Lewisham senior salary figures published


The BBC has compiled a list of salaries over £100,000 in the public sector, which includes local authorities.


New research conducted for BBC Panorama found that there were more than 38,000 public employees earning above £100,000 and 1,000 people on more than £200,000…

Across the UK, the NHS has the highest number of high earners, with more than 26,000 people on more than £100,000. Of those, nearly 6,500 earn more than Mr Cameron. The top NHS earner is a GP on at least £475,000 and seven out of the top 10 in the NHS are GPs.

The database, compiled from both public records and freedom of information requests, excludes some major publicly owned corporations, including Royal Mail, Network Rail and Channel 4 because they operate largely as commercial concerns.

Given the size and complexity of many public organisations and the specialist expertise required to deliver huge infrastructure projects or treat cancer, Brockley Central believes high salaries in the public sector are entirely appropriate in many cases.

There’s no such thing as the morally “right” salary, there is only what the market determines you should be paid – the question then becomes whether proper market mechanisms exist to determine executive pay – a problem in both the private and public sectors.

For local authorities at least, there are a large number of roughly comparable organisations against which we can benchmark our Council. In comparison to many of its London peers, Lewisham is pretty restrained.

Lewisham has 14 employees who earn more than £100,000. This compares with 24 and 21 for neighbouring Greenwich and Southwark respectively. Top of the list with 36 is Tory stronghold Wandsworth. Among the most parsimonious are Merton with 9 and the City of London with 7.

46 people at Lewisham PCT and one person at Lewisham Homes earn more than £100,000.

The figures are available here. Thanks again to reader Bill, for sending the link.