One of the more boring topics of debate amongst the national newspapers is the subject of the salaries of local authority chief executives.
The phrase “earns more than the Prime Minister” appears in pretty much every story.
Yes, they get paid a lot, but running a council is bloody hard.
Very few chief executives of companies (who often earn a lot more) face the prospect of going to prison but if a child dies in care, a council chief exec can face charges of corporate manslaughter.
So, if the salaries are reduced, the good people go elsewhere thus leading to a drop in quality of council services and probably more children dying in care.
It’s not a massively glamourous job either, you inevitably get what you want to do stopped because the councillors don’t feel it’s politically right, you get moaned at constantly by the public, you get ever changing government rules you have to follow and spend money on changing things you’ve already spent money on, you get told to build houses, spend a lot of money on identifying where to build houses and then people start protesting against it, you get told to look after children and then get less money to do it every year, you spend money on the roads, then it snows and they get full of potholes, so people moan.
I’m not saying all councils are brilliant, some waste huge amounts on bonkers projects, but the idea that people in charge of a hugely complex system involving hundreds of people doing hundreds of things, are overpaid is ridiculous.
These chief execs are an easy target to the rabid right wing tabloids, but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
Then of course when no-one’s bins get collected, the schools start failing and children start dying, they might get some proper stories.
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Council chief execs are easy tabloid target
In Comment, Multifarious, News, Politics on April 3, 2011 at 9:24 amOne of the more boring topics of debate amongst the national newspapers is the subject of the salaries of local authority chief executives.
The phrase “earns more than the Prime Minister” appears in pretty much every story.
Yes, they get paid a lot, but running a council is bloody hard.
Very few chief executives of companies (who often earn a lot more) face the prospect of going to prison but if a child dies in care, a council chief exec can face charges of corporate manslaughter.
So, if the salaries are reduced, the good people go elsewhere thus leading to a drop in quality of council services and probably more children dying in care.
It’s not a massively glamourous job either, you inevitably get what you want to do stopped because the councillors don’t feel it’s politically right, you get moaned at constantly by the public, you get ever changing government rules you have to follow and spend money on changing things you’ve already spent money on, you get told to build houses, spend a lot of money on identifying where to build houses and then people start protesting against it, you get told to look after children and then get less money to do it every year, you spend money on the roads, then it snows and they get full of potholes, so people moan.
I’m not saying all councils are brilliant, some waste huge amounts on bonkers projects, but the idea that people in charge of a hugely complex system involving hundreds of people doing hundreds of things, are overpaid is ridiculous.
These chief execs are an easy target to the rabid right wing tabloids, but if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
Then of course when no-one’s bins get collected, the schools start failing and children start dying, they might get some proper stories.
Like this: