Conservatives pledge to cut senior public sector pay

Conservative leader David Cameron has heightened the pre-election attack on public sector jobs and pay with a pledge that a Conservative government would cut back the salaries of many senior public sector managers. Writing in today's Guardian , Cameron says the party would establish a fair pay review to ensure that no senior manager in the public sector can earn more than 20 times more than the lowest-paid person in their organisation. The Guardian suggests that the move could mean more than 200 public sector managers could face a cut in salary. It is unclear exactly who might, or might not, be affected by this scheme. In the civil service, the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, earns £265,300. A twentieth of that would be £13,265 - slightly above the lowest-paid employees in the civil service, according to the civil service union, the FDA. More of an issue in the civil service, and one highlighted in last year's report on pay by the Commons' public administration select committee, which called for a commission to set out the principles of top pay in the public sector, has been bringing highly-paid officials in from the private sector, or from other parts of the public sector. Similarly, in the NHS, many of the highest salaries are paid to medical staff. The highest-paid police chief, Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, earns £253,620 - 11 times the lowest police salary of £22,680. Cameron's comments followed the release by Sir Peter Gershon, who is advising the Conservatives on efficiency savings, of his plans to cut the public sector pay bill by up to £2bn a year, which could cost 40,000 jobs in the public sector itself - and experts point out that more jobs would be affected in the private sector. Commenting on the proposals, Professor Colin Talbot professor of public policy and management, Manchester Business School, says efficiency improvements are hard to measure and are neither painless nor costless. "For every £1bn "saved" by cutting IT contracts, for example, anything up to 20,000 private sector jobs will go," he says.