London mayor appoints cost-cutter on £127,000
By Aled Thomas
Boris Johnson has appointed a cost-cutting consultant to the Greater London Authority at £127,000 a year.
The London mayor has given the job of advisor on budgets and performance to Nicholas Griffin, a former partner at Deloitte.
He will be charged with finding opportunities to cut costs across the Greater London Authority (GLA), including Transport For London.
Boris Johnson said: “Nicholas is a highly experienced individual and has an outstanding pedigree in corporate life. We would be hard-pressed to find anyone better qualified to bring out the best in City Hall and the other members of the GLA family.”
Mr Griffin, who starts work on Monday, said: “The GLA is a unique organisation with influence over practically every aspect of life in London and also has a vital role to play in the city’s economic recovery and in preparing the city for the 2012 Games.
“I am very much looking forward to working across such a wide range of issues and high quality projects to ensure that we deliver the mayor’s vision as effectively and efficiently as possible.”
The news comes at Mr Johnson and David Cameron appeared together today at Conservative election events, and the Tory leader tied to align himself with the successes of his fellow Old Etonian’s regime in London.
Mr Cameron said: “We talk a lot, some of the things he’s done like freezing the council tax we want to roll out across the country. His tree-planting scheme. He’s saved a lot of waste. and got the budget in better order. I work closely with him.”
Yesterday David Cameron said under a Tory government, high-earning public servants will not be able to make more than 20 times their organization’s worst-paid employee.
Mr Griffin’s salary of £127,784 is slightly more than six times the worst pay in the GLA, which a spokeswoman said was a little more than £20,000.
