Did you know that in local councils up and down the country, employees are often paid as much as £100,000 per year, sometimes over £150,000, and in a few cases, over £250,000?
While the mainstream parties agree that we should be taxed to the hilt, with Corbyn’s Labour Party wanting to go even further, do you think our money should be used to pay these extraordinarily high salaries?
The TaxPayers’ Alliance have produced an eye-opening report documenting an array of staggering uses of public money towards excessive salaries for local council employees.
Key findings of the report:
- At least 2,441 people employed by local authorities in 2017-18 received more than £100,000 – 607 of whom got over £150,000.
- The average number of employees who received over £100,000 in total remuneration per local authority is 6. The average number receiving over £150,000 is 1.5 employees per council.
- The local authority with the greatest number of employees whose remuneration was in excess of £100,000 was Essex council with 55 employees. Essex also had the highest number of employees receiving over £150,000 at 13.
- The highest remunerated council employee in 2017-18 was the interim chief executive of Slough council, who received £595,077 in total remuneration.
- A total of 28 local authority employees received remuneration in excess of a quarter of a million pounds in 2017-18.
Not acceptable
We believe that in a free market, by all means, a company may choose to pay its workforce as much as it likes.
But government institutions, national or local, do not spend their own money, they spend our money. And we the people are entitled to demand value for money.
When the Conservative Party and the Labour Party campaign door-to-door asking for votes – pretending to be the champions of the NHS, schools and law and order – how many of them talk to you about the sheer amount of your money they have completely wasted and will continue to waste?
We don’t have to look to woefully planned national vanity projects like HS2, just look to your local council. Much of our money is wasted and it is right that local councils and councillors are held to account.
Campaigning is underway
The Foundation Party supports the efforts of the Croydon Constitutionalists, spearheaded by Michael Swadling, to campaign against excessive pay at Croydon Council.
Croydon is a good example as the Chief Executive of the council is reportedly paid £212,000, well beyond what the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland receives.
We have added our signature to the Croydon-based campaign and will look forward to contributing to the general issue in the months and years ahead.
Nobody spends somebody else’s money like they spend their own
Overall we believe that citizens should be taxed less and retain more of their own money.
And one of the major reasons for this is because in the end, nobody spends somebody else’s money with anywhere near the same degree of care and attention as they do their own.
Waste and abuse within the administration of over-funded overly-bureaucratic government, sanctioned by thoughtless politicians, is a major issue and one that the Foundation Party will always challenge.
The people are the masters, not the servants.