Tuesday, Jul 13, 2010
Is this right? should people earn this in schooling?
Dailymail: The £276,000 primary head: Staggering salary revealed days after pledge to cap head teachers' pay
A primary school headmaster was paid £276,523 last year - £70,000 more than the head of Eton College, it emerged last night.
Mark Elms, who runs a 335-pupil inner-city primary, received £231,400 with a further £45,123 in pension contributions.
He is among around 100 head teachers taking home more than £150,000 - outstripping David Cameron's £142,500 a year.
Posted by mark @ 09:29 AM (1577 views) Add Comment
41 Comments
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1. charlie brooker said...
Precisely how was this allowed to happen?
Even £100K a year for a head teacher seems generous.
£276,000 is the kind of pay fat cat executives award themselves.
2. monty032 said...
This has nothing to do with house prices. You're posting on the wrong web site.
3. mark said...
monty032 it has everything to do with houseprices, wages fuel buying and fuel higher prices.
4. p. doff said...
That's a silly argument. If I posted something about my cleaner only getting minimum wage would you claim it had reduced houseprices?
5. mark said...
yes if everyones wages dropped then houseprices would have to follow, how is it "silly"
there is a ripple effect people with higher wages buy houses push prices up and it ripples out, reduce their wages by 50% and what do you get?
Jeez for all the years we have spoken about this and still no-one understands.
6. p. doff said...
Yes, but we are not talking about everyones wages. We are talking about 100 headteachers getting over £150K. Are you seriously claiming that is going to have an impact on houseprices. Or are you just having a moan because you don't think they deserve to get paid more than you?
7. mark said...
this article is only the tip of the labour wage inflation iceberg thanks to vanished gordon brown
8. p. doff said...
Don't know about you, but my income has deflated since 2007.
9. mark said...
most management jobs in the government are overpaid, speak to any lower ranking person and they will shock you with the amount their management earn, labour reduced the unemployment figures with made up management jobs or highly paid "weird" jobs this head teacher is merely an example of how insane it has become. These are the sort of people who will buy a house, holiday home, rental house etc and use their high taxpayers paid income to finance the buying and pushing both houseprices up and reducing availability of housing for lower paid people.
10. Exiges said...
-- "Precisely how was this allowed to happen?"
Lewisham Council is Labour controlled (previously no majority control to any party)
He also received payments totalling £102,955 for work he completed as part of the Labour Government's City Challenge programme
So, basically the usual Labour people spunking money up the wall left right + center
11. mr g said...
And who made the £45,123 in pension contributions?
Certainly not Mr Elms, it will be Joe Public of course.
"The council was last night unable to account for the remaining £26,413.63, which would take the total to £231,400." That sums up the lack of accountability in parts of the public sector.
Recaptcha Crawford 1833?
12. still renting said...
If these wages were typical Mark's argument might be valid, but as the article states that the average for a primary school head is only £55000 and only a tiny minority earn very high salaries, the effect on house prices is clearly going to be immeasurably small.
13. mark said...
stillrenting is you can read that detail in article, why do you not read my posts and understand what I am talking about, like I say this is the tip of the iceberg, there are a lot more government workers earning that kind of money and it has not been publicised , i am not just talking about school heads, this is an example,
jeez i am getting sick of defending what i say because people cannot be bothered to read what i post or jump to their own conclusions..
14. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
15. mr g said...
I omitted to say, IMO no one in either the public or private sectors, at even the highest level, is worth this sort of money.
16. still renting said...
I have read your posts, Mark. When you say things like "Most management jobs in government are overpaid..." in the context of this discussion, I naturally assume you are including head teachers. As the article states that average wages for head teachers are £55000, (which I don't consider to be unreasonably high, maybe you disagree), it seems to me that "most" are not being overpaid.
That's not to say that their aren't plenty of overpaid people in the public sector, there obviously are, but I doubt that they are in the majority, and focusing on extreme cases like this one obscures the real debate.
What I was really disagreeing with was your assertion that this has "everything to do with house prices." House price inflation has run far ahead of wage inflation over the past few decades. If house prices only grew in line with wages, affordability would remain relatively unchanged. The largest factors in house price growth are: cheap and easy credit; increase in the number of households (driven mostly by people living in smaller households, but also by population growth); and artificial restrictions on housebuilding where people actually want to live. Cheap money, increasing demand, restricted supply. And of these, by far the most important is cheap credit.
17. still renting said...
By the way, Mr G, if your comment about blindly supporting the public sector was aimed at me then you are quite mistaken. I'm no cheerleader for the public sector; in fact I'm a firm believer in small government. I find the suggestion that I casually dismiss other people's points of view on political grounds somewhat offensive, as I always attempt to answer with a clear and logical argument rather than ideological ranting. (I'll leave it to others to judge whether any of my arguments are actually clear or logical.)
On the other hand, if it wasn't aimed at me, I apologise for being oversensitive.
18. the number cruncher said...
Mr G and Mark - I think stillrenting understands your posts far better than you do yourselves - and your motivations, IMHO which is petty jealousy.
The fact is about 5,600 public sector workers make more than £150,000 a year and the VAST majority of that are Top Surgeons and judges. Some civil servants are not worth their money, I agree - but many have huge responsibilities and the roles they occupy do deserve those wages.
Do you really think 500 people effect the whole of the property market when compared to the 10,000s of obscene salaries dolled out to private industry, when the majority of those in, so called, private industry are just monopolists, making money from 'economic rents' stolen from the people of Britain.
Numbers to back up my claim - source HMG ONS
Top Doctors and surgeons 4900
other 290
Top Judges 200
Local Council Bosses 120
Whitehall mandrins 90
Total 5600
19. techieman said...
Blimey... well i wouldnt want to do it... infact i cant think of much worse. So good luck to him!
And he still cant afford a decent bike.....Mrs Elms must spend money like water!!
[no im not being serious, but i think this thread needs to calm down a bit - going forward he is going to be on the receiving end of a pretty big cut i should imagine!]
20. This comment has been removed as it was found to be in breach of our Blog Policies.
21. mark said...
number cruncher i am far from jealous, in fact i myself got slated on this site for making good money in shares, which i still do, what I am annoyed about is the public sector is financed by the public and high taxes for which we get very little benefit and the managers, certain workers milk this system we finance.
High wages will always push prices up, wage inflation will do same, as people believe they can continue to buy more and more expensive properties believing both prices will go up and their wages will always go up, these same people believe when they retire they will be well looked after. Public sector is bloated overpaid and returns very little to the funders
22. the number cruncher said...
No Mark, it returns little to your personally, and it seams to me the is the extent of your thought processes.
Just because you have made some money (without properly working for it may I add) does not stop you being jealous of others, far from it the most jealous people are only jealous to protect their privilege.
Overall I think the civil services gives us a fantastic return on investment - compare what it delivers to that of the American system, where they have elements that are privatised, our system is vastly more efficient. Compare our education system to the American and Swedish privatised social school systems where proper long term analysis has shown that they are far more inefficient than state run schools and their initial success is only achieved by selection of the best pupils.
RC: "baskets I'm" maybe its trying to tell me something and stop ranting at the Alf Garnet's Today
23. orcusmaximus said...
Mr Elms is worth every penny he earned turning that school around. He took it from special measures to outstanding. Instead of producing druggies, criminals and benefit spongers, the school is now churning out tax payers, which will probably have a beneficial effect on the deprived area the school sits in. Might even drive up house prices :-)
Also note that a large amount of the headline figure is bonuses which he won't be getting in future years.
24. mark said...
nope not jealous at all, I sold 17 properties before the crash and am sitting it out now.. Why would i be jealous? I own a successful company and travel extensively
number cruncher do you work in the civil service?
Our roads are full of potholes, the police often make too many mistakes, next door to us got broken into the police caught the guys red handed, then let them go with a van full!! Litter doesnt seem to be collected any more, public toilets are often a disgrace, councils cheat and lie, planning depts are a disgrace, all these people do is look after their own jobs rather than offer the public good value for captive taxes. We have no choice to not pay, but some of these civil workers milk it to the point of stupidity, I know of a local council worker he is management who clocks in and then supposedly goes on site, when in fact he sleeps for a few hours in his car.
Now when you get teachers earning more than the PM then what does this say about our country? the stupid public are being milked and abused by a corrupt system.
£200,000 + teachers + caretakers +school costs + catering + road safety + Etc etc / 400 pupils = poor value, after all you have much lower paid teachers who probably put more hours in, care more and represent better value per pupil.
We are effectively paying for a private education when you factor in the costs of this head and all the staff.
Me jealous, nope, just want justice ad value for my hard earned and paid taxes
25. mark said...
forgot to say, buying and selling shares is both very time consuming and stressful, when you buy you have to sit and watch every second until they go up and you can sell, bought 60k of barc the other day, they shot up today.
26. The Baldman said...
Surely the real issue is that we can no longer afford to pay these mega salaries to civil servants.
27. bluebeach said...
Well done Mark...............
28. Simon said...
orcusmaximus @22
I'm with you on this .
It's peanuts to pay for turning round a school . Very good value for money .
A bad head teacher is like the plague , not worth having at any price .
29. letthemfall said...
number cruncher and still renting have responded to mark's dailymailishness very well, but I may as well add my twopenn'orth.
In the first place, the public sector is paid for by those who use its services, exactly the same as the private sector. The fact that the services are received indirectly and automatically does not change this. As for value, who produces the most? A headteacher who is responsible for the education of numerous children - the future of society and the economy - or the company director who manufactures widgets? It's not an easy calculation, but education is so profoundly important I cannot begin to imagine the teacher creates less value. And most of them are very modestly paid.
The highest paid in our economy are mainly those in financial services. Now there is a sector where salaries really are unjustified.
30. p. doff said...
24. mark said...''nope not jealous at all, I sold 17 properties before the crash and am sitting it out now..''
Ah, I see - you stepped off the housing ladder and are worried that you might miss out if there are future gains. Hence your dislike of anything that you perceive might cause houseprices to increase!
So you hate overpaid workers, but think It was ok for you to profit from the property market and deprive 17 people who just wanted a home.
31. easybetman said...
A dailymail commeter mentioned that this is among the best school in UK - £267k fair enough.
However, I think we should hold the same approach with civil servant as with the bankers - some of those should be on clawback terms shall the pupils misbehave or results deteriorate within the next few years.... Also, it is not clear how he acheived the result - e.g. meddling with exams (not sure if this applies to primary but some secondary heads deliver good results by encouraging pupils to do easy subjects etc).
@mark - good for your success. Don't be discouraged by the dissenting voice - those are consitent with their usual views about the value of public sector.
32. still renting said...
Thanks for the compliment letthemfall, but I think your comment on the public sector is mistaken. The public sector cannot be said to be paid for by those who use its services, as the private sector is. I have no children but my taxes pay for schools. I pay my own rent but my council tax pays for the housing of others.
In the public sector, services are paid for by tax payers who can't choose who they pay, and services are consumed by people who, in most cases, have no choice of provider. When I buy good or services in the private sector, I buy only what I need, and from the provider of my choice.
That distinction is the root cause of the bloat and inefficiency in the public sector. With neither profit motive nor competition, there is no reason for the public sector to become more efficient. As I can neither refuse to pay nor choose to take my custom elsewhere (except by paying again) there is little motivation for the public sector to maintain high standards.
I don't mind that my taxes contribute towards the services provided to people less well off than I am, but I absolutely demand that those services are provided efficiently and effectively; I object to my money going to waste.
Hmm! That may have been a rant. I said I don'd do those, didn't I?
I will at least agree that many of the salaries in the financial sector are unjustified. Not including mine, of course. :o)
33. novice pete said...
What if elements of the public sector were privatised, would you not get the bosses creaming off even larger salaries while the services
may possibly deteriorate due to pricing competition in order to win contracts. Which you would still have to pay for through taxation.
Plus if there were privatisation which companies get the work? The ones with buddies in parliament no doubt. How would you avoid those situations? Putting vital sevices in the hands of profit hunters sounds a bit dodgy to me.
34. letthemfall said...
still renting
I suppose it depends what one means by consumption. In a sense we "consume" - perhaps benefit would be a better word - education; our parents paid for ours, we pay for our children's, or if we have no children we still benefit from an educated populace (imagine what our economy would be like with no schools). Same can be said for all public services. The difference is that one pays according to ability, which seems right to me.
I really believe that the notion that the public sector is inefficient is a false one. To begin with one cannot compare directly to the private sector. A profit motive would surely be a bad thing in the public sector, would it not? Instead we get the motive of service to the public - teachers, firemen, doctors,etc do not follow their careers because of the money; broadly speaking they are motivated by what they can do for others. One can postulate that certain tasks could be done for less money, but frankly this country gets its public services on the cheap in my view. Look at the salaries of nurses for instance. Public scientists have seen their real incomes drop by some 40% since the sixties. Few (any?) public employees get to travel first class.
Personally I have found the public sector far more efficient than the private. I have no end of trouble contacting banks when I need to (lousy and expensive automated answering, but find it easy to get through to HMRC and my local council). This is anecdotal of course, and there are exceptions, but I just don't see substantial evidence for greater efficiency in the private sector.
35. novice pete said...
vital services even
36. letthemfall said...
novice pete
Absolutely. One only has to look at PFI to see that. A case of the private sector fleecing the public.
37. mr g said...
StillRenting@17
I assure you it wasn't aimed at you.
NC@18 "your motivations, IMHO which is petty jealousy."
I'm afraid you're wrong there.
I don't want to sound smug but I'm quite happy with my life thank you and if you read my comment @15 "I omitted to say, IMO no one in either the public or private sectors, at even the highest level, is worth this sort of money." you will see that I am being even handed on this one.
38. Cashisking said...
@33 let them fall
para 3 is as much evidence of overstaffing as it is of efficiency
39. still renting said...
As I said, I have no objections to paying towards those services.
If you genuinely find that service from the public sector better than the private, all I can say is that your experiences must have been very different from mine. Compare your local post office with your local supermarket for convenience and customer service. If you have problems getting through to your bank, choose a different one; I've never had any problems with HSBC / First Direct. And as for trying to deal with my local council, (by phone because their website is almost unusable), it's a time wasting and frequently depressing experience, to say the least.
Whether many people in the public sector are really motivated by duty and service, rather than working for money to provide for themselves and their families like the rest of us, is arguable. But average public sector pay is now marginally higher than average pay in the private sector, and average public sector benefits (especially pensions) are much better. The fact is that the private sector employs far more cleaners and shelf stackers on the minimum wage than it does fat cat bosses and bankers.
My earlier comment only contrasted efficiency and effectiveness of the public and private sectors, I didn't recommend privatisation or any other remedy. The current government is looking to introduce greater competition within the public sector, perhaps that will have the desired effect of raising standards. Privatisation can work very well, or it can be a disaster. Look at BT as a success story, or the railways as a failure. On the other hand, the railways were initially very successful private enterprises, and their record as a nationalised industry is hardly glorious. Some things can never be privatised, for example police, the military the judiciary. But in many other cases, it is not what is privatised (wholly or partially) but how it is done that determines success or failure.
Anyway, you've got me ranting again. Stop it.
BTW, I don't think there's any point including PFI in this argument. It has no real benefits, it doesn't work properly, it's just an accounting trick that Gordon liked because it allowed him to hide huge amounts of borrowing.
40. shipbuilder said...
Of course the other side of this story is that a large proportion of the pay is from last year and his basic salary is around £80K, that he apparently turned around one of the worst performing schools in the country and apparently the parents of the schoolchildren think he is worth every penny.
41. letthemfall said...
still renting
Well, as you say, it can be a question of experience. First Direct bank - they recently gave me bad information that wasted a fair bit of my time and effort. Alternative banks? Is there really an alternative these days? Service levels in banks have plummeted in my time as they have focused more on their profits and selling - and bankrupting themselves too in some cases. None stands out as significantly better. That may change with Metro, Virgin, etc.
Public sector pay. Yes, your observation about large numbers of employees on min wage explains why public sector average pay may be slightly higher. It also suggests that professional public employees are actually lower paid than the private, given that most if not all public employees are above min wage. Efficiency or exploitation in the private sector?
I agree that public and private have a role, but one is not intrinsically better than the other. I think the PFI is relevant. Whatever sleight of accounting may have been employed, the private companies involved have a record of exploitation of public funds and failure to deliver.
Good to see you back shipbuilder.