Public-private wage divide gets 50% wider

Dylanwing

The biggest savings could be made by getting rid of outside consultants

Utter leeches. Basically, we pay them a fortune to come in, talk to staff, dress up their ideas in Corporate BS and pass them off as their own. And generally it involves buying further services from the leeches of course. I did once work with Consultants on a project, which was to investigate a process, and provide a report recommending the desired outcome. So that's about £250K to back up a poor decision by an over-promoted senior manager. There is a lot of talent in the civil service, but it is just not properly used. And before you all jump, yes it can also be a home to people who would otherwise be unemployable.
BTW, I have worked in the private sector too. The Public Sector has done far more to develop my talents by fully supporting me in a degree course, both financially and time-wise. Quality of staff is pretty much the same, CS has more indecisive paper-shufflers, private sector has more self-centred, arrogant !!!!!!. Both buy into the latest management BS (Hot-desking, FISH etc.). Both have some excellent low-grade staff who are under-valued.

beingjdc

stonethrower wrote: »

I think they will tax civil servants pensions eventually just like they have just done in Ireland.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0203/economy.html

These rates look very similar to the current UK contribution rates, at least for the Local Government Pension Scheme.

vigesimal

Linton wrote: »

The point is that they are required for a business to run just as much as the business's raw materials.

Rubbish. I buy raw materials to make a profit. The services you mentioned I have pay for even if I don't use them.

Linton

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Would you show me where in my posts you think I have inferred that?

In previous postings you said...

If civil servants really think taking money from the public purse is stealing, then aren't they are calling themselves thieves? Civil servants take from the public purse all the time as they don't generate any money for the country.

They don't generate any money. Teachers may teach the skills that allow private business to grow on and make money from a business, but they don't make a profit for the country. Their salary is paid for by the private workers.

You identify what you believe to be an inherent difference between a private and public worker. I do not see the difference in this respect between, for example, a school teacher paid by the state and a trainer employed by the business. Both are increasing workers skills so that the business operates efficiently.

vigesimal

Linton wrote: »

I do not see the difference in this respect between, for example, a school teacher paid by the state and a trainer employed by the business. Both are increasing workers skills so that the business operates efficiently.

How does DEFRA or the department for culture media and sport help a builder. I pay for them even if i don't need them. If you cant see the difference my advice to you would be to never start your own business.

MissMoneypenny

Linton wrote: »

Your inference that private employees are in some sense superior to those employed by the state is again difficult to justify.

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Would you show me where in my posts you think I have inferred that?

Linton, did you manage to find my posts where you claim I have inferred that private employers are superior? If not, are you man enough to apologise?

Linton wrote: »

You identify what you believe to be an inherent difference between a private and public worker. I do not see the difference in this respect between, for example, a school teacher paid by the state and a trainer employed by the business. Both are increasing workers skills so that the business operates efficiently.

Lets split this down a bit then if you really can't understand the difference where one group is paid for from the public purse and the other is paid for by income the place they work for generates.

When something is paid for from the public purse, it is a service paid for by the taxpayers.
How much profit do you think the numerous ministries made last year?
Schools?
Hospitals?
Police?
The answer is zero. They are all services paid for from the public purse.

Private workers are paid from the income the profit their firm makes.

Therefore, one group is paid for from the public purse and the other from profit their private firms make.

As an aside, I am sure that while most general public would say they want more police (to reduce crime) teachers (smaller classes) doctors and nurses (less waiting time for operations) fireman etc and less admin jobs, unfortunately the tax payer does not get to say how much is allocated to these much wanted services and how much they have to spend on admin public purse jobs.

beingjdc

vigesimal wrote: »

How does DEFRA or the department for culture media and sport help a builder.

Well, DEFRA assesses and mitigates flood risk, though I guess a builder might prefer buildings to get washed away so there's a need for new ones, but for the rest of us... DCMS played a key role in getting the Olympics, which will need a lot of building.

MissMoneypenny

beingjdc wrote: »

Well, DEFRA assesses and mitigates flood risk, though I guess a builder might prefer buildings to get washed away so there's a need for new ones, but for the rest of us... DCMS played a key role in getting the Olympics, which will need a lot of building.

Do builders need defra? In the local area I use to live, one builder built on top of a small pond and a boggy area (showing on the local maps as a pond too) and another built over the top of a stream. Good point about floods giving builders work, but they don't need defra to tell them an area has flooded.

A lot of the building work for the Olympics went to the large contractors. Did any go to the smaller building firms? Some buildings that are further away from the main Olympic site, were already built before London got the games.

beingjdc

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Do builders need defra? In the local area I use to live, one builder built on top of a small pond and a boggy area (showing on the local maps as a pond too) and another built over the top of a stream. Good point about floods giving builders work, but they don't need defra to tell them an area has flooded.

In the past, no, but building work and flood defences (as well as the quality of their maintenance) means that the areas which flood in the future might not always be the ones which flooded in the past. In particular, estates on built in the 80s on the edge of towns which banked off a former flood plain might cause an entirely new area to be vulnerable to flooding. As we discovered at Easter '98.

Still Government activity doesn't have to be directly beneficial to everyone to be worth doing. Work to stop animal disease spreading is a big part of DEFRA's work - really that only directly benefits farmers (and even then, only the ones saved!), but it benefits the rest of the country in terms of not having a food shortage after a massive outbreak (even 2001 could have been a lot worse), and consequently our trade balance.

Fair point about the large contractors, but presumably the large contractors employ people with building skills so a builder could apply to go on the payroll if private work had dried up, or alternatively the large contractor employing lots of people means there's less competition for the smaller jobs as people are working for them?

Sir_Humphrey

MissMoneypenny wrote: »

Unless Britain wins several trillion lotteries, I doubt the money is going to be there for those final salary pensions that some hoped for, so that may be immaterial anyway. I was just interested to know Humpy's view on the whether civil servants should have a market value pension to go with a market value salary.

It's the whole pay package that sets the market rate, not just a single part of it. I did not comment up until now because I thought it was too obvious to state.

To the numpty who complains that he does not use everything he pays for. That will be balanced by things he uses more than average.