Saw a very brave man driving to work this morning.

No incopadance, many other companies havce performed much better and yet pay there managment signifigantly less. The idea that paying more gets a better management just doesn't hold up in the real world.

Seems obvious to me that there are two sides to this, firstly, you need to offer pay that will attract the better managers. If you offer small salaries, the best potential candidates will just go to the companies / organisations that offer larger ones. You will *only* be left with the candidates who can't compete for the better paid jobs.

Conversely, those inferior candidates will also apply for the high salary jobs

- you have to filter out the wheat from the chaff or you can quite easily end up with a poor manager being paid the salary of a top performer.

For something like Rover over the last few years, it's a real sword of Damocles. All the worthwhile potential candidates will know that the company is basically doomed. They can eke it out and look to convert it and so on, but what you have to say is the long term prospect is dismal failure and the managers will have a failure, whatever they do, it just might not be such a bad failure as if you had incompetents in charge.

Naturally, you would have to pay the same person more to head Rover for a few years, and end up with egg on their face even though he or she may do an excellent job, than you would have to pay them to preside over, for example, London Underground where (let's say) things will mostly run themselves fairly well, and they can instead concentrate on making their time worth noting on their CV as a glorious success.

It's opinion as to what sort of management Rover got, but I would assume the various salaries and things were worked out before they took over. Otherwise it would be fraud against the shareholders, or sommat, wouldn't it?

Footnote see government. ;)

There are quite a few, the waste of money irks me.

IIRC the Chief of Cambridgeshire Police has personal plates on th eblack Jag that he gets chauffered around in by a police officer who could be better employed on traffic duty.

Do CCs have to give back their drivign licenses when they take the job? If not, they should bloody drive themselves in a basic Panda Car.

I reckon many of them have driving bans...

Yes, well the salary for the PM and cabinet is way too low to tempt people who run private enterprises.

Similarly, if Blair et al were in charge of MG Rover, it wouldn't have made it into the 90's, much less into the year 2000 and on.

Arguably, that's what did for the british car industry in the first place, the government nationalising it. It was the bits they didn't get that survived for longest.

OTOH you don't really want the sort of people who run big multinationals in number 10, either.

Yes, I totally agree.

I was referring to Police vehicles - ie, for doing traffic work etc. Obviously the execs company cars etc. are a different kettle of fish :)

Yep, I was just about to mention that.

Because you carry all the responsibility.

If crime figures rise, then it's on *your* head, not the beat officer's !

I think I'll join you in that certainty then.

So as above, how on earth do they get away with that ? That's just a complete and utter waste of your (and my !) taxes !

Seconded - what a ludicrous waste of my money !

If there's a bloke with a knife on the loos in the local shopping precinct or you need to arrest someone with a known record for violence towards police officers is it the management that do in and risk there necks? If you are managing the police and crime goes up what's the worst that will happen to you? You may get the sack (often with a golden handshake) but often as not you don't (burglary in north Wales had a massive jump yet Brunstrom hung onto his job) so who is taking the big risks hear beat officers with the threat of being killed on a daily basis or management with the possibility of being mare redundant (with a relatively large pension) at the end of the year?

They're 'freebies' half of the time. Police are a good bulk buyer and manufacturers like to sweeten the pot.

Not quite sure what Lotus were thinking when they gave Norfolk Police an Elise tho... (Plus there was that Lotus Esprit Police car a couple of years ago).