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Salaries of fire chiefs rocket as brigade bids to save £4m a year
THE soaring cost of paying senior managers in a Yorkshire fire brigade seeking to save £4m a year has been revealed – with the most high-ranking officials now paid two separate bonuses to top up their six-figure salaries.
Numbers of staff paid in excess of 50,000 have also leapt up, leaving the public with an increasingly large bill for top-flight staff.
Details of the salary agreements since 2004 were obtained by the Fire Brigades Union, which is currently fighting plans to change working patterns for its members in South Yorkshire.
It used the Freedom of Information Act to establish how much is paid to the county's Chief Fire Officer and his most high-ranking colleagues and how the cost of salaries has risen in a few years.
The union says the cost of employing staff who earn in excess of 50,000 a year has almost doubled in the space of only 12 months.
According to the figures released by the authority, it was spending at least 750,000 on staff with a salary in excess of that figure in 2006/8.
But just 12 months later the bill was no less than 1.38m and may have been significantly higher.
Pay deals since 2006 have also included bonuses which have added up to 10 per cent a year to wage packets for the most high- ranking staff, in addition to annual inflation awards.
It means the salary paid to the Chief Fire Officer last year was more than 148,000, up by more than 27,000 in four years.
For the last three years, the total has included a five per cent local award and a five per cent retention bonus.
South Yorkshire Fire Authority defended the pay as "standard practice".
Elsewhere in the region, the two biggest salaries in West Yorkshire cost the service between 150,000 and 159,999 and 140,000 and 149,999 respectively.
The two top jobs in Humberside attracted salaries of less than 120,000 and 100,000, however, with similar figures paid to the highest earners in the North Yorkshire brigade.
The FBU, which is locked in conflict with the service over plans to change its working pattern from a popular combination of long night and shorter day shifts in South Yorkshire, claims the scale of the salary increases in that brigade have not previously been publicly known.
While Chief Fire Officer Mark Smitherman's salary last year included 10 per cent in the two bonuses, his deputy Steve Swarbrick's pay included bonuses of 7.5 per cent.
The brigade's two assistant chief officers saw their salaries topped up with bonus payments of five per cent each.
Ian Watkins FBU Regional Chairman questioned the need to pay bonuses to any senior members of staff.
"These pay bonuses are eye-watering. It does beg the question, aren't their basic salaries enough in this day and age?"
South Yorkshire Fire Authority insist the way they reward senior staff is normal.
They said in a statement: "Payments to the officers are standard practice and included within their contractual terms and conditions."
Pay packages of top officers
Chief Fire Officer earned 148,168 last year, including bonuses totalling 10 per cent. The 2004 figure was 120,644.
Deputy Chief earned 122,944 last year, including bonuses of 7.5 per cent. The 2004 figure was 102,545
Two Assistant Chiefs earned 112,890 last year, including a five per cent bonus. 2004 was 92,066
Non-uniformed Principal Officer earned 84,667 last year, including a five per cent bonus. The 2004 figure was 72,385.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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