Quote: Generous side deals that allowed two senior NHS executives to add up to £100,000 to their salaries have been condemned by the government as "relics of the past".
Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, said that such deals would be banned in the future as the government reins in public sector salaries under George Osborne's plan to eliminate Britain's structural deficit by 2015.
Maude spoke out after the Cabinet Office published the details of the salaries of all public servants, including those working in quangos, earning £150,000 or more.
The figures show that Sir David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS whose basic salary is between £275,000 and £279,999, was given a "gross benefit in kind" of between £55,000 to £59,999 to help pay for a rented flat in London and what were described as associated expenses. The Department of Health, which said Nicholson's "main residence" was in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, when the benefit was first disclosed, said he stopped receiving the extra payment in May 2011.
David Flory, deputy chief executive of the NHS and whose basic salary is between £245,000 and £249,999, received an extra £35,000 to £39,999 for accommodation and travel expenses for living away from home.
Maude said: "These kind of deals are relics of the past. It is absurd to expect that people can be paid the same amount in the public sector as they are paid in the private sector. People come in [from the private sector] to do jobs at senior levels in the public sector because they have an opportunity to make a big difference in the public sector, where they can work on a huge canvas. | 
