The salaries paid to the ACT's top officials will undergo a major review this year to ensure they are keeping pace with their federal and NSW counterparts, the ACT Remuneration Tribunal has announced.
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ACT Remuneration Tribunal chair Anne Cahill Lambert said it will be the first major review of the the salaries and entitlements of ACT public service executives since self government almost 30 years ago.
"We want to be competitive, we want to be sure that we're retaining good quality executive level public servants," she said.
"We've got the Commonwealth and NSW in our backyard so we need to make sure we're up to date with at least those jurisdictions, without necessarily over-egging it or overdoing it, we don't really want to be the leader in the pack but we do want to be competitive."
Top level executives are paid over $355,000 in the ACT while baseline executives are paid just over $149,000.
The tribunal also has double-dipping public servants in its sights, with the remuneration paid to part time office holders also under review.
"Our thinking there is if the taxpayer is already paying public servants they shouldn't be paid again," Ms Cahill Lambert said.
The ACT Remuneration Tribunal is required by law to review pay and entitlements at least once a year.
This year ACT politicians received a pay rise of 2 per cent, on par with the rise for executives, the heads of services and the directors-general.
That takes ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr's pay to $336,783, deputy Yvette Berry's salary to $288,671 and Opposition leader Alistair Coe's pay to $192,448.
The base rate paid to deputy opposition leader Nicole Lawder was raised from 15 per cent to 20 per cent, taking her pay to $192,448.
However Ms Cahill Lambert said because of changes to the pay structure two years ago, she is actually receiving less than her predecessor.
"The deputy leader of the opposition at that time received a loading of about 45 to 50 per cent and it was suggested to us by a number of people across the parties that it was probably too much," Ms Cahill Lambert said.
"We sliced it back to 15 per cent but we kept a grandfather clause in there that while the current incumbent was in there it would stay at whatever level it was so really it's just in the new assembly that the 15 per cent loading has been applied.
"It was brought to our attention again by a number of people that we've probably gone too far backwards so we decided to increase it from 15 per cent to 20 per cent reflecting the enlarged legislative assembly."
Meanwhile the ACT Supreme Court's Chief Justice will receive an extra $44,101 on top of her current $441,010, after a determination by the tribunal.
While many question the pay packets of our pollies and public servants, Ms Cahill Lambert said it was important to pay people in positions of power well to avoid corruption.
"There are still countries on this earth where public servants do deals on the side to get work done, we're a much better society than that and you do have to pay people to do a good job," she said.
Ms Cahill Lambert pointed out that the ACT's politicians were paid far less than some of their counterparts around the country.
"The politicians don't get much more than the ACT public servants at the base of the SES level where as the Commonwealth politicians, their base pay is $199,000 so ours are pretty modest by comparison," she said.
