Why doesn’t Bradford Council cut the salary of senior staff given the state of its finances? - Yorkshire Post Letters

Is Bradford Council cutting senior staff salaries as part of its cuts? Not likely. While political parties blame each other for the dire state of Bradford Council’s finances (‘Councillors approve ‘the most devastating budget’ ever in city’, The YP March 9), there is no mention of any planned reduction to the extravagant and wholly-unjustified salaries given to its senior staff: despite leader Susan Hinchcliffe stating a few weeks back that “nothing is off the cards” you can bet that none of the announced 100 or so staff redundancies will come from the within the gold-plated senior ranks.

In addition to paying its chief executive over £230,000/yr (including pension) there are numerous ‘strategic directors’ pocketing over £170,000 (more than the Prime Minister and around twice the income of an MP) plus various directors on over £120,000 each. It’s not exactly money well spent is it?

Bradford is hardly a shining example of a city under their stewardship - much of it looks like out-takes from Abandoned Engineering.

The council did such an appalling job of running Children's Services that it was put into emergency measures yet still the top brass are lavishly rewarded - for incompetence and failure.

And the bill for this ongoing festival of mutual back-slapping? Around £1.5m a year, money that should be being spent on public services not on cushy pensions, big houses and nice holidays.

Local government in this country is rotten to the core: it is a shamelessly unaccountable gravy-train which attracts ladder-climbing individuals seduced by sky-high salaries and the possibility of obtaining an OBE literally for doing their job while hiding away from public scrutiny and making a mockery of any notion of accountability.

And they have the cheek to ask for more public money to keep themselves accustomed to the lifestyles they think they deserve.