For somebody who is meant to be a behind-the-scenes determine, Sue Grey has managed as soon as once more to look on the centre of a political kerfuffle.
Keir Starmer’s chief of workers within the new Labour authorities, who went from backroom Whitehall fixer to being a family title because the investigator of Partygate, has been given a wage of £170,000 – about £3,000 greater than the prime minister himself.
The row has uncovered unrest inside Labour ranks forward of the celebration’s annual convention in Liverpool, which begins this weekend in a whirl of media protection. However what’s the context of the brouhaha?
What’s behind the row?
Grey was given a pay rise after the election, regardless of different political advisers, often called “spads”, being sad when their salaries have been decreased in contrast with the pay of their earlier Labour celebration jobs.
It was the BBC that first reported Grey was paid about £3,000 greater than Starmer’s wage of £166,786. That’s greater than any cupboard minister is paid, whereas a lot of Labour’s newly recruited particular advisers have joined a union over issues about their pay.
Nevertheless, the unrest issues extra than simply her pay amid a collection of leaks and briefings and alongside studies of an influence battle between Grey and the prime minister’s election technique guru, Morgan McSweeney.
How does her pay evaluate?
Grey’s rapid predecessor – Liam Sales space-Smith, the highest adviser to Rishi Sunak – was paid on the higher finish of the best pay band for particular advisers, between £140,000 and £145,000 a yr.
Her wage can be larger than the £140,000-to-£144,999 band Dominic Cummings obtained in 2020 for advising Boris Johnson. After adjusting for current excessive inflation, her deal is value marginally much less, although not each UK employee may boast of an inflation-beating pay rise over the previous 4 years.
Grey’s pay deal is nearly 5 instances the £34,963 median UK annual earnings for full-time staff, and is considerably larger than the typical £33,980 earned within the civil service. With a rise on the wage of her predecessor of about 17%, her pay bracket has additionally rocketed at nearly eight instances the present inflation charge.
It’s understood Starmer signed off a rebanding of the salaries for particular advisers shortly after taking workplace in July, in line with the BBC.
Nevertheless, Grey’s pay is considerably decrease than for some civil servants, together with the £200,000-to-£204,999 bracket for Simon Case, the pinnacle of the civil service – who’s going through strain to deliver ahead his departure date after a collection of damaging leaks and briefings.
A number of different public servants earn many instances extra, together with Mark Thurston, the chief government of HS2 Ltd, whose wage was in a band between £640,000 and £649,000 in 2022.
Underneath the final Conservative authorities, the general invoice for particular advisers within the monetary yr ending 31 March 2023 was £15.9m. This included £2.9m of “severance prices”, reflecting the revolving door on Downing Avenue on the time, with a few third linked to Liz Truss’s 49-day premiership.
Pay within the non-public sector can be considerably larger. The very best paid FTSE 100 chief government, AstraZeneca’s Pascal Soriot, picked up £16.85m in 2023 – a sum which it will take Grey nearly a century to earn.
What’s Grey’s position?
Most up-to-date prime ministers have appointed an in depth, trusted aide to advise them or assist wrangle inside celebration points on their behalf. Working from the shadows, these consigliere-like figures typically find yourself growing larger-than-life media reputations; typically infamously so, within the circumstances of Alastair Campbell and Cummings.
Grey is not any totally different, as a former civil servant with a popularity as “somebody who can knock heads collectively and get issues achieved”, introduced in by Starmer to assist the celebration to organize for presidency. A part of the very nature of her job is to behave as a lightning rod for inside grumbling.
After 14 years within the political wilderness, the thought was that her data of the Whitehall machine may assist Labour stand up to hurry for the duty of presidency in double-quick time. Whereas the celebration has pushed by way of a blitz of early adjustments, some civil servants complain that work stays to be achieved.
As a particular adviser, she is a part of a workforce of political appointees employed to assist frontline politicians. Underneath the earlier authorities, there have been about 117 in complete, including a political dimension to the recommendation and help accessible to ministers, complementing the politically impartial recommendation of the civil service.
The prime minister has at all times had the most important variety of, and highest-paid, particular advisers. Sunak had 41, an analogous quantity to Boris Johnson’s 43. The quantity has elevated drastically over current a long time, in line with Institute for Authorities evaluation, from about 38 underneath John Main to a most of 84 underneath Tony Blair.
The ministerial code says that cupboard ministers can appoint two spads except the prime minister permits them to nominate extra. Subsequent door to Starmer at No 11, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has an association which insiders say offers her extra firepower than most, having created a “council of financial advisers” with 4 members inside her first weeks in workplace.