These are the findings of our survey which asked the main public bodies in the region to identify their highest earners. In fact the results are much as expected and none of the salaries is out of line with what local authorities, health boards, police forces and the like are paying elsewhere in Scotland.

But that should not stop us asking whether such salaries are appropriate in the current financial climate.

The highest earner is NHS Highland's medical director Ian Bashford, who receives between £160,000 and £165,000 a year. An obstetrician who switched to general practice before becoming an administrator with the Scottish Executive, Dr Bashford's remuneration reflects the generally high rates of pay for senior clinicians. Yet that leaves him earning more than his boss, health board chief executive Roger Gibbins.

Just behind him in the league table is James Fraser, principal of the organisation which hopes soon to become the University of the Highlands and Islands. At £155,000 a year, his salary is £12,500 more than David Cameron's and a comfortable £20,000 ahead of the first minister but still a long way behind Duncan Rice, his equivalent at Aberdeen University, who is paid closer to £250,000.

Of course, while headline grabbing, it is pointless to compare salaries in this way. Is Mr Fraser, who manages 214 staff, really worth more than Highland Council chief executive Alistair Dodds, who has 10,000 employees on his payroll, or indeed so much less than his counterpart down the A96? Who can say.

What is clear is that the government is right to stand back and commission a review of public sector pay with a view to applying the brakes to what has, in some cases, become a seemingly unstoppable gravy train.

Let us not forget that the figures quoted above do not include benefits in kind or hefty pension contributions. On the one hand we are told that generous pensions are required because public sector pay is so much less than in the private sector. Yet the same organisations justify sky high executive salaries by claiming they are the only way of stopping the best talent leaving for private sector jobs. They cannot have it both ways, but too often they do.

We have no difficulty with the best people being well paid and all seven men (there are no women at the top of the public sector in the Highlands and Islands, but that is a separate issue) identified in our survey have acquitted themselves well in their different roles.

However, working in the public sector is a vocation and brings more than just financial rewards. It has traditionally offered additional job security and, in the Highlands, enables a lucky few to enjoy six figure salaries they would have to live in the central belt to receive in the private sector. For these reasons, public bodies should not slavishly follow the wages paid by industry.

The coalition government in Westminster has announced a two-year public sector pay freeze. Would it not be a wonderful display of leadership if our top seven also voluntarily sacrificed a proportion of their salary to offset the cuts their organisations are in the process of making?

A symbolic gesture perhaps, but it would show that they recognise what privileged positions they occupy.

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