THURROCK COUNCIL chief executive, Graham Farrant appeared in front of MPs, in the House of Commons, to defend his six-figure salary.
Mr Farrant, who is also the chief executive of Barking and Dagenham council was amongst a group of Town Hall bosses including those from Wandsworth and Camden, who were appearing before a committee of MPs probing claims of excessive rises in local government remuneration.
Graham Farrant earned £198,000 in 2012.
Labour MP Simon Danczuk, a member of the Communities and Local Government select committee which is holding the investigation, said: “I want to ask these council executives to justify the very high amounts of salary they receive. How can they argue that there should be such a differential between the lowest-paid people and themselves? Some often finish at 4.30pm on a Friday or get time off in lieu for attending a late committee meeting.”
In a memo to the committee, the chief executive of Camden, Mike Cooke said bumper rises were stopped in the borough after the economic crash, though London councils had raised executive pay between 2003 to 2009 to prevent talented staff quitting for better-paid jobs in the City.
The annual Town Hall Rich List compiled by the Taxpayers Alliance found that 2,525 council employees in England and Wales were paid over £100,000 a year, with 636 pocketing over £150,000 and 42 getting £250,000 or more.
Before we criticise the amount Graham Farrant earns we should recall why we are where we are today.
Thurrock Council was in an utter mess. Petty squabbles and vindictive vendettas meant Thurrock Council had four Chief Executives in the space of four years at a cost to the taxpayer of £1 million. Taxpayers cash effectively flushed down the pan.
First we had David White who got £347,000 payout after being sacked in 2006 then embarrassingly walked straight into a job with Conservative controlled Norfolk County Council.
We then had his replacement Angie Ridgewell who got sacked two years later with a reputed £300,000 payout.
Her interim replacement was Mike Rowan who left or was dumped under mysterious circumstances and replaced by another Interim Chief Executive Bob Coomber whose job was to try and bring some sense to the shambolic insanity at the Civic Offices at a cost of £200,000 per year!
Four years of sackings, payouts and expensive interims cost the taxpayers of Thurrock Council at least and probably more than £1 million.
At least for the last four years under Graham Farrant there has been an end to the petty playground squabbles and childish personal vendettas between Chief Executive and Leader of Thurrock Council.