Council boss: Wage cut agreed

5:50pm Monday 28th January 2013 in News Photograph of the Author By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter

The next person to take over Hertfordshire County Council’s second most senior job will be around £20,000 worse off than their predecessor - unless they are considered an exceptional candidate.

Politicians on the authority’s employment committee agreed today to lower the basic salary for the position of director of resources and performance to around £130,000.

The current incumbent, Mike Parsons, who exits the post this week to take up a role in central government, was paid £148,500-a-year.

However councillors agreed with council officers that the basic salary could be boosted to land any "exceptional candidates" who apply for the role.

Comments(11)

cameluk says...
5:58pm Mon 28 Jan 13

I don't believe it - the council making a sensible decision over salary at last

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Mohandas says...
6:50pm Mon 28 Jan 13

Reductions in salary need to be more progresssive in order to attract candidates who are focussed on working for the benefit of the community.Money inducements will not deliver the best candidate when taliking about public services.

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MarsLander says...
7:38pm Mon 28 Jan 13

Mohandas wrote:
Reductions in salary need to be more progresssive in order to attract candidates who are focussed on working for the benefit of the community.Money inducements will not deliver the best candidate when taliking about public services.
What do you mean by progressive?

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MarsLander says...
7:39pm Mon 28 Jan 13

cameluk wrote:
I don't believe it - the council making a sensible decision over salary at last
A sensible decision would be to cap it at 100,000 and then only pay that for a top person.

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TRT says...
2:22am Tue 29 Jan 13

Meh. I bet the next one will be deemed to be exceptional, possibly by virtue of having the cleanest naval in the Home Counties or something.

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TRT says...
2:22am Tue 29 Jan 13

Damned autocorrect. Navel.

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Mohandas says...
8:49am Tue 29 Jan 13

MarsLander wrote:
Mohandas wrote:
Reductions in salary need to be more progresssive in order to attract candidates who are focussed on working for the benefit of the community.Money inducements will not deliver the best candidate when taliking about public services.
What do you mean by progressive?
A 15% cut in a wage for someone on a low wage hits the low paid far harder than someone on a high salary. High earners also enjoy very valuable perks eg gold plated pension schemes and enhanced redundancy packages. Up and down the country ordinary employees have to accept wage cuts of 20% or the firm goes bust. In Stoke, front line council staff are set to lose £6,500 and the starting salary for police constables is being cut by £4,000. So a £20,000 cut to someone on £150,000 needs to be more drastic ie at a higher rate.

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Watfordengineer says...
9:26am Tue 29 Jan 13

I think of the council as a business. and This is a sensible level of wage for a high up executive. But it is certainly right that it is bought down a few pegs.
I doubt the councillors would vote a wage level down when there was an incumbent in the role.

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MarsLander says...
9:51am Tue 29 Jan 13

What's the worst that could happen if we employed someone in this role for say the paltry sum of a mere £100,000? Would we end up with the equivalent of Frank Spencer? Of course not, so why does the council offer such high wages? Just because it can?

Put a cap on wages and stop this nonsense.

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LSC says...
12:07pm Tue 29 Jan 13

Why would they even consider employing someone who isn't exceptional?
Is, 'Yeah, he's alright' good enough in some cases for our Public Servants?

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LSC says...
12:10pm Tue 29 Jan 13

And another thing; If I read this article then applied for the job and was offered the lower salary, we'd be off to a flying start with my motivation.

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