Individual,
Apologies for my attribution failure a couple of hours ago.

High salaries aren't necessarily a problem, but failing to get our money's worth is.
Aidan,
Isn't that what this is about ? We're not getting the money's worth from all on the public purse !
If you weren't one of them you'd agree !

Individual,
Wow, you're really getting ahead of yourself there - not only (wrongly) guessing my personal circumstances, but also declaring under what circumstances I'd agree with the idiotic claims you make! And I say idiotic because you keep displaying a combination of ignorance and arrogance - you seem to have trouble comprehending that the claims you make might not be correct.

>Isn't that what this is about ? We're not getting the money's worth from all on the public purse !
Not exactly. You're assuming everyone to be incompetent whether they're competent or not, and forgetting that cutting or freezing their pay is likely to result in the most competent leaving.

So what should be done to make the public sector more efficient? CROWDSOURCING SCRUTINY!
Except where there's a very good reason not to do so, the public sector should publish everything - not only what they do themselves, but what they commission from consultants. Appropriate financial reward should be given to people who can find where genuine cost savings could be made. And a proportion (maybe 10%) of the cost of each report commissioned should be withheld for a few weeks while the public try to identify errors and major shortcomings - if they are found, the money should go instead to those who find them.

I suppose I should declare that (unlike what you were suggesting) this is something I would financially benefit from.