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Social Justice > Published by Will Straw, June 1st 2010 at 10:31 am

Coulson escapes salary headline

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Readers may be wondering why David Cameron’s Director of Communications and Planning, Andy Coulson, was not included in this morning’s list of “top civil service fat cats” splashed across a number of papers.

The simple answer is that the list only includes salaries paid up to 31 March 2010. But Mr Coulson, currently working in No. 10 Downing St, will be expected to top next year’s list if his reported salary of £475,000 turns out to be nearly half true.

The top civil servant on the list, John Fingleton earns just 59 per cent of the former News of the World Editor’s salary, which is equivalent to 20 times the national average.Someone on the London living wage of £7.60 would have to work for over 34 years to earn the reported amount.

Last month, David Cameron announced that Will Hutton would lead a review into public sector pay. According to the Guardian:

“Before the election, the [Conservative] party promised to set up the fair pay review to ensure no senior manager in the public sector could earn more than 20 times the lowest paid person in their organisation.”

When asked why Mr Coulson’s salary was excluded from the list, a Conservative party spokesman laughed and diverted Left Foot Forward to the Cabinet Office. A civil service press officer outlined that only salaries paid in 2009-10 were included.

  • http://twitter.com/andrewprg/status/15167143751 AndyG

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/juke_dehaan/status/15167300679 Juke de Haan

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/podwangler/status/15167446864 Pod Wangler

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/paulstanistreet/status/15167935417 Paul Stanistreet

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/davidbutler100/status/15168250306 David Butler

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/sesanbass/status/15168403202 BassMan Reborn

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • Michael

    This new politics is so transparent I can see right through it.

  • http://twitter.com/colals/status/15167088884 ALFIE SMITH

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/nicksherrard/status/15167100437 Nick Sherrard

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/bloggerheads/status/15169900608 Tim Ireland

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/calypsocollapso/status/15167807657 Richard Donne

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/yorkshiremao/status/15170148988 Mark A. Oxley

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/peter_j_roberts/status/15170427279 Peter Roberts

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/roborovski1/status/15170719770 Penfold

    Who'll be top public sector "fat-cat" next year? http://bit.ly/cx1zb1

  • John Lees

    Look at Steve Hilton Cameron’s pall – may be perhaps 250k?

  • http://twitter.com/gaipajama/status/15171343537 Carl

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • Sunder Katwala

    Has Steve Hilton’s salary been declared? Surely, in the interests of transparency, the new Coalition will want to announce now all new appointments who would make next year’s list?

  • http://twitter.com/nextleft/status/15169852956 Sunder Katwala

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/gabyhinsliff/status/15169879707 Gaby Hinsliff

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/misscampbell/status/15170039310 Jane Phillips

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/cllrtheo/status/15173464434 Theo Blackwell

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • joe fd

    There is a deeper irony here. It emerges from this public sector pay league table that the highest paid civil servant is in charge of fighting private market corruption. In whose interest would it be to cut the salary, status and resources of this role? Might it be that you need to pay a poacher’s salary to get a good gamekeeper?

    More broadly, this is a timely reminder of how far the govt’s and media’s focus has deftly slipped from the market to the state. Shouldn’t we be focused on reforming the private sector – since it was catastrophic market failure that was, you know, the cause of the financial crisis in the first place? But, I guess, all that questioning of global capitalism was so 2008.

  • http://twitter.com/quarrenne/status/15171077716 Quarrenne

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://bestblogs.labourhome.org/2010/06/01/coulson-escapes-salary-headline/ Coulson escapes salary headline « The best Labour blogs

    [...] More… [...]

  • http://twitter.com/gingercat123/status/15172999656 Irma Gorton

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/republicofjones/status/15183216205 Richard Jones

    Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/bPb3PZ /cc @feedly

  • http://twitter.com/adambienkov/status/15185834428 Adam Bienkov

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/andy_s_64/status/15187951547 Andy Sutherland

    RT @AdamBienkov: RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/davidmlondon/status/15200320958 David Mitchell

    RT @leftfootfwd Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • http://twitter.com/schooltruth/status/15238957428 Fiona Millar

    RT @leftfootfwd: Coulson escapes salary headline http://bit.ly/9ZERkg

  • Robert

    Who pays him the Tory party or the State, the question was asked on labour home. If the Tories are paying him then he is not being paid by the state is he.

  • http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/09/coulson-scandal-read-all-about-it-or-maybe-not/ Coulson scandal: Read all about it! Or maybe not… | Left Foot Forward

    [...] Will Straw reported in June, Coulson continues to use his control over the press to his personal advantage, preventing his [...]

  • http://simpkins83.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/the-devil-is-in-the-detail-looking-beyond-the-political-surface/ The Devil is in the Detail – Looking beyond the political surface. | What is Black, White and Red All Over?

    [...] I remember the appointment of Mr Andrew Coulson back in May 2010 as it took less than one month for the first political dirt to be smeared towards his employment as his reported annual salary was strangely missing from Cameron’s ‘hit list’ of Public Sector fat cats. With a salary estimated at the time to top £450k, it seemed somewhat hypocritical of the Prime Minister to exclude these details regardless of the date of his earnings passing the threshold of 2009 to 2010. Always eager to deflect the attention from Mr Coulson, the Tory media again cherry picked the information to their advantage to protect the already damaged integrity of the former News of the World Editor. Someone should have indeed tackled Mr Cameron and the Conservatives as this was wholly in breach of their own Public Sector ‘fair-pay’ review. [...]

  • http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/08/phone-hacking-what-does-andy-coulson-have-on-david-cameron-and-james-murdoch/ What does Coulson have on Cameron and Murdoch? | Left Foot Forward

    [...] at Left Foot Forward we have previously expressed concern over the salary paid to Coulson out of the taxpayers’ pocket. These concerns are particularly [...]