“There is not a shadow of doubt that you can deliver the reduction in the [public finances’] deficit that we require by imposing massive efficiency savings and job cuts on the bureaucracy,” said Leigh as he prepares to step down after nine years in the post.
“It won’t be easy. The next government will have to be ruthless — whole programmes will have to be cut.”
He proceeds to outline quite exorbitant (if true) wastage perpetrated by the MoD and the BBC. These are the kind of cuts that few people could disagree with; even I’d be willing to see eye-to-eye with him on slashing the amount of consultants within the NHS (though I think we’d propose it for quite different reasons).
But what about Edward Leigh himself? Surely a man who takes the chair on the PAC would be the pinnacle of thrift and restraint?
“Together, Brigg and Goole MP Ian Cawsey, Scunthorpe MP Elliot Morley, Cleethorpes MP Shona McIsaac and Gainsborough MP Edward Leigh claimed more than £600,000 between April 2007 and March 2008.”
“The second highest expenses claim was submitted by Gainsborough MP Edward Leigh, who put in returns totalling £154,113 last year.”
Oh.
Not only this, but Leigh voted ‘very strongly’ in favour of replacing that wholly-useless ‘deterrent’ we call Trident. There’s Tory efficiency for you! (Info courtesy of TheyWorkForYou.com – Mr. Leigh’s record is very interesting indeed).
Leigh goes on to say that there is a precedent for public sector workers to take a pay cut, as many in the private sector would do so. He ridicules the idea that a town clerk from his county council could be paid £150,00 a year for their work. Yet without a hint of irony, he goes on to mention Amyas Morse, (Comptroller and Auditor General of the National Audit Office), who received a ‘seven-figure’ salary from Price Waterhouse Coopers, the auditing firm, yet is paid 80% less in his new public sector role. Whether it is a conflict of interest for a former businessman of an auditing agency to take a seat in the NAO is up for debate, yet I would not champion Morse’s commitment to cut his own pay as encouraging. Even if the cut is as large as Leigh states, it’s still a reduction from the millions to the hundred-thousands. In the grand scheme of things, Morse will not be forced do without the essentials or luxuries, unlike the majority of working people who are told to take pay cuts and wage freezes.
Here we come to the crux of the matter. I don’t want this post to be merely an attack on either Leigh or Morse. They’re symptoms of a much large problem, the problem of accountability. All the time we are told that there must be savage cuts in the public sector. By whom? By people who will not be affected by it, by people who have a disproportionate amount of say in what gets cut. Stuff that! If cuts are on the agenda, let the majority of people decide on what needs cutting. There’s a hell of a lot to choose from: public subsidies to private companies (in particular the train operators), PFI, Trident, public sector pay at the top end of the scale, the list goes on. Let’s make things a bit more... ‘level’, shall we?
There IS massive waste in the public sector, for the very reason you give - lack of accountability.And the reason we have lack of accountability is because national government (and supra-national government, in the form of the EU) are, by nature, not accountable to the Public. They are remote from the constituencies that send MP's to Westminster or Brussels, and so feel safe to abuse the system. "Big" central government needs to give way to "small" local government, who can be more closely scrutinised by interested and opposition parties.
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