A narrow and misleading article on ‘rising salaries’ in ministerial offices plus a kneejerk reaction from a supposed Government spending watchdog, Taxpayers’ Union, who was contradicted by one of their founders.
Sunday Star Times have an article on increasing staff salaries in Ministerial offices in the Beehive – More than a third of officials in the Beehive now take home six figure salaries.
Staff working in the Beehive have pocketed healthy pay increases since National took office, with more than a third now earning six figure salaries.
Official figures show that the average salary of Ministerial Services staff working in the offices of Ministers hit $93,298, an increase if more than 5 per cent over 2014.
They chart the increases:
That looks like rampant increases.
Since coming to Government, National has pledged restraint in the public sector.
However a public sector representative questioned whether the same message was being felt by those doing the bidding of National ministers.
Same message – unrestrained increases.
Jordan Williams, executive director of the Taxpayers’ Union said most of the staff in the Beehive were “of a secretarial support” nature.
“It seems extraordinary to us that [they] are remunerating so well, and that the salaries are so top heavy,” Williams said.
“With more than one third of the Beehive support staff earning more than $100,000 it appears being a spin doctor or political advisor is a surefire way to the big bucks without being responsible for the decisions.”
A right wing spending watchdog is also critical.
But David Farrar, who is closely involved with the Taxpayers’ Union, points out at Kiwiblog in Ministerial staff costs:
What I’m interested in, as a taxpayer, is how much more, if any, we are paying for the running of ministerial office. This would have been useful, even vital, information for the story. And it took around 15 minutes to find out from Treasury documents.
The 2015 budget allocated $25.842 million for ministerial support services. In 2008/09 the cost of ministerial support services was $30.375 million. So in fact spending on ministerial offices has dropped 14.9% in seven years. That is what I call restraint.
Also the cost of VIP transport has stayed constant – in fact down 0.1% from 2008/09.
And ministerial travel has gone up just 3.1% over seven years. Well under inflation.
So actually overall, pretty good spending restraint.
So while salaries have risen overall costs of ministerial offices has gone down.
This looks like poor reporting by SST, and the Taxpayers’ Union look likke they have jumped into a kneejerk reaction without considering what should be vital information when comparing cost trends of running Ministerial offices.
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