Andy McSmith's Diary: A good day to bury inflated HS2 executives’ salaries

Today was Transparency Day, when the Government released a mountain of information, some good, in the hope that any bad news is buried in the avalanche.

Opponents of the HS2 project will want to study the list of top public-sector salaries published by the Cabinet Office. It was already known that Simon Kirby, who heads the project, is the UK’s highest paid public servant, on £750,000 a year.

It now emerges there are 35 executives working on this project, with a rich variety of job titles – including a director of land and property, a director of health and safety, a director of risk and assurance – each of whom is paid £150,000 or more – more than poor old David Cameron, who is on £142,500.

A special case

When the Conservatives were in opposition, they took a stern view of the number of special advisers employed by the Labour government – because spads, as they are known, work in the interests of the ruling party but their salaries are borne by the taxpayer.

In 2006, Cameron pledged to impose a cap on their numbers, but once he was Prime Minister, the number rose by 25 per cent. In 2014-15, there were 107 spads with a combined salary of £9.2m, up from £8.4m the previous year.

Six spads now work for the Chancellor, George Osborne, led by James Chapman, the £125,000-a-year former political editor of the Daily Mail.

Forty years ago, a Labour government introduced “Short money” so opposition parties could have advisers paid from the public purse. Labour’s share of the Short money in 2015-16 is just under £5.8m. Osborne announced last month that it is to be cut by 19 per cent, then frozen until 2020.

FCO regrets being found out

Two months ago, questions were raised about why 14 cleaners working at the Foreign Office had faced disciplinary action for writing to the Foreign Secretary, Philip Hammond, pointing out that their wages were £2.05 an hour below the £9.10-an-hour London Living Wage. Three, including the union organiser, Katy Rojas, were made redundant. The others were investigated by their employers, Interserve.

What was not known then, but has now been disclosed after a Freedom of Information request, is that Interserve were put up to it by an official at the FCO’s estates directorate. “This must stop,” he/she wrote. “They are your employees, not ours. I thought they had all signed confidentiality agreements to prevent this occurring so I assume they will be spoken too (sic) and disciplined. My staff have enough to deal with without this issue keep (sic) re-occurring… Please let me know what actions are being taken.”

The FCO says: “This email was neither authorised nor seen by any minister prior to it being sent. The FCO official who wrote the email has… expressed regret.”

First Lady Williams retires

If there was a title of First Lady of British politics, its current holder would surely be Shirley Williams.

She is one of the last survivors of the new Labour MPs who swept into Parliament in 1964. By 1966, she was a junior minister. As Education Secretary from 1976 to 1979, she was the only woman in the Cabinet. In 1981, she was the most popular of the Gang of Four who broke from Labour to form the Social Democratic Party, which later merged with the Liberals. She joined the Lords in 1993, as Baroness Williams of Crosby, and was still playing an active part as recently as last month. Today, at the age of 85, she announced she was retiring. Full disclosure: she was the first candidate I ever voted for in a general election.

The Diary returns in the week beginning 4 January