We’ve also taken steps to provide better scrutiny of senior pay by ensuring that the Local Government (Democracy) (Wales) Act 2013 during the fourth Assembly improved transparency in how senior officers’ pay is decided through the establishment of independent remuneration panels. Rhodri Glyn Thomas AM ensured that all senior pay awards have to be scrutinised and voted on in councils, and that an independent remuneration panel had to make recommendations. This step removed the allegation and the perceived problem of things being done behind closed doors.

Our motion today calls for the introduction of a nationally decided set of pay scales and terms and conditions through a national framework. We’re also calling on the Welsh Government to define the role of local authorities’ chief executives in legislation, which would include abolishing additional payments to council officials for returning officer duties. Around £150,000 was paid to returning officers for their services during the 2012 Welsh Government elections, and why pay that?

The issue of senior management pay is of significant interest to the public, and the fact is that, really, telephone-number salaries in the public sector cannot be justified. The chief executive of Swansea council, appointed by Labour, earns just £2,000 less than the UK Prime Minister. The Labour-appointed chief of Carmarthenshire council earns just—. He earns, actually, £15,000 more than Theresa May, and I find that astonishing—more than the Prime Minister of the UK.

It’s not just the chief executives of councils, though—the salaries of senior management officers add up to millions, and, when Plaid Cymru ran Cardiff council, we got rid of a whole host of salaries over £100,000 a year, and we were actually praised by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, which takes some doing. When Labour got back in, they reintroduced fat-cat salaries of over £100,000 a year. [Interruption.] No. More than half the chief executives of Wales’s health boards earn at least £200,000 a year. On the Public Accounts Committee, we’re investigating housing associations, and rightly so, because the tenants are among the most vulnerable people and sometimes the poorest in Wales, yet the chief executives of these organisations earn six figures. Wales & West Housing, for example: the chief executive is paid £130,000 a year. When Nick Bennett was the chief executive of the umbrella group for housing associations, Community Housing Cymru, he increased the wage bill by 15 per cent in just one year, but the basic pay of staff only went up 2 per cent. Now he’s the Public Services Ombudsman for Wales, earning more than the Prime Minister—grade 5 of the judicial salaries’ pay scale, another example of a six-figure merry-go-round salary, over £140,000 a year. I’ll repeat that—over £140,000 a year.

Let’s mention Dŵr Cymru’s chief executive, Chris Jones. His pay last year, including two bonuses and a pension, was £768,000—three quarters of a million pounds. Now, excuse the irony, but a not-for-profit company, as they keep reminding us.

Now, are these people worth it? I would argue that they’re not, but that’s not part of the motion today. But I think it would be fantastic—.