The principle
of appointing an independent panel to assess the pay of politicians rather than
them setting their pay themselves has a superficial attraction. But “It
wasn’t us, guv, it was the independent experts…” will never work for me,
because it always carries the (invariably unstated) caveat, “…we only selected and appointed the experts
and drew up their brief”.
That’s not an
argument for going back to giving them the power – but there is a much simpler
and obvious alternative, which is to link the pay of our politicians in some way
to average income. That has the merit of
being clear, of taking the decision out of their hands, and of linking their
pay to the overall economic performance of the country. And, subject to a probably heated debate
about what the ratio of an AM’s (or MP’s) pay to the average should be (my
starting point would be that it should be less than 2:1), it’s likely to be much more
acceptable to the public at large.
It’s also not a
million miles away from the nature of the original Chartist demand, quoted here
by the Chair of the independent panel: “In
the nineteenth century, the introduction of payment for Members of Parliament
was one of the key reforms called for by the Chartist movement so as to enable
'an honest tradesman, working man, or other person, to serve a constituency,
when taken from his business to attend to the interests of the country'”. I rather feel that the Chartists would have
been more than a little surprised to see that particular demand quoted in
support of the latest proposals, though.
A relationship
with average pay would not, of course, give AMs the sort of pay rise to which
they are accustomed and to which they aspire, although they’d never give that
as the reason for rejecting such a simple approach. They’d probably concentrate on the sort of
arguments which have been put forward for the latest proposal, which seem to
rely on three main elements – level of responsibility, comparability with
others, and attracting the right people.
The fact that using those arguments produces a higher number is, I’m
sure, entirely coincidental to their choice of argument. The problem is that, for many of us, none of
the arguments being used actually stack up.
Firstly, let’s
consider the question of the level of responsibility which they have. Relating pay to levels of responsibility is
itself a very ‘public sector’ concept. It
has nothing at all to do with the idea of payment by results (although I can
well understand why elected representatives might fight shy of that concept!). Personally, I don’t buy into the concept that
pay should be set according to the level of responsibility anyway; apart from
anything else, it inherently values activities and responsibilities in
different ways. However, for the sake of
argument…
In reality, it
is Ministers who run the country, not AMs as a whole. Backbench AMs actually run nothing at all;
their direct responsibility for any government decisions is precisely zero. And that remains true, no matter how many
extra powers are devolved to the Assembly.
Certainly, there is ‘responsibility’ in a rather different sense
attached to the consideration, debate and enactment of legislation, but much of
the input into that process by elected politicians consists of reading out
questions and speeches prepared for them by others and voting in a way which
has been agreed in advance. (As Owen suggests, perhaps the pay rise should go
to those who do the real work…)
Compared to the
responsibility shouldered by, say, a doctor, or a nurse, it doesn’t look that
onerous to me. And unlike in the case of
a medical professional, there is no requirement for any qualifications
whatsoever. It’s a job which anyone can
do – and returning to the Chartists, that was exactly their concept:
legislation should be decided by ordinary working people.
Turning to
comparability, I have to say that some of the comments made leave me rather
more than cold. Some of the poor things
apparently believe that being paid less than people doing a similar job
elsewhere in the UK will mean that they are not taken sufficiently seriously. The salary they are paid, according to this
line, reflects their status and credibility.
My heart doesn’t bleed, I’m afraid.
For some of us at least, the point of a Welsh parliament is to make a
fresh start, not to be constantly looking over our shoulders at what’s happening
elsewhere. The question from that perspective
is not how well the pay compares with Westminster or Edinburgh, but whether it
meets Welsh needs.
And finally, we
have the old chestnut about attracting people with the right level of ability,
an argument with which it is hard to know where to start because there’s so
much wrong with it.
I’m reminded of
something a presenter once said on a training course I attended many years ago,
“Negative criticism of others is merely a
dishonest form of self-praise”. It’s
something that I try to bear in mind (not always entirely successfully!) when
assessing the ‘ability’ of others; and it’s something that anyone who
criticises the level of ability of people as a group (in this case politicians)
should bear in mind, because there is an implicit assumption that those making
the judgement have a higher level of ability than those being judged. There’s also a major question around what we
mean by the word ‘ability’ in this context.
The word is readily bandied around, but never defined. However, in this case, it seems that many AMs
themselves feel that there is a need for more able people in the Assembly, so
let’s run with that assessment for the purposes of debate.
(Although,
as an aside, I’m puzzled by the conclusion that they draw from their
assessment. Surely, “so they should resign and be replaced” is a more valid conclusion
from the logic than “so they should be
paid more”?)
There are a
number of obvious flaws in the argument that that getting the right people
means paying higher salaries:
·
It
sounds a lot like the argument put forward by the bankers who the politicians
are so quick to condemn. And surely
experience in that field suggests that what higher salaries attract are greedy
people willing to take high risks with a very short term outlook.
·
Unless
there is a way of weeding out those deemed to be inadequate, increasing the
salaries merely rewards the same group of people, most of whom are likely to be
re-elected.
·
There
is no mechanism that I can see whereby an increased salary makes it more likely
that more able people will either be selected by their parties or elected by
the voters; and assessing ‘ability’ has even less relevance to the second part
of that than it does to the first.
·
Do
we really want AMs who have been motivated to be there by the pay on offer?
From the
perspective of most working people, our elected representatives get an
extremely good deal, not only in pay, but also in expenses and allowances. The latest proposals for pay are a
distraction from the work which needs to be done in building a new and
different Wales, not least because they highlight the fact that little has
changed in terms of attitudes of those who represent us. It’s a distraction which will repeat itself
regularly for as long as they insist on trying to use arguments around levels
of responsibility, comparability, and attracting ability to set their pay. And, as long as they continue to do that,
they have only themselves to blame for the bad press which events like this
attract.
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