25 July 2011 Last updated at 11:09 ET

Article written by Martin Rosenbaum Freedom of information specialist

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All highly paid public officials now disclosed

 

The salaries were revealed as part of a pledge to give the public more access to official information

The government has released the names of highly paid civil servants which were previously kept secret.

Last year ministers decided to publish the broad salary details of individuals working for public bodies who earned over £150,000 annually.

But when it issued the list in July 2010, the Cabinet Office said it was omitting 24 individuals who had objected to their salaries being publicly revealed.

The Cabinet Office has today been forced to disclose these names, after being instructed to do so by the information commissioner. This followed a freedom of information request for their identities made by the BBC. They are:

Name	Organisation
Geoffrey Sellers	Cabinet Office
John Sellers	Cabinet Office
Daniel Greenberg	Cabinet Office
B Richardson	Cabinet Office
David Chapman	Civil Aviation Authority
Daniel Bethlehem	Foreign Office
Keith Luck	Foreign Office
John Reid	Health Protection Agency
Robert George	Health Protection Agency
Barry Evans	Health Protection Agency
Barry Cookson	Health Protection Agency
Angela Iverson	Health Protection Agency
(unnamed)	Health Protection Agency
Robin Dormer	Law Commission
Annette Vernon	Home Office
John Collington	Home Office
Vince Gaskell	Home Office (IPS)
Sir Paul Kennedy	Home Office
Sir Peter Gibson	Home Office
Celia Carlisle	Olympic Delivery Authority
Ian McKinley	Pension Protection Fund
Nick Carter	Personal Accounts Delivery Authority
Mark Fawcett	Personal Accounts Delivery Authority
Nick Sex	Personal Accounts Delivery Authority
Stephen Soper	Pensions Regulator
Geoff Cruickshank	Pensions Regulator
Richard Thomas	Pensions Regulator

This information relates to last year when the main list was published, so some of these people have left their jobs since. For example this includes Daniel Bethlehem, who was the Foreign Office's chief legal adviser.

Lawyers feature strongly in the list. The four Cabinet Office names were all parliamentary counsel, who draft legislation. At least one of them, Daniel Greenberg, no longer works there.

Miscalculated

This list actually refers to 27 individuals. The Cabinet Office says that it was previously unaware of two Health Protection Agency staff who earned over £150,000, and that it miscalculated the remaining total as 24 when it should have been 25.

The Cabinet Office insists that it still does not know the name of one of the HPA staff who was in this earnings bracket, as the agency will not inform the Cabinet Office of the person's identity.

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The Cabinet Office also now states that it cannot be assumed that all these individuals themselves personally declined to have their salaries published.

For example, it indicates that it was the Home Office which did not want this data released for Sir Paul Kennedy and Sir Peter Gibson.

Although the government was forced into publishing this information, I suspect it may not be too unhappy to have received the commissioner's ruling that it should override the wishes of any individuals who did not want their high salaries to be disclosed.

It may assist the centre of government in its disputes with other parts of the state and some civil servants over the transparency agenda.

Update, 17:13: The Health Protection Agency state that the unnamed individual involved has left the agency and moved abroad, and that is why they will not reveal who it is.

Sir Paul Kennedy (the Interception of Communications Commissioner) and Sir Peter Gibson (the Intelligence Services Commissioner) are paid on a pro rata basis in line with judicial salaries that would take them over £150,000 annually on a full-time basis.