9000 reasons to cut government spending

It comes to something when the (supposedly) most powerful man in the land the Prime Minister earns less than over 9000 public servants. Oddly enough I don't think Cameron is going to insist on a pay rise either, though at £142,000 he's clearly not short of a bob or two in earnings.

Telegraph.

Public sector pay: 9,000 on public payroll are paid more than the Prime Minister
More than 9,000 public sector employees earn more than the Prime Minister, according to most comprehensive analysis of state pay levels ever undertaken. 

In a stark illustration of the financial rewards available to workers in the NHS, schools and police forces, the study found a total of 9,187 earning more than the £142,500 paid to David Cameron. There are also 38,000 who earn more than £100,000 a year.

The study, by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for the BBC’s Panorama programme, is the first to put an overall total on the number of state employees earning more than the Prime Minister. The figure is substantially higher than previous estimates suggested by surveys of civil servants, council or NHS workers. 

The research threatens to undermine calls by trade unions for “civil disobedience” and co-ordinated strike action over the Coalition’s proposed programme of cuts to public sector pay and perks.

It follows official statistics last week showing that state employees earn an average of £74 a week more than their private sector counterparts.

Public sector workers also enjoy more generous pension packages and have traditionally had greater job security.

Business and workers’ groups called last night for urgent steps to bring high public sector pay “back to reality”.

The British Chambers of Commerce said “messed up” incentives were undermining the economy by tempting talented people away from the wealth-creating private sector.

GPs, head teachers, policemen and BBC executives are among the public servants identified as earning six-figure salaries in the latest study.

Nearly 6,500 NHS staff are paid more than the Prime Minister, with two GPs earning about £475,500 a year. Another 10 GPs are earning more than £300,000 a year.

In the education sector, 385 teachers in England earn more than £100,000 and 17 get more than the Prime Minister.

The best paid was an unnamed teacher from Essex on £232,500, followed by Mark Elms, the head teacher of Tidemill Primary School in Lewisham, south-east London, on £231,400.

The highest-paid policeman is Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson on £280,489, while his deputy, Tim Godwin, is paid £246,969.

In the Armed Forces, 832 individuals earn more than £100,000 a year – excluding civil servants working in the Ministry of Defence – and 2,013 working in the judiciary are on six-figure salaries.

Local councils employ 362 people on more than or the same pay as Mr Cameron. The highest paid council employee is Gerald Jones, the chief executive of Wandsworth borough council in south London, who earns £299,925 a year. Peter Gilroy, the chief executive, is paid £243,388.

The figures were obtained for Panorama through more than 2,400 Freedom of Information requests.

I've heard all the excuses, that they need to offer competitive salaries to attract the best, but quite frankly this looks more like largesse run wild, no-one in the public sector should be on more than the Prime Minister who (technically, though not in reality) can call upon our nuclear forces to obliterate the odd small(ish) nation, and no I don't think Cameron should earn over £299,925 either, the amount is obscene!
These people need to be removed from the public services, expertise or not, these people are the ones the Unions are calling upon civil disobedience by the general public to defend their wages! This is the direct result of New Labours profligacy over the last 13 years where public services have taken the extra money provided to them and boosted pay rather than improved services in general. They took on administrators before frontline staff, in short they lined their pockets and then had the nerve to blame bankers and their bonuses as an excuse for industrial action.
This all comes from taxation either local or national, these people and those that hired them played fast and loose with our money and now have the sheer bloody nerve to complain when the government says enough is enough, looking to cut doctors, nurses, teachers army regiments rather than look to where the real dead wood lies. The civil service, both local and national looks out for the civil service, not the public and certainly not the government, the bigger the budget, the more the salaries, the worse the service provided, they forget who the paymasters are, like several corrupt MP's did. It's been many years now that the politicians had a measure of control over the public services, after all it's the public servants who provide the politicians with the information that they use to make decisions. Easy enough to "massage" the data given to support the public services budgets and needs, I doubt any politician would even know where to look to find the independent data needed to make decisions on cuts. But a good start would be to remove any and all public servants earning more than the Prime Minister.