Public sector pay: Vince, you may just be a genius!

The recent proposal from Vince "I've forgotten more than George Osborne will ever know" Cable that pay rises in the public sector be limited to £400 is one of the more astute suggestions to have been made in recent weeks.

Those of us who work in the public sector - about one-third of those employed, if the old joke is to be believed! - are bracing ourselves for the worst. Both Labour and the Conservatives, egged on by various think-tanks, are now talking about the need to streamline, modernise and, inevitably, cut jobs. They also talk about the scandal of highly paid council officers and senior civil servants.

Taking the last point first, who exactly was it that agreed these rates of pay? It was hardly the case that those employed named their own price, somebody had to agree to set the going rate. If someone was to offer me £60,000 per annum to do my current job, I would assume that they thought it represented fair value rather than saying, "Gosh, that's a bit on the high side, I'll take £50,000 instead.". Perhaps the argument has been turned around when comparing these salaries with that of the Prime Minister, when it could be argued that, based on the skills required to run the country successfully, that his salary should be a lot higher. Of course, in the current climate, with money tight and politicians unpopular, such an idea stands but a snowball's chance in hell of being discussed seriously.

In terms of making the public sector more efficient, the question which remains unanswered is, "More efficient at doing what, exactly?". There appears to be no big idea other than some vague notion of localism. We know that Labour have acted in a manner entirely inimicable towards the notion since 1997, with unitary authorities covering larger areas and appearing ever more depersonalised. Before that, the Conservatives were equally keen to withdraw power from locally elected bodies, working instead through appointed quangos and, in the case of London, abolishing an unfriendly tier of government altogether.

And whilst the genuine commitment of Liberal Democrats to localism is based om a long-held philosophical sense that people can, for the most part, be trusted to behave in their best interest, it isn't a new, big idea. So an idea which addresses public concerns whilst protecting the low paid is to be welcomed.

A £400 pay rise for an administrative assistant in London equates to about 2.5%, and will be spent, thus boosting the economy. For me, it equates to about 1.3%, about what my current pay deal calls for anyway. There are a lot of us out there, who have votes and deliver frontline services - generally those that are only noticed in their absence.

So, in terms of the 'fairness agenda', and of good politics, this looks to be fiendishly clever. Married to our tax policy, again designed to leave more money in the pockets of the low-paid, you begin to sense the emergence of a coherent philosophy going into the election campaign proper...