More than half of senior CCG officers are being paid in excess of the NHS England’s recommended salaries, which commissioners are ‘strongly encouraged’ to follow, the first ever review of senior pay in the new organisations has found.
NHS England guidelines recommend that CCGs offer a salary of £130,000 for a chief officer and £120,000 for chief financial officers but, after reviewing annual remuneration reports for 208 CCGs’ for 2013/14, E-reward.co.uk found 56% of these senior positions were being paid in excess of the threshold.
However, the NHS Clinical Commissioning Groups: Boardroom Pay 2015 report found that the average salary of a CCG chief was less than the recommended salary, at £122,009, although the biggest earners were paid £172,500.
The highest earning chief finance officer was being paid more than £100,000 above recommended levels, a salary of £232,500 – though the average salary was £101,627.
Steve Glenn, E-reward.co.uk’s head of executive remuneration research said: ‘Whether the initial high-end positioning of salaries suggests that CCGs foresee recruitment and retention battles ahead remains to be seen but early indications are that there is already quite a bit of activity in the labour market for CCG executives even though it is only a couple of years since their establishment’.
Pulse reported last week that more than 70% of CCGs have also been approved to ‘co-commission’ GP services alongside NHS England, which enables them to introduce local QOF initiatives and performance manage practices.
