Charities shouldn't need to pay huge salaries

Everybody seems to be looking over their shoulder at everybody else's pay packet at the moment, and I've been inspired to join in, having read about the number of charity bosses being paid large six-figure salaries. The trade union Unite, which represents 60,000 people working in the not-for-profit sector, has highlighted examples such as Age Concern, Anchor Trust and Riverside Housing Group, where the chief executive's salary is more than the £197,000 earned annually by the Prime Minister.

They are concerned that over-generous remuneration is corrupting the ethos of the charity sector. The justification from apologists for those in receipt of these big salaries is that you need to pay a lot to somebody who is running a complex business, and that they could in any case earn even more in other areas.

Which appears to me to contain an inherent contradiction. If money really is the only motivator, as they seem to be suggesting, then everybody will no doubt rush off to become a big cheese in finance, where obscenely big pay packets are still de rigueur, in spite of the desperate necessity for taxpayer support just a few months ago. In reality, though, most people evaluate their employment on a range of measures, one of the most important of which (once you are fortunate enough to be earning enough to cover your outgoings) is the amount of satisfaction gained from doing the job. Being privileged to work at something where what you do really makes a difference to other people's lives should weigh considerably more than knowing that you are at the top of the premiership when it comes to earning power. 

So I don't think charities need to beguile potential chief execs with huge pay packets - they are actually offering something much more important, or should be, if they are true to the charitable purposes for which they were first established. On the other hand, if charities really have become just another big business as I suggested in an earlier blog posting, and are more focused on commercial activities than philanthropy, then perhaps they will need to offer pay packets like big businesses, competing for the services of people who do only measure their success in terms of money. Because they will have lost their unique appeal, and that will be a loss for all of us.