Salary of Permanent Secretaries
| Date | 01 June 1983 |
| Author | A. M. ALFRED |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1983.tb00517.x |
| Published date | 01 June 1983 |
CORRESPONDENCE
223
Take the aged person in the British community. What might have been the fate
of the discussion document
A
Happier
Old
Age
if
it had enabled aged persons and
others to see their lives, or at least some more or less familiar aspects of their lives,
in a new light, and to gain some insight into alternative forms of life that might be
adopted;
if
it had promoted dialogue between the aged and the social planners;
if
in the aged’s improved self-understanding
of
their position it had
led
to the
development of a third type of knowledge which Habermas has described as
criticism?
This
is
a type of intellectual activity which involves not only the seeing of one’s
situation in a new light through interpretation, but also ‘seeing through it’. That is,
through such knowledge a situation not only becomes more transparent to that
sector of society experiencing it, but the coercive forces operating are also
recognized at their very source.
It
is
the new awareness that comes with such knowledge
-
criticism
-
which,
Habermas suggests, places the planners in a better position to ’steer’ or ‘control’
that situation. It
is
the new awareness that the policy-maker cannot suppress,
because the crucial knowledge has been created long before any Government
White Paper releases the information.
DR. HELEN SUNGAILA JANUARY 1983
Senior Lecturer in Educational Planning
Centre
for
Administrative
b
Higher Education Studies
University
of
New
England
Sirs,
Salary
of
Permanent
Secretaries
I
refer to p. 479
of
the Winter 1982 issue of
Public Administration
and would ask you
to
publish the following correction.
The
reference occurs in the note on the salaries of permanent secretaries, and
after mentioning a figure
of
f56,000
comments that:
It
is
interesting that the salaries paid in recent years to attract
....
and
Mr Montague Alfred to second permanent secretary status from outside the
service, have been at about this level.
I
cannot speak for others but as regards my remuneration the facts, as have
been publicly stated on several occasions, are that: (a) the payment of
€50,000
per
annum was a fee and not a salary; (b) as a result
I
take responsibility for pension
arrangements; (c)
I
also bear the cost of National Insurance contributions myself.
As
a matter of arithmetic,
it
is now possible since the advent of index linked gilts
to purchase an index linked pension, which for a person of my age would have cost
f
11,500
per annum in 1982 to match civil service terms. The corresponding annual
cost to me of employer’s National Insurance contribution and life insurance (to
provide the equivalent of civil service cover) was
€2,000.
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