Measures to force highly-paid public sector workers to publicly justify salaries of more than £150,000, are expected to be announced in the pre-budget report this week.
The policy would ensure that the sector’s top earners, including NHS bosses, BBC staff and local government heads, wrote to the chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Bryne, outlining why they deserve their high salaries. These letters could then be published.
The same restrictions could apply to anyone earning a bonus of £50,000 a year or more, the Daily Mail has reported.
Public sector organisations will also have to detail how many staff they have earning over £50,000, with a breakdown in £5,000 bands.
Gordon Brown is expected to say: “To protect the frontline services we value at a time when budgets are tighter it means we need to do what households up and down the country do, to prioritise the necessities and postpone the things we can do without.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
“The proposals we are setting out in this plan will go further than we have ever gone before in streamlining central government.”
Last week the public sector rich list, published by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, found four HR professionals who earned more than the prime minister’s £194,250 salary, while the sector’s top earners enjoyed an average total pay rise of 5.4%.
