It is being reported that the BBC is to be forced to disclose the pay of its 109 high earning presenters. These are people paid more than £150,000 a year. Disclosure will be in £50,000 bands.
In principle I have no problem with the disclosure of high pay: income inequality is a problem in the UK.
In practice I have a problem with the BBC being picked on: this is not an issue for them alone.
And I definitely have a problem with high pay being made an issue when low pay is as much a matter of concern.
At one time large companies were required to publish the pay of all their staff in bands of £10,000. I see enormous merit in that publication being revived. I would require it on a country-by-country basis and I would also expect the pay of staff engaged via sub-contractors to work on the company's premises to be separately disclosed.
If we are serious about the problems of low pay, and we should be, then such a straightforward bit of accounting is vital if behaviour is to be changed.
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Can you tell us your income last year, within a £10k band?
You can see my Tax Research LLP accounts
I voluntarily publish the income statement
But your LLP accounts may not be the full picture. Unless you publish your own tax return we cannot know. Why is a campaigner for tax openess so secretive about his own tax affairs. Very disapointing.
I have not called for tax returns on public record
When I do you can criticise
A slippery reply. Many politicians do not call for all tax returns to be published but are still brave and open enough to publish their own. Because they are in the public eye. Because they have nothing to hide. Stop hiding behind what you might have others do and take a stance. If you do not, we must draw our own conclusions.
I have taken a stance and have published what is appropriate
And I am utterly consistent in doing so
In which case you know the answer if you don’t like it
How easy. You decide what is “appropriate” for others and criticise them for not fufilling this but then you get to decide what is “appropriate” for yourself and consider yourself above reproach. I will draw my conclusions – that you are hiding something. I am sure others will do the same.
Except I am doing what I have suggested for others
So you are entirely wrong, and are wasting my time
You won’t again: I have assigned you to the time wasters list. It’s a feature of wordpress that I really like
I wonder how much effort will go into obfuscating the total ‘package’ of bonuses, pensions, soft loans, shares in service companies, consultancy fees with related entities and not-so-external directorships?
I’d suggest you add an equivalent banding for hourly pay rates as well.
(Paying someone £20000 a year sounds reasonable, until you find they are on 24-hour cover – see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37350750)
This is an attempt at faux accountability, to make the licence payer feel they are cared about, that their fees are being spent responsibly.
The correct route to accountability though should be to let the licence payer elect the board, the board then sets the fee and agrees rules on wage disclosure and everything else, and to get the government out.
You can already hear the huffing about the suggestion that private companies should have to disclose the wages of, I don’t know, newspaper editors. The BBC is different because its public money, they’ll say. It’s curious how these supposed advocates for free markets forget/ignore the very first thing taught to secondary school pupils that is essential to the operation of free markets – perfect knowledge.
And a level playing field
Today at work we had a session on procurement best practice (including the EU rules on said subject).
It appears now the system will use ‘mystery shopping’ techniques to catch us out as well as other enhancements to help make sure that we are being open and transparent and within the rules.
It is obvious that the present system assumes that the public sector in which I work is not trusted to find contractors to do its work.
And it also seems that the procurement system is designed to help the many private contractors we work with to work the system.
I mused on this during the session and wondered that – if we’d had the same degree of oversight and transparency in the financial sector we may have avoided BCCI, Enron, the 2008 Crash, the LIBOR scandal as well as knowing a lot more about the full state of tax evasion and tax havens.
Why one set of rules for one sector and a seemingly free for all for the others? I’m not saying that there has never been any dodgy contract arrangements made but look at the record of the private banking sector and tax abuse.
There is a lack of consitency as well as proportion evident here that is staggering.
Gary Lineker is a case in point. His dad had a stall in Leicester Market which we used to patronise when he was still in nappies. It was very good value and quality and I can say that we enjoyed our Lineker cabbages. He grew up in a home where hard work and attention to detail for the customer mattered. So I am rather more relaxed about his income than some, or a lot, of the others.
Well, all this is nothing to do with pay transparency, and everything to do with the BBC haters in the nasty, stupid party attacking the BBC. Why is this only being applied to the BBC, and not the rest of the public sector?
In fact, your suggestion of reviving the practice of forcing large companies to publish the pay of their staff in £10,000 bands (maybe now do it £50,000 bands) is an excellent one.
But of course that’s not going to happen, for reasons stated above. How about all those papers that constantly attack the BBC do the same for their no doubt highly paid teams of journalists/muck-rakers/propagandists/corporate PR schills/liars?
It is applied to the public sector (from memory)
I have no objection to talented people being paid well. Usual bizarre conversation with family on Tuesday. Mother in laws 93 birthday. It started off with Grammar Schools with my wife who went to one being stridently against them. My brother in law despite the fact that he didn’t seemed very much for them. But he is anti Climate Change, Pro Brexit, unemployed unemployable and has next to zero qualifications.
Talk moved onto high pay and MPs expenses. I said I was payed more than the standard MP before I became Emeritus Professor. My wife said she was paid more than the Prime Minister, but as the top consultant in Intensive care she thinks shes worth it! I think we need the best to run the country.
If the BBC has to do this it needs a level playing field; all the competitors need to do the same.
I agree low pay is a disgrace and we should strive towards a living wage.
Does cchq disclose their high pay rates?