The government’s top 10 earners received $3.6 million between them last year – an average of $362,000 per person, according to a newly published public interest report.
Salaries comprised about $253,000 of the total, with allowances, pensions and healthcare making up the remaining per-person average of $109,000.
The Office of the Auditor General published a report on Monday, 27 Nov. detailing the remuneration of Cabinet, judiciary, members of Parliament, and key civil service management in 2022.
The report comes after a decade of the government failing to disclose certain financial statements leading to a lack of easily accessible, consolidated, current data.
The aim is to “provide independent information and improve transparency”, the office says, as the public does not routinely have access to that information.
It added: “As a public interest report, it merely presents factual information without drawing conclusions or making recommendations.”
A low level of disclosure
Among the revelations in the report are that Cayman’s 11 members of Cabinet earned a yearly average of $304,502 which included salary, allowances, healthcare and pensions contributions.
Members of the judiciary received $302,000 each on average, while members of Parliament earned an average of about $285,000 each.
Chief officers earned about $204,000 each, and key management personnel in the civil service took home about $136,000 each.
While the report details starting salaries for top government positions such as premier, leader of the opposition and speaker, no one is identified nor their exact earnings listed.
Auditor General Sue Winspear told the Compass that international accounting standards require disclosure of the remuneration of governments’ key management personnel.
“That can range from naming individuals and their exact salaries and remuneration through to just a summary of key management personnel spend,” she said.
Each jurisdiction operates under the level of transparency “judged appropriate within that country”, with Cayman working under a low level of disclosure, Winspear explained.
Cabinet and judiciary
The 11 members of Cayman’s Cabinet received an average of $304,502 each in 2022 which included salaries, allowance, healthcare and pension contributions.
In total, $3.3 million went to the governor, premier, seven ministers and the two non-voting ex-officio members – the deputy governor and the attorney general.
Salaries were the main component, or 68%, of Cabinet members’ remuneration, but allowances formed a significant part, at 19%.
Cayman’s 11 judiciary members earned $3.3 million in 2022, or about $302,000 each on average, with salaries comprising about $239,000 of that total.
The members included the current and former chief justices, three Grand Court judges, a puisne judge, a chief magistrate and four magistrates.
The exact salaries will vary depending upon position, but those details are not available in the report.
It does, however, specify salaries of the chief justice and judges with effect from 2003, not including inflation-related pay increases since 2005 for judges.
It also includes the salaries of the chief magistrate and magistrates with effect from 2017, not including inflation-related pay increases since that date.
“Updated salary scales for judges and magistrates have not been published,” the report says.
Members of Parliament
Parliament has 21 members, comprising 19 elected MPs and two non-elected ex-officio members – the deputy governor and the attorney general.
Overall, the government forked out $6 million or $284,947 each on average to members in 2022 – with salaries making up $172,828 of the total.
Apart from the governor, all of the Cabinet members’ remunerations, which they receive in place of an MP salary, were included in the calculations, the report says.
MPs are paid based on the same salary scale as the civil service.
The scale increased by 2% from September 2022; however, MPs voluntarily decided to forego the increase.
The starting salaries of elected members of Parliament are detailed in the report in a table taken from the Parliament (Management) Act, 2020.
They include the premier, deputy premier, speaker, ministers, opposition leader, deputy speaker, deputy opposition leader, councillor or parliamentary secretary, and MPs.
Allowances are the second-highest component of MPs’ remuneration after salaries.
Each elected MP receives a monthly constituency allowance of $5,000 in addition to their salary – a total of $60,000 annually.
Other allowances include an additional monthly executive allowance of the same amount, $60,000 annually, for the premier.
The leader of the opposition receives an additional monthly executive allowance of $3,500, or $42,000 annually, the report says.
The MPs for Cayman Brac and Little Cayman each receive an additional monthly allowance of $5,000 – $2,500 for accommodation and $2,500 for transportation – or $60,000 annually.
The deputy speaker and deputy leader of the opposition each receive an additional monthly allowance of 2.5% of their salaries.
And parliamentary secretaries receive a monthly duty allowance of between $1,000 and $2,000 each at the premier’s discretion.
Civil servants
In 2022, the government paid 4,566 civil servants a total of $360.4 million in salary, allowance, healthcare and pension contributions – or about $79,000 each on average.
That is more than one-and-a-half times the average Cayman wage of $49,611 per year.
However, salaries vary greatly, ranging from $20,808 at the bottom of the scale for trainees, to $239,604 at the top for the premier.
About 77% comprised salaries and allowances, while the remainder of about $81.5 million, or 23%, was for healthcare and pension contributions, the report says.
The Ministry of Education had the highest number of employees and incurred the greatest cost.
The Office of the Commissioner of Police, the Ministry of Border Control and Labour, and the Ministry of Home Affairs were the next three largest employers.
As of December 2022, there were 260 key management personnel in the civil service in 2022, comprising about 6% of the total number of civil servants, according to the Office of the Auditor General.
They earned about $136,000 on average, with salaries comprising about $100,000. The total government spend was $35.4 million.
Their earnings equate to about 10% of the civil service’s total staff pay.
This number is likely to rise as the government discontinued three ministries and created six new ones in 2021, increasing the number of civil service entities from 18 to 21.
As of December 2022, the civil service had yet to fill some key management personnel roles within these newly created ministries.
Chief officers and total key management personnel
Each civil service entity is headed by a chief officer, so there were 21 chief officers as of December 2022.
Overall, they earned about $204,000 each on average last year, with salaries making up about $155,000 per person – a total of $4.3 million, the report says.
All key management personnel earned about $154,000 each – or a total of $45 million – in 2022, with salaries making up about $111,000.
They included Cabinet, judiciary, MPs, chief officers and civil servants.
Civil service key management personnel made up about 69% of this total.
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