FERGUS EWING: Patrick Harvie needs to walk the talk now he’s in government
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“Lack of action on high pay for public sector bosses is unacceptable. As frontline services face being downgraded due to budget cuts, it’s just bizarre to continue paying six-figure salaries…”
How true, how true.
Now who was it who said that?
Those were the precise words of Patrick Harvie MSP from a press release in 2015, when he was in opposition.
Now he and Green colleague Lorna Slater are both comfortably ensconced in government, we don’t hear these bold views any more.
Ms Slater is the minister in charge of Scotland’s national parks.
According to their own annual report, Grant Moir, the chief executive of Cairngorms National Park Authority received, in 2021/22, a salary and pension totalling £125,000 to £130,000.
That’s almost as much as the First Minister! (This figure accounts for the FM's salary alone without pension contributions included.)
Could this be the top public sector pay in Badenoch and Strathspey?
In the Holyrood Petitions Committee we heard a plea for excessive public pay to be pruned across the board.
The initial response from the Scottish Government was basically: “We will do nothing.”
We have rejected that.
As Mr Harvie said in 2015: “There is little evidence that paying more results in better management…”
Fab response
There’s been a magnificent response from Strathy readers writing to MSPs and Health Secretary, Neil Gray, to express concern at the halt of the long promised Grantown Health Centre refurbishment.
Neil Gray is now very well aware of those concerns and has agreed to meet with myself and MSP colleagues, Ed Mountain and Rhoda Grant.
Most letter writers have said it is utter madness to scrap a scheme that is nearly finished.
Most believe it will be a false economy.
I am grateful to colleagues in other parties for working together to overturn this decision. Further reports will follow.
A paltry offer...
I have urged Justice Secretary Angela Constance to condemn the paltry offer of compensation to Mr Alan Bates – the hero of the excellent recent ITV programme ‘Mr Bates versus the Post Office’.
Sub-post office victims have suffered the greatest miscarriage of justice in our time.
Yet Mr Bates was offered a paltry one-sixth of his calculated losses. He described it as ‘cruel and derisory’.
By contrast the Post Office bosses who presided over the most serious cover up of our time have walked off with millions of pounds.
They created a travesty, caused for hundreds of people, a tragedy but won a lottery!
It is the hallmark of a democratic society that ordinary citizens can obtain justice, and this is a litmus test of both Scottish and UK Governments.
Let right be done!
Fergus Ewing (SNP) is MSP for Inverness and Nairn including Strathspey.
Further notes followiing publication:
The CNPA has pointed out in response to Mr Ewing’s column that the First Minister’s pension contribution is not taken into account whereas it is used in quoting the CNPA’s chief executive’s figure: “Given that the article references our Chief Executive’s current salary (which has remained in the same band from 2021 to now), it is reasonable to compare it to the current salary of the First Minister as published on the Scottish Parliament website: https://www.parliament.scot/msps/msp-salaries. This equates to a difference of between £81,780 to £86,780 (£90,000 to £95,000 vs £176,780).”
Mr Ewing has pointed out following this: “It has been well known in public domain for 13 years that the First Minister never took the headline figure. The actual FM salary in 2022 of £135,000 is only just more than the total emoluments of CEO of the CNPA. What I said stands. My statement was therefore factually accurate.”
