MPs salaries - making sense of a bad position
Politicians are now in an impossible situation with respect to MP's pay.
Because of the way a large number of MPs flagrantly abused the previous very lax expenses system, politicians have completely lost the trust of the public with respect to their pay. It is very difficult to see how they could get it back, but it obviously has to start with restraint similar to that which MPs are imposing on the rest of the public sector.
In the recent past, MPs took flak because of the salaries, benefits and expenses regime they voted through for themselves. So it was agreed that setting their pay should be handed over to an independent body. But now that has been done, they are still getting flak because of the recommendations which the Independent Adjudicator has made for MP's pay from 2015.
Part of the problem is with a very misleading headline figure. The Independent Adjudicator has recommended that the overall level of MP's remuneration is about right but that there should be a reduction in their pensions and expenses balanced out by an equivalent rise in salary. The overall package would be cost neutral.
The problem is that we can absolutely guarantee that most people are not going to hear those words "cost neutral" because journalists, many of whom are paid much more than MPs, are going to quote the headline change in salaries, which is an increase of 11%.
Simon Jenkins makes a robust and very brave case (That's brave in the "Yes Prime Minister" sense) for the adjudicator's recommendations in the Guardian here but let us be honest - for MPs to take what will be presented and perceived as an 11% raise while they are restricting the public sector to 1%, and millions of people in the private sector are not even getting that, would further increase the wedge between most people in Britain and what we might call the "political class."
That is higly undesirable and the leaders of the three main political parties are right to say it is unacceptable.
The rule I would normally follow to set the salaries of a group of employees is to pay what you need to fill the posts, but in the case of MPs this really would not work, because there there are plenty of people with a private income or sponsored by a trade union or party who would do the job of MP for no salary at all.
Unfortunately that would put our country's politics even more under the control of the people doing the sponsoring - the donors to political parties - than they are at the moment.
Perhaps the solution is to recognise that in the medium term there should be a rebalancing along the lines put forward by the adjudicator but that this cannot be implemented until it is compatible with the policy for public sector pay imposed by MPs on everyone else.
Because of the way a large number of MPs flagrantly abused the previous very lax expenses system, politicians have completely lost the trust of the public with respect to their pay. It is very difficult to see how they could get it back, but it obviously has to start with restraint similar to that which MPs are imposing on the rest of the public sector.
In the recent past, MPs took flak because of the salaries, benefits and expenses regime they voted through for themselves. So it was agreed that setting their pay should be handed over to an independent body. But now that has been done, they are still getting flak because of the recommendations which the Independent Adjudicator has made for MP's pay from 2015.
Part of the problem is with a very misleading headline figure. The Independent Adjudicator has recommended that the overall level of MP's remuneration is about right but that there should be a reduction in their pensions and expenses balanced out by an equivalent rise in salary. The overall package would be cost neutral.
The problem is that we can absolutely guarantee that most people are not going to hear those words "cost neutral" because journalists, many of whom are paid much more than MPs, are going to quote the headline change in salaries, which is an increase of 11%.
Simon Jenkins makes a robust and very brave case (That's brave in the "Yes Prime Minister" sense) for the adjudicator's recommendations in the Guardian here but let us be honest - for MPs to take what will be presented and perceived as an 11% raise while they are restricting the public sector to 1%, and millions of people in the private sector are not even getting that, would further increase the wedge between most people in Britain and what we might call the "political class."
That is higly undesirable and the leaders of the three main political parties are right to say it is unacceptable.
The rule I would normally follow to set the salaries of a group of employees is to pay what you need to fill the posts, but in the case of MPs this really would not work, because there there are plenty of people with a private income or sponsored by a trade union or party who would do the job of MP for no salary at all.
Unfortunately that would put our country's politics even more under the control of the people doing the sponsoring - the donors to political parties - than they are at the moment.
Perhaps the solution is to recognise that in the medium term there should be a rebalancing along the lines put forward by the adjudicator but that this cannot be implemented until it is compatible with the policy for public sector pay imposed by MPs on everyone else.
Comments
Before you solve a problem you need to understand what the problem is.
Politicians are not trusted at all. The whole system of top down authoritarian government is broken
Its not fit for purpose.
There you go step 1 - identify problem. Now can be ticked off as complete, and we can get to work with step 2 - fix problem
I did say in the original post that politicians have completely lost the trust of the public with regards to their pay. If you are saying that I could have put a full stop after "public" then that is probably fair comment.