Exclusive club who are safe from the ravages of recession

BRITAIN has recently endured several years of recession during which most people have, if fortunate to be employed, had to manage on reduced or stagnant incomes, with savers, including many pensioners, having virtually no interest on their savings which they previously had relied upon to pay their way.

One group of people, though, have actually benefited from the recession and must be wondering just what all the fuss about hardships, food banks etc. is all about. They are the members of the seemingly exclusive “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”’ club, who as Harold McMillan would have said, “have never had it so good”. Members of this club have not got to worry about such trivialities as shortage of cash or inflation, as they are able to help themselves to taxpayers’ money whenever they feel this is appropriate. Taxpayers have no option but to simply pay up – this is called democracy.

It is very clear that several senior staff at the Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust are very fortunate to be members of this club. Six senior members of this Trust seem to have enrolled, receiving huge salary increases which, surely, in the current economic climate, can only be described as totally obscene.

Chief executive Karen Jackson was paid £185,000 in 2013-14, a rise of nine per cent on the year but a 28 per cent increase over two years. Just how does she manage to live on only £3,500 per week? Chief operating officer Angie Smithson saw a 29 per cent rise last year and director of clinical quality Wendy Booth’s pay went up by 19 per cent. Others were similarly grotesquely rewarded and some increases were “excused” by saying the recipients had undertaken additional duties.

Conversely nurses and other medical staff have been given either no increase or were awarded – wait for it – a “massive” one per cent rise (The Yorkshire Post, September 1). How do they feel when their contribution to the hospital only attracts such a minute increase in pay but others are so valued they must receive an increase of 10 to 20 times this amount?

It should, also, be remembered that a nurse’s one per cent pay increase is, in real terms, a reduction in their spending ability, as it is less than inflation, yet, the executives’ pay increases are many, many times the rate of inflation. If MPs really wonder why the electorate are fed up with authorities in general, they should begin to stop such so-called elite members of society behaving like bandits.