Published at 11:29, Tuesday, 27 March 2012

Highly skilled, experienced and motivated people are always in demand and should always be properly rewarded.

But you have to question whether a former top Cumbrian police officer was really worth £120,000 for just 240 days of work.

Graham Sunderland, who retired from the force in February 2009, was taken on just a month later as a consultant to the Association of Chief Police Officers.

News of his payments follows claims that health staff who received almost £700,000 in redundancies may be rehired to carry out similar jobs to their old ones.

There has long been a culture of top executives and well-paid staff from our public services being made redundant, or taking fully paid-up pensions, then returning to work as hugely well-paid ‘consultants’.

We’re sure Mr Sunderland was highly qualified for the ACPO contract and you can’t blame him or anyone else for taking on one of these golden consultancy roles.

The blame has to lie with the leaders of the organisations who decide on these scales of pay or who realise that they should not have laid off staff.

If people are made redundant, or retire, there should be some form of severance contract that states they forego their pay-off payments if they are rehired.

At a time when so many of us are struggling to cope with reduced wages or even to find work, it just seems wrong.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk