Too rich a public servant?

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TOO WELL PAID FOR THE PUBLIC TO HANDLE?

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LONDON - Council chiefs in England and Wales have refused to disclose the salaries of thousands of senior staff, claiming it would lead to a public outcry.

Last summer, the government announced plans to publish the names and salaries of "senior employees" at public bodies who earn over 50,000 ($109,760) a year. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called the increasingly generous remuneration of council executives "unacceptable".

But the local authorities claimed that the pay disclosures would leave their staff subjected to "personalised attacks and mischief making". For instance, Wandsworth borough council warned that "families could be at risk of abuse and children of bullying due to press misrepresentation of data".

Mr Mark Wallace, the campaign director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said it was "pure emotional blackmail to claim that anyone's children could be threatened by improved pay transparency in local government".

Now, rather than tens of thousands of local authority workers having their salaries published, just 114 council staff, most of them chief executives, will have to disclose their pay. The Daily Telegraph

From TODAY, Friday, 19-Feb-2010

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UK lawmakers slammed over expenses secrecy

June 18, 2009 -- Updated 1249 GMT (2049 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• UK lawmakers publish report on their expenses claims but some is blacked out
  
• Redaction prompts criticism from anti-secrecy campaigners
  
• Reports on expenses leaked to newspaper have caused public outcry
  

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been rocked by numerous resignations recently.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Anti-secrecy campaigners have criticized a decision by UK lawmakers to censor a report on their expenses claims, some of which was leaked earlier amid huge public outcry.

The online publication on Thursday is the result of a newspaper filing a freedom of information request to see the claims by MPs, but some of the information is blacked out.

The redaction prompted criticism from campaigners seeking transparency. "A great deal of information has been censored so today's move will do nothing to restore public trust -- it looks like a cover-up," Katherine Gundersen of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, told CNN.

"Far from drawing a line under the episode this will fuel further public anger."

Thursday's official release was also anti-climatic because the Daily Telegraph has been printing the expenses claims over the past month after obtaining a leaked copy.

The series of reports by the Telegraph created a scandal by revealing that many lawmakers had claimed excessively or bent the rules. The reports forced the government to release the claims Thursday instead of in July, as originally planned.

Controversial claims detailed by the newspaper included thousands of dollars' worth of interest on a mortgage that had already been paid, money spent to clean a moat on a country estate, and more than $1,000 spent on a small house for ducks.

Some lawmakers claimed the maximum monthly allowance for food; one claimed for dog food; one claimed for Christmas decorations; and another claimed nearly $5,000 for an in-home theater system.

More than a dozen MPs caught up in the scandal have promised to step down in the next election. It also has forced Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reshuffle his Cabinet while polls show popular support for the ruling Labour Party at historic lows.

The latest casualty came Wednesday night with the resignation of Kitty Ussher, a Member of Parliament who was also a Treasury minister. Her office in the northern England city of Burnley confirmed that she had handed Brown her resignation.

Ussher, considered a rising star in Labour, resigned after the Telegraph revealed that she designated her constituency home as her main residence for just one month in 2007 to avoid paying around $30,000 in capital gains tax.

Claims for allowances for second homes -- which most lawmakers have because they need to be in London for parliamentary business -- have been a big point of controversy for other lawmakers, too.

The Telegraph exposed how some lawmakers, like Ussher, "flipped" the designation of their main and second homes to avoid taxes or make a big allowance claims.

Many lawmakers defended their claims as being within the rules. But even where that was the case, the public criticized lawmakers for greed and for taking advantage.

The expenses cover lawmakers' claims from 2004 to 2008. More than 1 million documents and receipts were scanned electronically over the past year to make them available online, according to Parliament's Web site.

Unlike the information revealed by the Telegraph, the online documents are redacted, with key details blocked from view. Parliament said the edits were made to protect the security and privacy of lawmakers, their staff and third parties.

Among the details blacked out are the addresses of lawmakers' second homes. That makes it impossible to use the documents to find out whether lawmakers flipped homes or made other suspicious claims on those homes.

Deputy News Editor Ben Leapman of The Sunday Telegraph lodged his freedom of information request in January 2005 in order to see the receipts of lawmakers' second home spending, he has said.

From CNN.com; see the source article here.

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Avoid the KPI trap

John Bittleston, succeed@mediacorp.com.sg

MEASUREMENT is good. Evaluating assets, abilities and behaviour needs clearly defined standards. Good rules require good measurements and clear definitions. Up to a point ...

British Members of Parliament claiming excessive expenses illustrates the dilemma. A 72-page guide tells MPs what they may charge the taxpayer. The language is easily understood, and the document tries to define the rules for everything. A special Parliament office advises MPs whether a claim is valid. There are appeal systems for the dissatisfied.

Such a system must surely be foolproof? Why, then, are so many British MPs and Ministers having to repay money, with several resigning from Parliament, sometimes under threat from their party leaders?

Seventy-two pages were not too few to tell an MP how he was expected to behave - they were too many. Any rule book incites us to find a way around those rules we do not like. We "interpret" rules. Every MP so far accused has said: "I have done no wrong. It was within the rules." And that is the whole point. "Within the letter of the rules" maybe; "within the spirit" - clearly not. A citizen is entitled to expect his legislators to understand trust and example.

To make measurement work for us - as opposed to us working for it - requires that we know what measures are relevant. Increasingly, it seems we do not.

A frightening example is of an overseas hospital that met its key performance indicators (KPIs) consistently for several years but was found, on investigation, to have allowed a large number of patients to die unnecessarily, in dirty and disgraceful conditions. The hospital's KPIs did not include saving life or making patients tolerably comfortable or clean.

But surely that is the purpose of a hospital? Presumably, managers assumed that hospital administrators and staff knew these objectives and so it was unnecessary to include them as KPIs.

As soon as you draw up rules, everyone looks for what is missing as well as what is there. So the hospital met its "un-crowded wards" KPI by leaving patients to die on trolleys in corridors without attention, water, food or hygiene. Many other administrative conveniences were fully met, too. Hence the excellent KPI record - and the total failure of the hospital.

The existence of rules or KPIs in both these cases worked against the good of those they were supposed to serve. Not all rules are bad; many are essential. The highway would become a battlefield if the rules of the road were not strictly observed. But no amount of highway codes can replace careful driving. No books of rules can substitute for a commonsense view of how we should behave.

The 10 Commandments were infinitely better rules than the more than 900 sins now published as desirably avoided. That is because the 10 Commandments made the individual responsible for a commonsense interpretation of them. Only by such self-control can a society exist and flourish.

That is why trust is so important. How can we police that trust? Without the hand of correction, trust will simply be flouted by some at the expense of those who observe it.

Defining the line too clearly between honoured and broken trust is not the way to go. Let each person find the line for himself or herself, and let the courts decide if someone has stepped over it. Then let the penalty for a Breach of Trust be of such deterrence that we all keep well behind the line.

Standards are not only accepted by individuals, they are set by individuals. We cannot correct overnight the poor standards that have become widely accepted. But we can begin.

John Bittleston mentors people in business, career and their personal lives at http://www.terrificmentors.com/.

From TODAY, Business –Monday, 15-Jun-2009

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Hurt, she quits

So much for scandals… we knew the wrong before we do it, only that there is some pull and enticement… some 'sweet' temptation while in the process of being caught up in the act.. then we are found out!

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UK POLITICS

LONDON — Ms Jacqui Smith, Britain's first female Home Secretary, will stand down in Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Cabinet reshuffle.

The beleaguered minister, who has been at the centre of intense controversy over her expenses claims, apparently told Mr Brown two months ago that she did not want to continue in office.

She is said to have been "hurt" by recent events, which have included the revelation that she inadvertently claimed for two pornographic films watched by her husband and criticism of the way she has designated a house she shares with her sister in London as her main home.

Ms Smith is also said to have bought her husband — employed by her as an assistant — a £240 ($569.70) Apple iPhone on her office expenses. She also billed taxpayers for her accountancy costs and £1,600 for three digital cameras and a camcorder over three years.

The move will pave the way for a radical shake-up of Mr Brown's Cabinet following what is expected to be disastrous local and European election results for Labour this weekend.

With the future of Mr Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, also in doubt, the revelation led to opposition claims that the government was in disarray. But this was denied by Harriet Harman, the leader of the Commons, who told Radio 4's The World at One: "It's not the wheels falling off government."

Ms Smith, who had been widely tipped for the sack, appears to have decided that she would rather resign on her own terms. A source close to her said she had discussed her plans to stand down with the Prime Minister two months ago.

"She's been hurt by what's gone on and it's been a difficult couple of months for her," the source said.

Ms Smith, who was chief whip before her surprise appointment as Home Secretary when Mr Brown became Prime Minister, has had a difficult two years in the post.

The Home Office is a notorious graveyard for political careers. Since 1997 two of her predecessors — Mr David Blunkett and Mr Charles Clarke — have been forced out against their will.

Ms Smith's expenses claims are currently the subject of an investigation by the parliamentary commissioner for standards. She repaid £10 claimed for the pornographic films, but in other aspects she insisted she has done nothing wrong.

The news broke as three other Labour MPs — Mr David Chaytor, Ms Patricia Hewitt and Ms Beverley Hughes — announced that they would be standing down at the next election. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH,THE GUARDIAN

From TODAYonline.com; see the source article here.

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