Gravy Train

The news today included revelations about pay offs for council chief executives. Average settlements for those leaving their posts in the last year have been over £250,000. This is on top of the huge salaries that they receive, in some cases over £200,000 a year. The claim is that councils need to pay top whack to get the best. Sadly, many pay top whack but still do not see improved performance. The rates of pay and the severence offered is far too high. It seems to me that as each authority offers a bigger chunk of taxpayers cash for the top job, the higher the next one needs to go to compete. This pay inflation has to stop, and councils need to get back to reality, and invest the money they get from taxpayers back into front line services where they do the most good. You need good people at the top, but that does not need to involve money like this.