‘The politicians as useless as Keir Starmer – £200k a year and your town probably has one’
Express columnist and Conservative councillor Mieka Smiles says that UK taxpayers are being rinsed.
Express columnist Mieka Smiles says Keir Starmer needs to get a grip on council bosses’ pay (Image: Getty)
I was so naive. When I became a councillor, I was convinced that it would be the start of a brave new world for my town of Middlesbrough, which had suffered at the hands of a complacent Labour administration for decades. Don’t get me wrong, there were things that we put in place that changed our town for the better.
But, in the main, there was one major thing that stood in our way of a Middlesbrough rebirth: the council officers. You have good ones, of course. Hardworking ones, absolutely. But many of the big cheeses spend their days sitting in endless meetings – probably debating a new tax-funded logo to the far end of a fart – whilst ignoring basic services they’re actually paid to deliver. Poor Birmingham is the glaring example of this. Those residents are still quite literally drowning in rubbish as the top bosses shift the blame and pocket salaries higher than the Prime Minister.
This has long infuriated me, even at my own council, where I’ve been a Conservative councillor since 2019. We recently had a chief executive – as nice a bloke as he was – with a package capped at £234,000 a year while the council continued to haemorrhage money.
The Sun recently reported that some local authorities with rubbish rounds only every three weeks are raking in £200,000-plus a year. At South Gloucestershire Council – a Liberal Democrats and Labour council – the chief executive takes home £218,000. The authority, which raised council tax by 4.9% in March, said three-week bin rounds offer “better value for money”.
So here’s my fix. First: no public sector worker should earn more than the Prime Minister. Sir Keir Starmer’s annual salary is £172,000 and there should be no council boss who takes home more than that. He’d never in a million years do it, of course, for fear that the union overlords would surround his home and carry him away.
But it’s scandalous so many earn far north of £100k whilst council taxes are endlessly hiked and the bins are left for the rats.
Second: set national performance targets for the basics such as bin collections, filling in potholes and making sure social care is in check. And if they dip below what’s acceptable, then we need to give councillors – who are directly accountable to their residents – the chance to promptly boot bosses out.
At the moment, top-level council staff seem to enjoy almost unsackable status. Believe me, getting rid of one was like a merciless merry-go-round of bureaucracy.
And finally, stick to the basics. I, more than anyone, understand that it’s great to be ambitious and have the excitement of shiny new projects. Sadly, I’ve come to the conclusion that councils seem incapable of actual delivery.
Let’s forget shelling out for mad mission statements and focus on doing what councils are really there to do. And, for the love of God, collect the bloody bins.
