UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian
Alan Travis Home affairs editor
Monday 13 July 2015
The New Zealand high court judge chairing a UK inquiry into child abuse is to receive a pay package worth £500,000 a year, it has been disclosed.
Justice Lowell Goddard, who officially opened the inquiry last week, is to receive a salary of £360,000 a year with a rental allowance of £110,000 a year and a £12,000 utility allowance on top.
The terms of her appointment also provide for four return flights a year to New Zealand for Goddard and her husband, plus two economy return flights a year for her family. The Home Office will provide her with a car and driver to be used for official travel only.
Goddard’s appointment is for the duration of the inquiry, which is expected to last until at least 2020, but she is on an initial fixed-term contract until December 2018 with provision to extend it for a further period to be agreed with the Home Office.
Keith Vaz, chair of the Commons home affairs committee, who has praised Goddard’s “outstanding credentials” for chairing the child abuse inquiry, nevertheless complained in March that his committee had been “duped” into approving her appointment without being told any details of her salary package.
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