Vaizey asks the �100,000 question

Tory newcomer Ed Vaizey, MP has asked DCMS the million dollar question – or at least the hundred thousand pound question – how many people at Ofcom get paid �100,000 or more per year and what do they do for it? See below.

Vaizey asks a good question. And gets a poor answer from DCMS Creative Industries and Tourism minister James Purnell, MP. If Vaizey took a look in the Ofcom Annual Report and Accounts held in the House of Commons library as suggested by Purnell he would find that only the renumeration of the Board, Executive and Advisory Committees are revealed.

So doing this wouldn’t really answer the question – since there are quite a number of other Ofcom employees on �100,000+ who don’t sit on the Board, Exectutive or Advisory Committees – that is if Parliament has the same report as the rest of us! I suspect it does.

Why is Ofcom so nervous about publishing this information? Here at OW we have asked Ofcom a number of times for a list of job titles and salaries – but without any joy.

Surely Ofcom would be able to justify the salaries it pays its senior staff based on the job they are requried to do. Good people cost money.

However this has become an area with little transparency. Any insight out there? – blog@ofcomwatch.co.uk

House of Commons Hansard – Written Answers – 31 October

Ofcom (Employee Salaries)

Mr. Vaizey: To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport how many employees of Ofcom earn �100,000 or more a year; and what the job title is of each.

James Purnell: Ofcom is the independent regulator for the communications sector, deriving its main powers and duties directly from statute rather than by delegation from the Secretary of State, and accountable to Parliament in its own right. All disclosed remuneration information is contained in Ofcom’s Annual Report and Accounts, published in July 2005. Copies are available in the Libraries of both Houses.