Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff has received a post-election pay rise, meaning she is now paid more than the prime minister.
The BBC was told that Sue Gray asked for and was given a salary of £170,000 – £3,000 more than the PM and more than any cabinet minister – or her Tory predecessor.
A source told the BBC: “It was suggested that she might want to go for a few thousand pounds less than the prime minister to avoid this story. She refused.”
The decision has sparked a row in the government over Mrs Gray, her report as a senior official in parties in Downing Street during the pandemic contributed to the downfall of Boris Johnson.
She then he went to work as a Labor Party adviser.
His Conservative predecessor Liam, now Lord, Booth Smith, who worked under Rishi Sunak, was paid at the top end of the highest pay band for special advisers. between £140,000 and £145,000 a year.
Ms Gray’s pay rise comes after the prime minister signed off on a pay overhaul for special advisers shortly after taking office.
The government says the rebanding was done by officials, not Ms Gray herself, and her salary is not at the top of the new higher band for special advisers.
News of Ms Gray’s pay rise, reported to the BBC by a number of Whitehall sources, is the latest in a string of leaks about her that paint a picture of fractious relations at the top of the government, a few months after the Labor mandate.
“It speaks to the dysfunctional way No10 is run – no political judgement, an increasingly grandiose Sue who considers herself Deputy Prime Minister, hence the salary and no other voice for the Prime Minister to listen to while everything goes through Sue,” An insider told the BBC.
The prime minister earns £166,786.
One angry government insider branded Ms Gray’s payout “the highest special adviser salary in the history of special advisers”.
Others in the government are speaking passionately in Mrs Gray’s defense and believe there is a misguided and deeply personal campaign against her that is grossly unfair.
A government source said “any questions should be directed at the process and not at an individual.”
Ms Gray’s salary has sparked such controversy in government in part because other councilors believe they are underpaid.
Each cabinet minister has at least two special advisers, many of whom have also worked with them in the opposition.
Then, they were paid by the Labor Party.
Most expected salary increases upon entering the government only to find out that they would actually be paid less.
Many of the disgruntled councilors blamed Ms Gray specifically – although others insisted pay was a matter for civil servants.
The majority of those on the committee in Whitehall responsible for the pay and special conditions of special advisers are civil servants, but both Mrs Gray and Morgan McSweeney, the prime minister’s director of political strategy, are also on this.
“It’s strange,” one furious councilor told the BBC. “I’m working harder than ever in a more important job and they want to pay me less than the Labor Party paid me when I was broke.”
These frustrations are not limited to junior advisers.
A source said the prime minister’s communications director, Matthew Doyle, was initially offered a salary of £110,000, significantly less than Ms Gray.
This was later raised to £140,000, a figure in line with many of his predecessors doing the same job.
There is no suggestion that there was anger internally over Doyle’s pay.
Many special advisers worked for weeks without being shown a proposed employment contract, meaning that when they found out what their salary would be they essentially had no choice but to accept it.
Again, Mrs. Gray was widely blamed for the delay in the formal contracts being circulated.
When Ms Gray was hired as Starmer’s chief of staff in 2023, she was tasked with working on preparing Labor for government.
The special advisers see the queue on their salaries as a sign that the work has not been carried out in sufficient detail.
“If you ever see proof of our preparations for government, let me know,” said one adviser.
When a new government is elected dozens of new special advisers arrive all at once.
To ensure that people are paid immediately, they were each put on a maintenance salary, while the new payment bands were worked on.
Others questioned why the initial batch of ministerial appointments, which Ms Gray oversaw, took so long given the chief of staff had months to plan.
A minister for the Middle East, Hamish Falconer, was not appointed until July 18, two weeks after the general election.
Successive Conservative governments have also explored increasing the pay of special advisers, before concluding “politics is wild”, as one Tory source said, to give advisers pay rises when millions of families were struggling with the cost of living.
Under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, proposals for increases were fully drawn up, we are told, “but were rejected because they were seen as indefensible”.
Those in government now argue that the pay of special advisers had become well out of line with others in Whitehall and needed to be raised.
But others still think Ms Gray’s pay is excessive.
A Cabinet Office spokesman told the BBC: “It is false to suggest that political appointees have made any decisions about their pay bands or determine their own pay.
“Any decision on the payment of special advisers is made by officials, not politicians. As established publicly, special advisers cannot authorize the expenditure of public funds or have responsibility for budgets.
The Conservatives said Labor had 10 questions to answer, including whether the prime minister personally signed off on Ms Gray’s new salary and the increase in the maximum to the highest pay band.
They also asked whether a special counsel remuneration committee still exists and whether Ms Gray is a member, as well as what role she played in setting her salary and changing pay bands.