Gordon Brown's crackdown on public sector pay

Interesting news from Gordon Brown’s speech today where he said,

I can announce today that the senior civil service pay bill will be cut by up to 20 per cent over the next three years to release savings of £100 million a year…

For future civil service appointments and other managerial appointments to public sector bodies which are subject to ministerial approval, the chief secretary to the treasury will approve in advance of recruitment all salaries over £150,000 and any bonus payments of over £50,000.

And where senior managerial appointments are not directly under government control we will expect the organisations in question to justify publicly to the relevant Secretary of State any salaries or bonus payments at or above this level.

Those organisations found to be squandering public funds on over generous salaries for officials, at the expense of services for people, will be named and shamed.

To set a new culture of openness, for civil servants and other bodies under direct ministerial control, we will publish for the first time the numbers in each salary band above £50,000 and name all individuals earning more than £150,000.

And in the spirit of openness, accountability and responsibility I would expect others – including publicly-funded media, regulators and other public sector bodies – to do the same.

That last paragraph could make this for a speech with very wide-ranging implications – particularly as it doesn’t require legislation to enact.