Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey staff & consultants paid over £50k
People may be interested in the answer to a Freedom of Information request on WhatDoTheyKnow.com website.
On 11 February 2011, A. Green asked for a list of the positions, grades and salaries of Haringey employees, consultants or agency staff paid over £50,000 in 2008/09/10/11.
On 5 May, after some shilly-shallying and dilly-dallying, Haringey finally supplied most of what A. Green requested.
Apart from information about consultants. Which I hope will be coming along shortly - with a little nudging and nagging from me if needed.
Tags for Forum Posts: F.o.I, Freedom of Information, Haringey staff salaries, WhatDoTheyKnow.com, consultant, haringey chief executive, £50k
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Edel B on
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I'm sure the question was asked for very good reasons. But I'm not at all comfortable with the witch-hunt on public servants earning more than 50k - that's quite a low ceiling for disclosing details of earnings etc, especially for management/ middle management/ specialist skills positions. And you know, I'd be really, really uneasy if someone emailed my boss with a request for my salary details.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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The request looks like it was just a "how many?", not a "who?". All the same, I have similar feelings to you about it.
Surely Haringey's finance department know this information?
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Permalink Reply by Karin on
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My dad used to work in the public sector and due to a freedom of information request from their local paper he and about 10 others had their salaries and location published. My parents have an unusual last name so it wouldn't be hard to track them down so things like this make me really uncomfortable.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Witch-hunt?
Many people who work in local government are on nationally agreed scales which are publicly available. Senior jobs are widely advertised and the salary range is usually given.
Local councils are having to cut millions off their budgets. Isn't it reasonable for people to ask for information about where the cuts are falling - at the top, middle or bottom? About the organisational 'shape' of their local authority before and after cuts and restructuring? About the pay rates for people at the top and those at the bottom? And about how many hundreds of thousands have been spent on consultants?
Or is it supposed to be a secret garden?
And in the meantime? . . . . Sign petitions about cuts to cleaners, park keepers, youth services, Children's Centres etc etc?
There's a scene in the film A New Leaf when an angry Walter Matthau confronts his accountant with a bounced cheque. (5:29 in the YouTube segment) The accountant tries to explain that he has no money.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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Have to agree with this. We're talking about a very normal salary for London middle management here, not megabucks. No council would get any applications at less than that. Is this what we want?
Further up, however, I do agree that some salaries within the organisation are excessive.
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I'm interested in how you - and perhaps other people? - make an assessment of a 'non-job' from its title. Like judging a book by its cover?
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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No witch hunt involved here, surely. A Green made clear that no identification was being requested, rather some clear evidence of before and after differences (or 'freezings' or 'post deletions') above a reasonable salary grade. Remember that a lot of those already feeling or about to feel the real brunt of the cuts are unlikely ever to be on a wage (or pension or pension supplement or 'jobseeker's allowance') above 10-20% of that rather 'normal' 'low-ceilinged' 50K salary grade.
If Haringey is serious about addressing its budget shortfall, we all need to be given the evidence of how 'we're all in this together' and how the better endowed will be making the sacrifices and taking the strain - if only to encourage the rest of us.
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Permalink Reply by alex on
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I'm curious that there are so many people implying that £50k isn't that much. The average wage nationally is said to be about £25k, so we're talking double that. Cleaners, park keepers, care workers, school meal attendants etc generally earn quite a lot less than £20k a year. The lowest paid full time staff working for the council earn about £14.5k a year.
How do people come to the conclusion that a '14-19 Adviser' or an 'Application Development Manager - IT' (just looking at some of the ones at the start of the list) is worth £50k a year, when a care worker looking after elderly or disabled people only gets paid £18k a year? Everyone has the same number of hours in the day, so why is it that vital frontline work gets paid so little?
When people try to justify large salaries they need to ask themselves 'is there a finite amount of money or not?' If there is then every thousand pounds over £25k that someone gets paid means that someone else will be paid a thousand pounds less or that some service will have to be cut. If the Chief Executive agreed to reduce his salary from £200k to say £50k, that would pay for 6 care workers.
On the FOI list there are about 230 staff earning a total of at least £13.5 million (that was from the minimum annual salary column, but I admit it's based on a quick run through on my calculator, so check more carefully by all means). That would pay for 675 front line staff. I know which I would rather have.
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I accept there are regional differences, but I also quoted local salaries well below that national average. And since when were salaries based on what people wanted? Maybe they are for solicitors and Chief Execs but they are certainly not for cleaners and care workers.
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Alex salaries respond to supply and demand. The reason the tories wanted all those quangos closed was because their businesses had been competing with them for staff and they didn't like it. An "Application development manager IT" in the city could expect to be paid £150+ but they could also expect to be fired or have the discretionary part of their salary (what some people call a bonus) withheld if they're deemed to be not up to scratch.
Another thing with salaries is that people who are good at negotiating salaries are well paid and people who are not, are not. A business is not a charity, they will try to pay the lowest they think they can get away with.
If the Chief Executive agreed to reduce his salary from £200k to say £50k, that would pay for 6 care workers.
This is a ridiculous statement, why would someone be a chief executive with all that entails for £50k when they could probably find some tory businessman who would pay £120k for their services? Oh, wait... maybe that's what's going on again...
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We could hope that someone would be a Chief Exec (or work anywhere in public service) because they cared about public services and they enjoyed and took pride in making sure they were well run and met peoples' needs. But I agree that in the privatise everything era, that kind of ethos is being driven out and instead the focus is large salaries and increasing the gap between those at the top and the bottom.
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Why shouldn't public services be run on caring? If you end up in a care home for the elderly, would you rather be looked after by someone who cares or someone who doesn't?
I don't see why the Chief Execs 'subordinates' should be paid more than £50k either. Landed gentry were in a privatised era too - they privatised land which was originally owned in common by all.
But anyway, maybe we shouldn't look to the past, maybe we should look to the future.
Everybody, do you think it is right that a care worker looking after vulnerable elderly or disabled people is paid only £18k, while 230 other jobs in the Council get over £50k a year. Do we, as a society have the right priorities?
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