Katherine Kerswell: Licence To Take Money

Katherine Kerswell, ex-Northamptonshire County Council, now ex-Kent County Council lives on a different planet to the rest of us. If only she did, and all those other misguided Chief Execs on the planet. Those people who work for the public, very directly, but think the work they do deserves pay packets that the rest can only dream of.

Dear Katherine joined Northamptonshire County Council in September 2007 where she had a pretty reasonable (read ridiculous) salary of £197,135 a year. She defended this amount during office stating that it was just 29p per person in the county. The Royal Family costs 51p per person in the country, therefore Queen Katherine is over half as important as the Queen herself.

Ok, 29p doesn't sound a lot does it when you break it down, and of course they do such a vital job that you need to pay that to get the "best people". However like the bankers that have screwed things up elsewhere, do we actually get the "best people"?

Now Queen Katherine didn't exactly leave Northamptonshire in a blaze of glory to many, and now it would seem she hasn't exactly left her destination, Kent in a blaze of glory either.

Queen Katherine saw through a slash and burn system in Kent, bringing in £340 million cuts and setting off a plan to remove 1500 jobs over four years. A vital thing to do in these stringent times it seems. What better to save the country that to sack 1500 people, and end up paying the poor souls unemployment benefit. After all we are all in this together.

So anyway, back to Queen Katherine. Now it seems she it out of there. Made redundant after just 16 spectacular months of destroying peoples lives, her life is now in tatters as she signs on the dole. Oh hang on, no of course not. She was after all on £200,000 a year in this job, so she may have been able to save a bit for those hard times ahead. Having said that, she still could have a bit of trouble and as the council have been every so rude in sacking her, perhaps they should give her a little payoff to help her along. Yes, that's right, £20,000 maybe? No? £50,000 then at a stretch?

No of course not, this is a person who is over half as important as the Royals don't forget, and has had the hard task of sacking 1500 people. Here have £420,000 to help you along.

Like I said, these people think they are gods, they tell us how important they are, how vital they are, they can demand the earth, and it seems there is always someone idiotic enough to believe them. So round and round they go, doing the job, moving on, doing the job and moving on. They really are quite clever ain't they?

Katherine Kerswell, smiling all the way to the bank.