Nigel Stanley

The public sector did not cause the crash but curbing the pay and pensions of public servants is the central part of the Lib Dem cuts package. The combination of a pay freeze and increased pension contributions would of course mean a cut in take home pay.

But according to today’s Guardian the Lib-Dems ‘would hope to protect, and even increase, salaries for lower-paid public sector workers by cutting the salaries of highly paid managers and by scrapping managerial jobs.’

Yet if you look at Vince Cable’s detailed figures he proposes:

Zero growth overall for public sector pay (saving £2.4 billion a year), a 25 per cent reduction in the total pay bill of staff earning over £100,000 and a salary freeze and end of bonuses for the civil service (saving £200 million a year).

The total public sector pay bill is £158 billion (according to today’s Guardian). It is hard to see how £200 million would make very much difference spread among the very many low paid public sector workers.