Godfrey Bloom

Nick Clegg (he of no commercial experience whatsoever) is keen to cap ‘executive pay’. In short a return to an incomes policy. The triumph of hope over experience in private sector income policies run by governments never work, I am old enough to remember them all.

However, there is a role for an incomes policy in the private sector. There has been a dramatic increase in public sector executive pay in the last 10 years. Totally disproportionate to those and the bottom of the scale. Performance growth in the public sector consistently lags the private sector, as indeed one would expect where there are no checks and balances. No serious performance targets but a box ticking culture with no serious disciplinary market pressure to ensure efficiency.

Anyone dealing with their local council, NHS, business Quango (DEFRA, FSA etc) will have experienced a lack of urgency if not downright incompetence. In the private sector there is always an alternative supplier i.e. the discipline of the market.

Do Town Clerks really need £200,000 pa? Do chief executives of NHS Trusts really need £200,000 pa? Do BBC senior executives really need their £400,000 pa?

The Quangocracy are grossly, objectively overpaid. Hector Sants presides over one of the most incompetent organisations in the world, the FSA, is £600,000 per year really necessary?

So Nick, old son, restraint on executive pay, yes, but in the public sector please.