Former cabinet secretary says £200,000 job is ‘significantly underpaid’

Former cabinet secretary Lord O’Donnell said the top civil servant position was “significantly underpaid”.

He is involved in the recruitment process for a £200,000-a-year position following Simon Case’s decision to resign from his role for health reasons.

Lord O’Donnell, who held the position from 2005 to 2011, told the BBC the “extremely demanding job” should command a higher salary.

The Cabinet Secretary is the most senior civil servant in the UK.

The job involves advising the Prime Minister, leading the implementation of government policy, and managing other high-level officials.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The Westminster Hour, Lord O’Donnell described the position as an “enormous job”.

He said: “In my opinion it is definitely underpaid considering I have been paid a lot more since then and done a lot less.”

Lord O’Donnell was Cabinet Secretary to three Prime Ministers. He was promoted to this position under Tony Blair in 2005 and remained in this position from 2007 to 2010.

He stepped down in 2011 under David Cameron’s coalition government.

Recruitment is underway for the position of cabinet secretary Simon Case, who has announced he will step down by the end of the year.

In announcing his resignation, Case said he had been undergoing treatment for a “neurological condition” for the past 18 months.

He emphasized that his resignation was “solely for health reasons and has nothing to do with anything else.”

Lord O’Donnell said whoever replaces Case would need to have a “good relationship” with the prime minister’s chief of staff Sue Gray.

“Sue knows the civil service backwards,” he said. “I would say this should be one of the easiest parts of the job.”

Ms Gray, who was previously a senior civil servant herself, found herself at the center of a dispute over her own salary in September after the BBC revealed she earned £170,000 a year.

This is more than the Prime Minister, who earns £166,786.