New figures have revealed that 819 mandarins and quangocrats (excluding local government) earned over £100,000 in 2013, costing taxpayers more than £100 million.
The highest paid public official is Ian Nolan, Chief Investment Officer at the £2.7 billion Green Investment Bank, who earns £330,000 a year.
The Green Investment Bank, which employs five officials on over £250,000, is supposed to make up the shortfall in green energy investment to meet unrealistic, draconian targets which will require £200 billion spending this decade. Bad energy policy has already degraded Britain’s once competitive energy market and pushed up bills through stealth taxes which cost each household £200 a year. The Green Investment Bank is not the answer to our energy woes and should be scrapped.
The quango with the most members of staff earning more than £100,000 is NHS England which has more than 300. This comes at a time when the NHS is attempting to make £20 billion in efficiency savings and recover from a number of damning reports into the sub-standard care at some trusts.
Its outgoing chief executive, Sir David Nicholson is currently paid £214,000. He is due to retire this year with a £2m pension pot.
HMRC, the UK Border Agency and the Serious Fraud Office have all faced scandal and repeated failures over the past few years, but still see fit to spend vast amounts of money on officials’ bloated salaries.Other highly paid officials include Denis Hone; former chief executive of the Olympic Delivery Authority, who earned £310,000; and Bernard Gray, Chief of Defence Materiel at the Ministry of Defence, who earned £220,000.
Forty officials enjoyed pay rises in 2013, despite George Osborne’s supposed public sector pay freeze. The average pay for British CEOs and senior officials is £120,830, but here we see public sector officials earning many times that.