Whaaaat!!

Heather Brooke, The 'Queen of Freedom of Information Requests' has a most revealing article in the Guardian's Comment Is Free section.

Discussing the compensation package of Hugh Orde, the outgoing Northern Ireland chief constable and now head of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) it appears that his compensation package included:

"rent-free living in a £600,000 luxury home (purchased at taxpayer expense) along with the payment of all utility bills, including phone bills, electricity, rates, heating and property maintenance. This is in addition to a salary of £183,954 plus an annual bonus of up to 15% of salary. Other extras included £360 a year for broadband, £600 for private healthcare, and membership fees for Acpo and the Chief Police Officers' Staff Association, estimated to be £1,000 annually. Another £8,294 was claimed for oil and £13,413 for rates, while £33,904 was spent to repair "defective combined drainage system" and to replace the kitchen."

'Free' utility bills, phone bills, electricity, rates, heating and property maintenance???? So his £183,954* plus his annual 15% bonus was 'pocket money'? WTFF?!

And even more surprising is the comment by the former Police Federation chairman:

"Spratt tells me that when you have a £1.2bn budget "you can't really keep track"."What you're presented with are accounts that are, well I wouldn't exactly call them basic, but they're not going into any great detail, and it's only when you start probing into the detail that you find these things out. I wanted to know what I was signing my name to."

It would perhaps help if all those 'accountants', signing off the accounts to all the quangos, NGOs and 'fake charities', etc applied the same principles.

The response, to Heather Brooke's FOI request, by the City of London police is telling as is Heathers point about it being taxpayer's money!

If Hugh Orde's 'compensation package' is symbolic of that on offer to heads of quangos and NGOs in general then perhaps we need to get a bit of 'Orde'(r) into the system?


* Perhaps my fellow bloggers, who are 'financially savvy' would care to work out what this salary, with 'freebies', would be worth to those of us 'paying the bills'?