Public Versus Private

There are some good bits in Private Eye this week:

"BP's Crude Tactics"

Whereas Labour turned to the snake oil salesemen of the consultancy in industry for advice on "efficiency", the coalition has gone straight for the axeman. Hence the imminent appointment of Lord Browne of Madingley to counsel George Osborne on saving money in Whitehall.

Browne has extensive experience of cost-cutting as chief executive of BP until resigning in 2007 after lying to a court about his relationship with a male escort. Among the main targets for Browne's axe were safety procedures, leading in 2005 to the Texas City Refinery that killed 15 US oil workers and injured 170 others and eroding the safety culture of the company whose Deepwater Horizon rig has just killed a further 11 workers and continues to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

Browne, known for his expensive taste in cigars and wine, was also believed to have left BP in something of a bureaucratic mess while neglecting essential safety. Just the man for efficiency in the age of austerity!

[No 1264 - 11 June-24 June 2010]

Private Eye: Thatch Roofs

Ministers were quick to reveal that 50 housing associations pay their chief executives more than the prime minister. But they may be a bit slower to do anything about it.

Associations are classed as private sector organisations despite receiving billions of pounds of development grants and housing benefit payments from the taxpayer. That enables them to raise billions more in private finance to build homes without any impact on public borrowing, and to style themselves as independent businesses that have to pay the going rate to attract and retain the best people.

Who is to blame for this profligate public-private regime? Er, that well-known socialist Margaret Thatcher, of course the policies having been introduced by the Conservatives in the 1980s before being endorsed by New Labour in 1997. The changes have seen housing associations take over 1M council homes since 1988.

Any government interference that went beyond naming and shaming would add to the risk of associations being reclassified as part of the public sector. So salary packages of up to £391,000 a year seem set to stay unless ministers want to add them to the soaring deficit.


[No 1264 - 11 June-24 June 2010]

Number Crunching

Number Crunching:

£40,000 Parliamentry expenses wrongly claimed by David Laws, who failed to declare that he had been living with a partner since 2001, for which he was described as a "good and honourable man" by prime minister.

£42,000 Housing and other benefits wrongly claimed by Stoke-on-Trent shopworker who failed to declare she had married in 2003, for which she has just been jailed for 18 months.



[No 1264 - 11 June-24 June 2010]

Mandarin Jam

Mandarin Jam

The release of top civil servants pay didn't live up to Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude's billing - "a radical shake-up of government transparency" - since almost all the interesting details had already been reported (not least, in the Eye). But the list did highlight what is required to trouser a big salary in Whitehall.

Many of the big mandarin salaries come simply from having been recruited from industry, especially the IT field. Although their efforts in government have been less than successful, "chief information officers" at the Department for Work and Pensions (Joe Harley, recruited from ICI, £245,000+ ), Cabinet Office (John Suffolk, £205k+), Department of Health (Christine Connolly, ex-Cadbury Schweppes, £200,000+) and Andy Nelson (Ministry of Justice, from RSA Insurance, £190,000+ ) all earn well above the standard rate of pay for the grade.

Luckiest of all is Steve Lamey at HM Revenue and Customs, brought in from BG Group where he was in charge of IT. He has since been moved off HMRC's lumbering computer systems to deal with benefits and tax credits but keeps the £205,000+ that tempted him in the first place.

Those from the questionable world of private equity fare even better. On £150,000+ for three days a week, equivalent for more than £250,000 a year full time, is HMRC chairman Mike Clasper, recruited from Terra-Firma two years ago when private equity was considered terribly groovy. But what he does for his money is unclear. The department already has two other bosses in chief executive Leslie Strathie and permanent secretary Dave Hartnett, giving the department that is shedding jobs like autumn leaves three times as many Sir Humphries as other Whitehall departments.


[No 1264 - 11 June-24 June 2010]

Yeh monty keep it coming.