First, it's usually a good idea to check the facts. Note 4 on page 19 of the LTA accounts to 30 September 2010 shows total staff costs of £13.224m for an average of 273 employees. That's £48,439 each.
BUT, the staff costs include employer's NIC of £1.313m and pension contributions of £0.508m. Take that out and you have an average of £41,769 each in actual pay and benefits.
Most employees are going to be in London, and most are going to be administrators and tennis coaches. Now, bearing in mind that the lowest paid administrator/secretary in London is going to be on about £25,000pa, an average salary of just under £42,000pa is really not particularly worthy of note - unless of course one is determined to snipe at the LTA about ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
Its true that the LTA do more than just run the pro game. They are involved in most things from that right down to grass roots. That requires a lot of staff and as you say, an average salary given what you state above is not THAT outrageous but I would still argue high as an average (especially in the current climate).
However they will always be judged on success at the top end of the game, whether fair or not. I don't think it a "snipe" to be amazed at the spend here given the current state of the sport when judged this way. Things have improved over the last few years without a doubt but, that is still an awful lot of money to spend given where GB is now or where it will be within the next few years. Wouldn't we all love to see more tournaments, wouldn't players like (and do better) with increased funding, couldn't more fans be attracted to follow the game that could lead to increased sponsorship/advertising? You could argue any of those points but, £13.3m is a hell of a lot of money to be spending in this area given our current standing.
OK, well I wasn't really commenting on the number of employees, just their pay. (To try to avoid any suggestion that I am an LTA shill, I would point out that it is normal for organisations to disclose in their accounts the pay of the highest paid employee. Guess who doesn't?)
I don't really see that you can make a meaningful comment on whether the number of LTA employees is excessive without knowing how many employees other countries have in their federations - plus of course one would have to look at each federation's responsibilities. For example, in France I believe that local government organises and pays for sporting facilities to a much greater extent than here.
Total LTA expenditure was c£60 million, including£16.2m on competitions, £13.4m on developing and supporting talent, and£13.7m on growing and developing tennis. (The £13.3m on employees is presumably spread across these categories.)
While the LTA may not be very good at what they do, I can't really see that they are doing anything fundamentally wrong in allocating their available funds.
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"Where Ratty leads - the rest soon follow" (Professor Henry Brubaker - The Institute of Studies)
an average salary of just under £42,000pa is really not particularly worthy of note Given Draper is on £400,000, just removing him from the equation would bring it back nearer £40,000. Remove the rest of the over-paid executives and I'd guesstimate it would fall to no more than £35,000 which isn't excessive for skilled employees many of whom are in London.
London weighting is 3K so you should always remove that if you want a more accurate UK wide figure. If the average is around 32K, I would say that is fairly average for a large charity, never mind a public professional body.
The real issue here isn't money, it's performance. And by that I mean of those at the very top of the organisation, which makes the debate about this fairly redundant.
