Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe LONDON, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- The number of employees working in Britain's public sector who earn at least $195,000 a year increased more than three-fold in the last five years. Six-figure salaries are no longer uncommon in the higher reaches of Whitehall and other publicly funded organizations, the Daily Mail reported Wednesday. Advertisement In 2001, 320 people earned $195,000 or more. In 2006, that number has grown to 996. "The problem is that high pay is often completely unmatched to the success or failure of government," said Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable. "You have departments like the Home Office where longstanding employees in the completely incompetent Immigration Directorate are just being rewarded for failure." Steve Tatton, editor of the IDS Executive Compensation Review, said the pay levels are a product of private business thinking in the public sector. "Outside private business people were brought in to bring new thinking and shake things up a bit in Whitehall," he said, "but they've also brought in their own pay levels."
