Public sector bosses earn less
Total remuneration for public sector bosses has fallen.
The finding comes in the State Services Commissioner’s report on the remuneration of chief executives and other senior personnel in the Public Service and State sector for the year to 30 June 2011.
The report says decreases in expenditure of 3% and 2% occurred in 2009/10 and 2010/11 respectively.
The lower chief executive salary bill reflected “an environment of fiscal restraint” and “a reduced number of Public Service chief executives, as a result of agency mergers.”
Commissioner Iain Rennie advises on or approves the proposed terms and conditions of 109 Crown entity chief executives.
(The Commissioner listed remuneration in a band of $10,000 - e.g. $960,000 to $969,999. For brevity, NBR has quoted the top of the range.)
The top earner was Treasury secretary John Whitehead, who took home between $969,999 during a truncated year (in May 2011 he left to take up a role with the World Bank, replaced by UK-import Gabriel Makhlouf).
ACC chief executive Jan White (recently replaced by Ralph Stewart) earned $589,999.
Others near the top of the ACC’s charts included the heads of the Ministry of Education ($669,999), Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade ($589,999), Ministry of Justice ($609,999) and (Ministry of Social Development ($599,999).
It also pays to run a university.
University of Auckland vice chancellor Stuart McCutcheon is on the best wicket, with $649,999 remuneration, with the heads of other universities earning between $400,000 and $549,000.
The heads of the larger District Health Boards are clustered around the half million dollar mark, with the highest earner being Auckland DHB boss Gary Smith on $549,999.
Outside the big government departments, universiities and DHBs, salaries varied widely.
EQC boss Ian Simpson took home $339,999 while the heads of the Families Commission ($189,000), Drug Free Sport New Zealand ($129,999) and the Artificial Limb Board ($169,000) are relative paupers by public sector standards.
Read the full report online here.
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Comments and questions5
Oh yes we have a real sacrifice here. No money of their own invested and no competition and no risk.
Absolutely unbelievable.
Who dreams up these positions of such perceived importance and more importantly who dreams up the organisation.
Is our government structure lean and mean. Still dripping fat.
The insight and intelligence of the observations above shows why the private sector is thriving
I agree public sector and SOE bosses are horrendously overpaid and often aren't subject to minimum performance requirements or any kind of incentive scheme to actually do a good job. They get paid $X with an automatic increase each year to turn up to work and suck on the government teat. There may have still been some small drop in what they get but they're still horrendously overpaid. Time to review all public sector salaries, and that includes MPs of course!
With a government sector that is 45% of the economy and a deficit of $17 billion maybe these public services with top executives should be charging for their services to test demand and actual need.
We can drop government expenditure to the necessary 30% level and not even touch the necessities of health, education, justice and true welfare needs.
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