaults on perfectly-legal pay-offs to calls for pensions to be capped. While appreciating that it is a union rather than a professional society and therefore, more concerned with pay and rations, its membership's employment conditions are nonetheless assailed on all sides. We are in an election campaign. National politicians are bruised by revelations over their expenses' scams. Picking on council chief executives, whose salaries are in the public domain, is an easy way of diverting attention. We hear little of PCT chiefs' salaries, or those of college administrators or part-time chairs of quangos. Little mention is made of the new responsibilities set to be transferred to ‘upper-tier' councils in sixth form funding and the new duties about to fall on council chiefs. The detractors appear unaware that current employment law does not allow councils to sack their chief executives on the grounds that the leader no longer likes them anymore, and that pay-offs are the only way of avoiding expensive litigation. Conservative attacks on senior salaries seem to ignore the fact that most councils are Tory-led, and the packages, therefore, set by their own local politicians. So, there is already enough work to do defending chief executives' employment conditions at a time when their skills have never been so important. But for ALACE to choose to make a stand on pay on the grounds that chiefs should get the same as everyone else – presumably 1-1.25% as currently on offer to the unions – is puzzling. We have already stated our view that employers should have stuck to their original 0.5% offer to unions, or even offered 0% to reflect current offers in the private sector rather than increase it to 1-1.25%. Many chief executives agree and many, perhaps even the majority, will also accept the case for no rise this year for themselves. ALACE's call for arbitration is unhelpful to its members' case. Michael Burton, Editor, The MJ
