The headline-grabbing comments by the Taxpayers Alliance on chief executive salaries last week tells the world little that it does not know already. These salaries did not pop out the woodwork but have long been in the public domain.The ‘Blair earns less than the chief executive of Kent' story is as old as the hills. But of course anyone in local government knows full well what the bigger agenda is behind the headlines. A survey, let's say by Local Government Employers which collects such data, or for that matter our sister publication Municipal Year Book, would merit a paragraph at best in the national press which has about as much interest in local government pay data as it does in stamp collections. However when such a survey appears under such a name as Taxpayers Alliance which sounds very grand and independent then of course it presses all kinds of buttons in the national media. The agenda last week was therefore not about why council chiefs earn good salaries but why we spend any money at all on public sector staff who are of course milking us taxpayers for all they can get etc etc. Indeed the real sub text behind the headlines is that the public sector itself is a con. Taxpayers will obviously be far better off hiring their own dustmen perhaps from among those people who come to your door offering to tarmac your drive or allowing Mr Fagin to run children's homes again. Indeed, all these council services ought obviously to be completely free with no one paying anything to anyone (as the Queen of Hearts might say to Alice). The irony is that the Taxpayers Alliance ought to welcome the current system of determining top salaries. It is driven entirely by the market and for a council with a turnover of hundreds of millions of pounds, the expenditure of a few extra grand to attract the best leaders seems eminently sensible. But of course that wouldn't fit the prejudices. Michael Burton Editor, The MJ
