East Yorkshire's hospital trust has been criticised for paying three East Yorkshire hospital bosses salaries in excess of £170,000.
Firstly, for transparency's sake, I should say that I do work for the Trust but these are entirely my own views.
Surely the question shouldn't be "is that a lot of money" but "is that the right amount of money given the job they are doing". Has Stephan Greep saved the tax payer large amounts of money by changing the way the hospital is managed? Is he the right person to be in charge as the hospital has to find additional savings year on year for the foreseeable future? I think he is, I have confidence that he has the vision for lead the Trust is providing excellent value for money, and if he wasn't then he wouldn't be in a job where £187,000 is a reasonable remuneration.
While it has become very fashionable to suggest that paying people large amounts of money is a bad thing, this entirely misses the point. Paying people large amounts of money who aren't worth that much is a problem, and restructuring bankers' bonuses to ensure they are generating money in a slightly more responsible way isn't a bad idea, but simply saying that they shouldn't be paid large sums of money breaks the link between what they are worth and what they are paid. You make the bank £1 billion and I don't think it unfair that you get paid a figure which reflects that value. If you lead a hospital Trust who not too long ago were seriously in the red and now are making annual surpluses, being rewarded to recognise that makes sense. Equally, if you are leading your organisation (or country, I'm looking at you Gordon) towards financial doom, then a P45 and minimal remuneration would seem more appropriate.
Or is that too radical a concept?
No comments:
Post a Comment