The council 'fat cat’ earning £570,000

[TimberWolf]

He received his normal salary of £157,000, including the notice period. He also collected a redundancy payment of £167,000, even though he had worked for the council for just six years. The council also agreed to pay an extra £239,000 into Mr Dolan's gold-plated pension scheme to cover payments that would have been made had he continued working until 65.

South Somerset has only 162,000 residents (one of the smallest) , meaning that the payments to the three men cost more than £7 a person.

Last week, council leader Tim Carroll put his name to a letter to Mr Pickles stating that cuts would have “an undoubted impact on all front-line council services, including care to the vulnerable”.
The council 'fat cat’ earning £570,000 - Telegraph

Imagine the size of his package if it had been a big council

[centurian]

The argument around these stratospheric salaries for council employees was that we needed to pay top rates for the best people.

But what happened - did top people from successful private sector industries flock to councils and turn them around.

No - they're all career council employees. All we did was pay the same people shed loads more money to do exactly the same job they would have done anyway. We've paid out 10s of millions extra for absolutely zilch in return.

[Paddy]

Imagine the size of his package if it had been a big council

Appointments of such have to go through a resolution by elected councillors. It is obviously that the councillors have been negligent and they can be held personally liable for losses if the rate payers got together and take action. The problem is that the majority of the people in the UK are gutless that is why people get away wit it.

[xoggoth]

Quite. I daresay there are few who merit it. In public sector jobs there is no independent measure of effectiveness, as profit provides in the private sector.

[centurian]

They justify it by comparing their salary to the "millions in efficiency savings" that they have made - and that if anything, they are cheap. It would have cost the council millions had they not been there.

Of course, this is all tulip. For starters an "efficiency saving" hardly ever saves hard cash - in fact it can sometimes cost more. By 'efficiency' they usually mean they have delivered "a better service for more money", but the consultants and accountants spin it as a "saving" on the basis that the "cost per unit" is lower, even though the total cash bill is higher.

Short term, you can get away with this, but long-term you are tulliped, because you've hidden the underlying issues.

Secondly, even if there is a saving, who's to say that someone on 60K couldn't have made that saving anyway. Some of these "savings" are pretty basic stuff. What is so special about these people that mean only they could have done it.

[fullyautomatix]

The argument around these stratospheric salaries for council employees was that we needed to pay top rates for the best people.

But what happened - did top people from successful private sector industries flock to councils and turn them around.

No - they're all career council employees. All we did was pay the same people shed loads more money to do exactly the same job they would have done anyway. We've paid out 10s of millions extra for absolutely zilch in return.

WHS

On top of that, another justification I have seen is the fat cats claiming that they need to pay high salaries because of the millions of quids they are in charge of. Therefore they need to pay themselves private sector wages. The only difference is that in private sector the high paid executives are in charge of producing millions in profit and not spending millions.

It's time we had a major revolt against sky high council tax and the 60K salaries these fat cats are awarding themselves just for a 9-5 pen pushing and tea drinking.

[EternalOptimist]

i have a slightly different take on this. if it was all so obviously easy, wouldnt there be a massive queue of people applying for these jobs
with headhunters involved


has anyone here ever been headhunted ?

[centurian]

The entry criteria is so tight that it is impossible for anyone other than deputy chief execs of councils or "captains of industry" to apply, much like top jobs for investment bankers.

However, this guy lied about his qualifications and experience - and yet was still able to do the job without his competance being question. He was only caught out by background checks.

Convicted conman, 49, used fake CV to win £165k top executive job at City bank | Mail Online

[Freamon]

It's time we had a major revolt against sky high council tax and the 60K salaries these fat cats are awarding themselves just for a 9-5 pen pushing and tea drinking.

Let's say that instead of being paid 157k this guy was paid 60k, and his redundancy and pension top up were reduced by a similar amount.

This would have saved each council tax payer in South Somerset a whole 11p per month last year.