John Armitt, chief executive of Network Rail, salary and bonus of ?878,000 - rising to more than ? 1m when pension contributions are included.

Ed Richards, who was appointed earlier this month to head Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator. He is expected to be paid a similar amount to Stephen Carter, his predecessor, who earned ?369,417 plus benefits giving him a total package of ?440,000.

Source - Sunday Times, 8th October 2006

However, you may wish to consider that the BBC is publicly funded and presenters such as Jonathan Ross earn million of pounds of public money from the BBC. ?700k bonuses may be rare in most of the public sector, but there are exceptions such as the BBC, Post Office, Network Rail, and Ofcom. But would Network Rail operate any better in the private sector? I think we tried that and found that less work gets done in the private sector.

If there are some in the public sector who get paid too much and work too little, then we should remember all those that do not get paid enough and work very hard in the public sector. I'm thinking particularly of nurses but there are many others who contribute so much more than people of equivelent pay in the private sector. How many nurses could be paid for by the earnings of Jonathan Ross alone?