Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
HCP—"Concerns over ‘gold-plated’ jobs at Haringey Council"
Concerns over ‘gold-plated’ jobs at Haringey Council
(Haringey Community Press)
When last I checked, a little over 40 (forty) council employees were paid between £100,000 and £200,000. Some of them may be worth it, but the 40+ figure is the highest or among the highest in London.
"… it’s certainly something that we try to reduce … continue to focus on reducing those numbers”.
The largesse has been going on for years. The claimed efforts to "reduce" have not been as effective as the "savings" this crew have wrought from our Libraries. It may be more accurate to say the council has lost control of senior managers salaries. Including annual pension (£29K) the Director of Culture is paid c. £195,000 p.a. as our library opening hours are slashed.
There once was a time when municipal staff were motivated largely by a sense of duty, public service, job security and generous pensions. Nowadays its more about bars of council bullion: our money.
The council paying top-dollar to employees does not always lead to top-of-London results.
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Tags for Forum Posts: Gold, other people's money, out of control, racket, senior management
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mahoney
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I hate to break it to you Clive but £100-200,000 aren't massive salaries for quality, senior leaders and technically skilled individual contributors. There are a quite a few schools in Haringey with head masters/mistresses leading large teams, senior specialists leading medical services, a couple of lawyers and financial managers etc. I do, however, take your point about the Director of Culture. I think most people would prefer the budget for that post to be reallocated to libraries.
Supply and demand also play a role. Haringey Council has a horrendous reputation. It's a byword for incompetence, 'wokery' and poor performance among many professions. You'll always be able to find numpties to fill roles but if you want good people you need to reward them well. In part this is to pay them for the difficulty of working in such an environment and trying to improve it but also to compensate them for the stain it would leave on their CV.
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter
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BRIAN, this is sensitive subject.
I agree with the points you make about the difficulty of attracting staff to work at this local authority and some councillors would privately agree with you. Stunt men and women get danger money; in Haringey the council are obliged to pay career-danger money.
I do not know Adam Small, but thanks to this Councillor the salary-bloat is getting a little and long-overdue attention.
It's always possible to make salary comparisons and I'm sure gold-club members make them.
Since the demise of Neighbourhood Forums, most members of this Six-Figure Club have limited contact with ordinary residents of Haringey. That contact had also served to remind them whose money pays their salaries.
Two comparisons I make, are with the PM and with ordinary residents.
Whatever one may think of our current Prime Minister, I do not begrudge him his salary. But a PM has more responsibility that any member of this local authority's managers.
Most ordinary residents are not in this income bracket. One of my concerns is council generosity with our money tends to alienate senior management from the practical or daily concerns of those for whom they're supposed to be working.
40 plus: top heavy?
The sheer quantity of employees in the council's six-figure club has been known for years:
In 2020, there were only 31 in this group. Ham&High:
Town Hall Rich List: Haringey Council highest in London for £100,00...
Since 2020, about a dozen have been added to the club.
Stellar salaries for some has not led to stellar performance.
Even some mere middle managers are able to treat "backbench" councillors of all stripes with border-line contempt, due to arrogance and a feeling of untouchability.
There's a bit more circumspection for Members of the council's decision-making body, the Cabinet. Like Donald Trump, some of their Members see any flattery they receive as just "being nice".
One of my Labour Ward Councillors confirmed to me high concern about salary bloat, but I was pleased to see that in the article you read, the term "gold plated" was coined by the Labour Chair of a Scrutiny Panel.
I do not know Cllr. Small. However I sincerely hope that for his Party crime of drawing attention to this racket, he is not summoned by the Labour Group Whip for a disciplinary chat …
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