Speaking of Public Sector Pensions...

There will be much pontification and rumbling about the Public Sector strike scheduled for tomorrow. Many of those doing the pontificating, whether it be in print or on the airwaves, enjoy vastly superior salaries and pensions than those they castigate. Take a look at how much one organisation pays its leading lights.

The BBC is a great national institution. It reflects our society on the issue of pay. There are a number of highly paid presenters including Gary Lineker on a reported £1.5 m. Yes, true, that much for cliche-ridden ‘analysis’ on Match of the Day. Jonathon Ross pleased many when he recently resigned from his £6 m pa contract. At the time he was reported to be the highest paid BBC employee. There are also thousands and thousands of intelligent, capable BBC staff who are paid a fraction of what these ‘celebs’ receive from us, the license payers.  The insatiable greed of the highest paid has been cravenly permitted by a BBC Management which is itself in thrall to greed. The vast sums paid to corporate non-entities like Mark Thompson do not correspond with value for money. There are other examples:

“John Humphrys will see his salary from the Today programme fall to £375,000 as part of deals which have seen presenters of the Radio 4 show take pay cuts of up to 20 per cent.

His new contract means he is likely to get an estimated £2,500 for each edition (approx 150 pa) until February 2013 — a 17 per cent cut.” Telegraph 19/2/11 Not a bad little earner per day.

“Jeremy Paxman takes 20% pay cut to stay at Newsnight - but still gets £3m over four years.” E Standard 8/2/11

“Huw Edwards, who reads The Ten o'clock News on BBC1 is reported to earn £250,000 a year, while Fiona Bruce earns £150,000 for reading the news, but another £250,000 for presenting other programmes, including Crimewatch.” Telegraph 2006

It is clearly very demanding to be able to look presentable and read an autocue. Much more demanding than arriving at a bad car crash and helping to save lives. Or inspiring young people to flourish and fulfill themselves. Or even sorting out housing problems with distressed citizens. Or cleaning up the vomit and body fluids produced by our infirm and elderly. 

Practicing looking sincere in front of the mirror is clearly the way to go for a well rewarded life. Talking inanities about football is lucrative but not quite as lucrative as being very cheeky with celebrities and politicians about their sex lives. 

With matching pensions to soothe the stress.

At more lowly levels, a Freedom of Information request to the Beeb revealed the following from BBC People:

“Based on staff employed on permanent or fixed-term contracts as at 28 February 2009, the median salary for a Broadcast Journalist within Radio 5Live was £32,014 and for a Senior Broadcast Journalist £42,452. These figures are based on full-time equivalent salaries to take into account those staff who work part-time.”  Now those figures seem grounded in the real world. Would that the ‘suits’ were rewarded on similar lines.