The last British governor of Hong Kong once wrote that when he compared European governments with Hong Kong (and Asia in general), envy was largely absent as a motive in public policy. This, Chris Patten argued, meant that both tax policies and salaries for the civil service were viewed in the context of what works economically, as opposed to what made class warriors happy.
Thus, speaking of the civil service in his native Britain, the former Thatcher-era Tory minister argued that in some cases they should be paid more. In the context of that country, he favoured "A smaller but much better-paid public service, looking after a more narrow range of responsibilities." But he also did not equate compassion as invariably defined and linked with government as a growing share of the economy, a definition many of his mainland European counterparts often assumed.

In fact, looking at Europe in the early 1990s, Patten observed that it was those countries with large governments (that he labeled "ambitious, large and bossy") that had the most problems. They contained "disaffected citizens, with larger numbers in some countries like Germany and France drifting to the political extremes or even beyond them into a world of random violence." Large governments he argued, were not in and of themselves, some sort of safeguard against civil unrest. If they prevented decent economic growth and jobs, they may well contribute to it.

Local context: The civil service in British Columbia in 2002 is not at the end of some Thatcherist reformation. Instead, after a decade of New Democrat rule, government workers saw their salaries rise on average by 33% over the decade once pay increases and "grid creep" are factored in. (The former government moved employees up the pay grid to disguise pay hikes - sometimes by as many as five grids.) Some classifications saw salary rises by as much as 40%, this according to the former NDP government documents and reported two years ago in the Vancouver Sun.

B.C.'s public sector unions make the argument that all existing government services now provided can only be provided by them. It's not a convincing claim but even if it were, it does not in itself justify above-average salaries vis-à-vis the private sector to provide such services. In some cases, and on average, even after accounting for age, education, length of service, and other factors, the pay is higher than could be reasonably expected in the private sector. Besides, more civil servants at above-average salaries equals fewer services for the public, not more.

To get a grasp on both the exceptions and on the general rule as it now exists in B.C., the Liberal government should review all salaries from top to bottom, with an eye to tying them to private sector equivalents over time. There may be some salaries within B.C.'s civil service that are underpaid; exceptions to any rule exist. But after a decade of a government friendly and frisky with public sector unions, and unlike Chris Patten's home country, British Columbians already have a "much better-paid" civil service. It is the other part of Mr. Patten's advice - "smaller with a narrower range of responsibilities" that the Liberal government in Victoria should heed as it concerns the bureaucracy.


Mea Culpa:

Several weeks ago, I wrote that Statistics Canada reported there were 342,000 government employees in British Columbia and that they were full-time equivalents. Actually, that 342,000 figure (which covers federal, provincial, municipal and Crown Corporation employees) includes both full-time and part-time employees. Statistics Canada has no estimate of how many are full-time, though Stats BC does report that 90% of BC's employees are full-time. The point made in that column still stands; the predicted provincial job cuts of 8,000 to 11,000, should be compared to the total the number of government workers, direct and indirect, full-time and part-time, provincial and at all other levels, supported by taxpayers who pay for all levels of government. And that number is 342,000 in British Columbia.