Paying for quality
SIR — In response to Mr Durrant s letter in the Herts Advertiser (September 24) on the subject of top council executives pay, I must say that I had not heard before the argument that we in St Albans and Hertfordshire have to pay such high salaries to our
SIR - In response to Mr Durrant's letter in the Herts Advertiser (September 24) on the subject of top council executives' pay, I must say that I had not heard before the argument that we in St Albans and Hertfordshire have to pay such high salaries to our top council executives because of the price of housing in the area. Clearly judging by the salaries they must think they deserve to live in mansions.
The argument I hear the most whenever anyone dares to question the pay of our esteemed top council executives is that we have to pay top salaries to attract the very best.
Well, I was wondering, if we adopted Mr Durrant's proposal and realigned the pay scales and for argument's sake cut the pay of our top council executives in half, just what sort of incompetents would we attract to the jobs and what sort of mess would they get us into?
Maybe they would be so inept that they would allow our cities' road to fall into disrepair, maybe they would invest our money in off-shore accounts and run the risk of losing it, maybe they would allow our town centre to die and still charge a ridiculous amount to park thus discouraging shoppers still further.
Maybe they would allow a project to repave St Albans town centre to run ludicrously over budget and then hold no-one to account, maybe we would have to live in a city that wouldn't even be able to boast a cinema in its list of amazing facilities.
No, on reflection we must be better off with our highly paid top council executives, they may not be as effective as we would hope for, they may well cost us a fortune and their pensions will continue to cost us for years to come but let's face it, what else would we spend the money on, any ideas?
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St Albans and Hertfordshire's top council executives, the best that money can buy!
Trouble is, it's your money, it's your aging parents' money and it will be your children's money that pays for them.
ROB MOORE
St Albans Road, Sandridge
