October 7: George's crackdown on council chiefs' pay
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COULD George
Osborne decide how much Kent County Council’s next chief
executive should be paid? It is probably unlikely given that the
general election won’t be until May and any appointment to the top
job at County Hall will be made before that.
But it could be interesting to see if the
shadow chancellor’s warning of a crackdown on so-called fat cat
public sector pay (should the Conservatives form the next
Government) has any effect on the package being offered by KCC to
whoever replaces the out-going chief executive Peter
Gilroy.
Announcing yesterday that he would have to
sign off any salary above about £194,000, Mr Osborne quipped: “I
don’t expect there to be a long queue.”
Current KCC chief executive Peter
Gilroy, who is to stand down next May, was paid a basic
salary of £202,000 in 2008 but that excluded his performance
related bonus.
Earlier this year, KCC Conservative leader
Paul Carter said: “I suspect there will be
general pressure and tightening of the public purse in many
directions and the trend in senior officers' salaries may plateau
and may come down."
We will see.
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Promising a crackdown
on speed cameras and their “relentless expansion” under Labour has
garnered the Conservative transport secretary Theresa
Villiers some decent headlines, not least in certain
papers who regard the speed cameras as nothing more than a
revenue-raising mechanism.
Tory plan to stop
"relentless expansion" of speed cameras>>>>
The Kent and Medway
Safety Camera Partnership – which stands to be
scrapped by the Conservatives – did not respond directly but issued
a statement from the Association of Chief Police Officers.
Intriguingly, there is an aspect of this
scheme that suggests that a future Conservative government might
prove as reluctant as Labour to devolve decision-making powers to
local councils. While speed camera quangos would be scrapped, it
seems councils who want new ones will have to get approval from
central Government before acting.
I detected a note of unease when I spoke to
the Conservative roads chief at County Hall, Nick
Chard about the plan, notably in his comment that “local
problems need local solutions.”
Central government is notorious for being
unable to stop interfering in local government and this suggests
the habit will be hard to break.
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The issue of Kent's rather sizeable number of secondary schools
that are regarded as under-achieving by the Government is the
subject of a good analysis by Guardian commentator - and former
Teacher of The Year - Phil Beadle.
You can read it
here and an interesting response from KCC's cabinet member
for education Sarah Hohler
here.
What strikes me in KCC's response is the phrase that "the
National Challenge can place too much emphasis on exam results
rather than on how young people actually experience and thrive in a
school."
I'm pretty sure most teachers would agree with that sentiment
but politicians can't always have it both ways.
KCC has itself been incredibly focused on exam performance at
its schools in recent years (some would argue rightly so) Schools
will often tell you exams don't reflect the nature of what goes on
in the classroom; KCC has for once acknowledged that.
Perhaps the authority and Mr Beadle aren't quite so far apart as
they imagine.
Wednesday, October 07 2009
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