07 November 2010

Wielding the axe

Oh dear, the axe is whistling towards Scotland's senior bureaucrats. Scotland on Sunday reveals:
Scotland on Sunday can reveal that moves to cut the bill for the Scottish Government's elite corps of civil service managers by one-quarter are being proposed ahead of a crucial spending review to be unveiled by Swinney next week. The move will hit the 212 top mandarins at the Scottish Government HQ who are counted among the 4,000-strong elite group of civil servants across the UK. They include Permanent Secretary Sir Peter Housden, chief economic adviser Andrew Goudie and NHS Scotland chief executive Dr Kevin Woods. The group includes no fewer than 49 Scottish Government directors who, between them, had a pay bill of £4.8m this year, earning an average of £101-106,000 each.
...
While a 25 per cent cut in the senior civil service would only save a fraction of the total Swinney requires, ministers are understood to be of the view that the top echelons of the public sector have to be seen to be taking the hardest hit.

Well dry your tears. These guys will be retiring on a handsome pension; they may even be competing to secure early retirement.

I was never a member of what was known as the senior civil service; as a humble worker ant, my view of them is hardly free from prejudice. Some of them were good but far too many were like the lilies of the field - they toiled not, neither did they spin.

1 comment:

Richard T said...

I hope no-one is going to be so cynical as to suggest that doubtless we shall see a fair few back in consultancy work with either the government or with the private sector advising on their previous work before we are much older.