Mark Carney: hot property or expensive foreign mercenary?

Mark Carney clearly took some persuading to become the next governor of the Bank of England. Initially, he rejected the overtures of George Osborne and only took the post when it was agreed that he could serve for five years rather than the eight laid down in the job spec.

Now it transpires that Carney will trouser just shy of £900,000 a year for running Threadneedle Street: a basic salary of £480,000, plus 30% of his salary in cash in lieu of pension contributions, and a £250,000 a year housing allowance when he relocates from Ottawa to London.

This makes Carney one of Britain's best-paid public servants and would be a lot of money at any time. In a period when the Treasury is insisting on job cuts and stringent pay restraint in the public sector it looks excessively generous. There were other excellent candidates for the job with a long record of public service who would have been available for a lot less – Paul Tucker and Lord Turner among them.

The new governor has made all the right sort of public noises about how he is delighted to be the first Canadian to be governor of the Bank. But he gives the impression that he would rather have stayed at home furthering his political ambitions and accordingly set employment terms and conditions he thought Osborne would reject. But the chancellor showed a mountie-like tenacity. He was determined to get his man even if it meant spraying around taxpayers money to do so.

Osborne clearly thinks he has bagged the hottest property in central banking rather than an expensive foreign mercenary; someone who can calibrate monetary policy so that the massive stimulus provided to the economy over the past four years can be withdrawn at precisely the right moment. And, while he's at it, preside over the new regulatory regime for the City to ensure the excesses of the early 2000s are not repeated.

One of those excesses was that pay in the financial sector did not always match performance. Carney had better be as good as Osborne thinks he is.