Goddard Inquiry: New Zealand Judge Becomes Britain’s Highest Paid Civil Servant with ?5m Pay Package

By Robert Mendick
Telegraph
July 29, 2016

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/29/goddard-inquiry-new-zealand-judge-becomes-britains-highest-paid/

Dame Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand judge heading the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry, could receive more than ?5 million in pay and perks amid fears hearings will drag on for a decade, The Telegraph can disclose.

Dame Justice Goddard’s remuneration package, which includes numerous free flights home and a ?110,000 a year rental allowance, has catapulted her to the top of the public servants’ paylist.

Campaigners described the flight and accommodation allowances as “highly questionable”.

The judge earns a basic salary of ?360,000 a year. But that is topped up with the rental allowance, an additional ?12,000 a year for utilities bills and a car and driver for official business - all paid for by the Home Office.

The four free return business class flights to New Zealand every year for her and her husband is a further perk reckoned to be worth ?40,000 annually. Business class return flights to new Zealand typically cost ?5,000.

On top of that her immediate family - thought to be the couple’s four children - are each entitled at British taxpayers expense to two return flights each between the UK and New Zealand. The value of those flights is about ?15,000.

The huge sums will cause alarm amid concern that the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA), set up in March 2015 by the then Home Secretary Theresa May, is already behind schedule.

No public hearings are now expected until March next year “at the earliest” with one lawyer, representing a number of child abuse victims, suggesting the inquiry could easily last ten years.

If it does drag on that long, Dame Justice Goddard’s remuneration package will easily have exceeded ?5 million. The flights for herself and family will have cost the Home Office in the region of ?550,000.

Dame Justice Goddard has said “her sincere hope and expectation is that it will be possible to conclude the inquiry’s work before the end of 2020”.

But the first public hearings due to start in September into claims Lord Janner of Braunstone, who died in December last year, sexually abused children and that his crimes were covered up has been postponed until march next year at the earliest.

Public hearings into two other strands of the inquiry - into abuse within the Anglican and Catholic churches - are not likely to begin any sooner than the second half of next year.

It means that it will have taken two years for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, established by the then Home Secretary Theresa May in March 2015, to hold substantial public hearings into any of 13 separate strands it is currently investigating.

Dame Justice Goddard was presumably in a decent bargaining position to negotiate her pay package when the Home Office invited her to become the inquiry’s chair. The two previous choices - Baroness Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf - were forced to quit within short succession after campaigners complained they were too close to some of the people who would allegedly be dragged into the inquiry.

Dame Justice Goddard is thought to have earned ?180,000 a year in her previous job as a High Court judge in New Zealand.

Her current salary dwarfs the pay of other high profile inquiry chairs.

Sir John Chilcot, who headed Iraq Inquiry, was paid a day rate of ?790 – equating to ?205,400 a year – while Sir Brian Leveson who chaired the inquiry into Press standards and ethics took his normal ?197,000 judge’s annual salary.

She is also paid substantially more than the highest-paid judge in England and Wales, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the Lord Chief Justice, who receives just under ?250,000 and almost twice the salary of Simon Stevens, chief executive of NHS England.

Harry Davis, campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Justice Goddard is presiding over a serious and sensitive inquiry, but the financial deal handed to her will rankle with many taxpayers.

“Given that she is being paid an extremely high salary, her generous ‘living allowance’ and international flights home are highly questionable.” he added: “The authorities owe it to taxpayers to keep the costs of these arrangements under control, especially when the inquiry over which she is presiding could last for a number of years.”

The Taxpayers' Alliance said by its reckoning only two public servants - both involved in the HS2 high speed rail link - earned more.

Some lawyers have privately expressed concern about the delays and the handling of the inquiry by Dame Justice Goddard. In one exchange during preliminary hearings last week, she admitted she was unsure of 'local law' - meaning English law - when police tried to block some details of an investigation being made public.

A spokeswoman for the Inquiry said: " The Inquiry is committed to completing its work as quickly and cost effectively as possible while remaining thorough.

"It will publish reports on investigations as they are completed during the course of the Inquiry, not wait until the conclusion of the full Inquiry.

"It will also publish an interim report in 2018 (as it is required by its terms of reference to do) and annual reports to reflect progress to date and work going forward."