public or private sector

worcester1

Hi,

Can you please share your thoughts/advice/experiences on this.

I have worked in the private sector for exactly 10 years purely in a data management capacity and for the rest of my working career I wish to work for the NHS within my chosen area.

The reasons why I wish to work for the NHS is;

· Firstly, I feel the need to contribute to something meaningful – play my part in making a direct difference to society rather than to company bosses and shareholders. However I am not as righteous as I appear to be or else I would have been working for a monestry :rotfl: . This brings me nicely to my 2nd reason.
· I am attracted to the generous pension scheme rumoured to be approximate 30% of salary P/A.
· I am led to believe that the NHS offer flexible working hours and are a family-friendly employer. I have a very young family and as my wife doesn’t drive I would likely some flexibility in my work life and without the need to justify it all the time to my line manager (which I currently have to do) and the rest of my team being completely assy about it.

This is nothing serious as taking many days off or anything like that. Just the occasional family emergency like taking an hr or two take my kids to the GP/hospital - picking them from nursery when they are feeling poorly.

I have so far applied for a couple of posts one of which is only about 10miles from where I live. This should save a commuting time (12miles & about 45mins p/d)

My dilemma is that these jobs understandable have a starting salary of 6-7K less than what I am currently earning and the top end is either or about 1 or 2K higher. Taking my annual bonus (5-10% of annual salary) into account this should even it out.

As much as my intentions are good, I just cannot afford to drop that much in salary – I can easily command another 3-5K of my current salary moving to another private sector.

So if you were me, would you;

· Take a drop in salary?

Also
· This might seem stupid but - do the NHS start all prospective employees at the bottom end of a salary band?

I can afford to take a 2k salary drop and sacrifices my bonus if I was offered a position

Apologies for the long post and guess you are all now as confused I am. Please share your thoughts on this post

Many thanks in advance

Primrose

Please stay in the private sector ! Every Council Tax payer in this country is currently paying 20% of their Council Tax bill to fund the indexed linked pension costs of those in the public sector. With the high level of council tax we're all now paying, I don't think this situation can continue indefinitely. The whole issue of public sector vs private sector pensions has now become a serious issue for public debate, simply because funding public sector pensions has now become totally unaffordable and unsustainable. I know this is a very controversial topic but I honestly think that sooner or later the politicians are going to have to take up this thorny issue and deal with it, especially now that a huge number of final salary schemes in the private sector have had to close down and that the majority of members in private schemes have suffered massive losses in their funds. So if you do move to the public sector, you may not necessarily spend the remainder of your working life in the pension scheme as it currently exists.

Rosie75

Pension contributions @ 30% of annual salary is wishful thinking. I'm pretty sure the employer will contribute 14% and you will contribute something like 7%.
I have done a couple of administrative jobs in the NHS and from my experience I can't say it fits your perception as being flexible, though I don't have children myself. I found it extremely hierarchical and also old-fashioned (which is likely to be a bit of a shock if you've been working in the private sector) and I can't say I particularly felt I was "contributing" anything, since I wasn't working on the front line, as it were. NHS employees are predominantly female and - from what I've seen - it's usually women who are the least tolerant of other women having time off because of their children. Personally, I didn't like having so many female colleagues - there was a lot of b!tching and gossiping that went on, but that may just have been the nature of the particular departments I worked in.

Scousebird_2

Hello,

I currently work in the NHS and have worked on two different contracts, one in 2005 in an admin and clerical post (wages & salaries) and my most recent one in a nursing post.

I found my payroll/wages & sals job to be incredibally flexible. On the adverts, it should state if this is an option. I worked on a 7hr 24min day with a mandatory break of a minimum 30mins-max 2 hrs per day. As long as I was out the building by 8pm and didn't come in any earlier than 6am, I was free to work anytime between-as long as you were in core hours of 12-4 and you worked your allotted hours. The hours were calculated monthly though, with a 7 hour tolerance so for example-full time hours were 37 per week so 160.35 hours per month-you could be under by 7 so your timesheet had to add up to 154hrs, and you could work over the 160hrs and carry the remained over as time in lieu with managers agreement.

Now this is purely in a clerical role for office based (HR, employee services and finance tend to work on this system) and not those based in clinical areas. If you work in admin on say A&E or on specialist wards or clinics, you may have to work the clinics hours-but still you may get that flexibility.

You may want to enquire about the Admin & Clerical Bank (most trusts have one) as well, where you can pick and choose your own hours to make up full time hours and just take a permenent flexible or fixed hours part-time contract say in the mornings?

So hope that answers one question.

Secondly-with regards to the pay band-ordinarily yes, you would start on the bottom of the payscale (Band 2 is £12,922 and Band 3 is approx £14,920)
Most admin and clerical roles start on the bottom of these-and tend to be this pay band but the advert will tell you that. However if you have continous service that you could carry over from the same NHS trust as you worked before-it will help you reach your incremental date earlier-and therefore you will move up the payscale quicker.

And finally, with regards to pension-the NHS currently expect you to contribute 6% of your salary (however when NI and tax benefits come off this percentage-you actual cost to you is around 3.5%)-the pension is still final salary and therefore is fabulous. I currently pay approx £50 a month towards my pension-the NHS match this (and a little extra) and I walk out with just under £850 a month after tax & NI is deducted (and I am not including my allowances I get on top for working unsocial shifts-which you may be entitled to depending on your role-however most Admin and Clerical work Mon-Fri and don't therefore qualify). I am a band 2 at the moment.

It all depends on what you are going to be doing really, the jobs are so diverse and ranged that it's hard to give you any real guidance.

The main thing for me, and I am sure you will see this having a wife and kids to feed is my job is secure and I am working for an organisation, not a business that is likely to fail or face the risk of the hardship in the recession.

And in response to what another poster said in contrast to my positivity-yes, the public may pay towards public sector pensions-but my partner pays into a civil service pension, with a lower contibution than I have (and a higher basic) and he gets a FAR better deal than me so the pension is in a way a consolation to my poor basic salary (which if I went private I could earn a lot more) but I stay in the public sector so I can provide the best standards of healthcare and take care of the sick who have paid into the system and deserve fair, equal and compassionate treatment. I get great satisfaction in what I do after spending the last 4 years in the finance sector on a hell of a lot more money and nice tasty bonuses every quarter. I hated my corporate job and my ridiculously stupid pension scheme which to be fair would be better off as a savings account (piggy unger my bed perhaps) because it will of been safer there!

NHS is a career to me and not a job and the contribution that everyone makes, from cleaners to kitchen staff, and consultants to students in training working without a salary-this contibution is something we should be proud of as a nation-people are quick to critisise the NHS but a lot of jobs are being created in recession by the health service and I deeply respect the organisation I am a part of.

Doodles

Hi worcester - I've sent you a PM

ceridwen

...and I wouldnt be put off taking into account the pension scheme by posters who dont have this themselves. That is just their own personal point of view - and wishful thinking.

SomeBozo

ceridwen wrote: »

That is just their own personal point of view - and wishful thinking.

It never stopped you Ceridwen!

The issue with the NHS is they are cushioned from the economy by about 3 years. The money they are spending now was allocated to them 3 years ago, while the economy and tax revenues were good.

In 2 years when the cushion is removed (despite the fact the economy might be on its feet again) they will be a lack of funding.

Bear that in mind OP and get in while you can!

Bozo

maninthestreet

worcester1 wrote: »

Hi,

Can you please share your thoughts/advice/experiences on this.


The reasons why I wish to work for the NHS is;

· Firstly, I feel the need to contribute to something meaningful – play my part in making a direct difference to society rather than to company bosses and shareholders. However I am not as righteous as I appear to be or else I would have been working for a monestry :rotfl: .

Where do you think the NHS gets its money from, if it's not from taxes such as corporation tax paid by companies in the private sector?

worcester1

maninthestreet wrote: »

Where do you think the NHS gets its money from, if it's not from taxes such as corporation tax paid by companies in the private sector?

There is always one with a negative comment in every post

I used to be like you when I first joined this site- massive arguments & picking up fights all the time but I have now seen the light and have changed for the better. My motto now is "say something constructive or hold thy speech":T

For your information I really don't care where the NHS gets its money from - I leave that to the government, the opposition and the policy-makers. Little old me wants to re-asses his life and make a difference where I can. So thought why not apply my data expertise in the NHS and earn a little bit to feed/cloth and be able to send my two boys to uni?

For all of you who replied constructively , I say thank you. Special thanks to Doodles who pm me with some really useful info. Which he didn't want to share on this board because of the likes of MANINTHESTREET. I will keep searching on the NHS job websites until I see something that suits me - consider any opportunity for an inteview and take it from there.

I appreciate that each department/trust have their own policies and in most cases it is not down to the company but your colleagues especially the ones that sit next to you.

I guess my number one question at any NHS job interview will be about existing staff attitudes and morals. The question about salary will be decided if I was offered the job

maninthestreet

worcester1 wrote: »

There is always one with a negative comment in every post

I used to like you when I first joined this site- massive arguments & picking up fights all the time but I have now seen the light and have changed for the better. My motto now is "say something constructive or hold thy speech":T

For your information I really don't care where the NHS gets it money from - I leave that to the government, the opposition and the policy-makers. Little old me wants to re-asses his life and make a difference where I can. So thought why not apply my data expertise in the NHS and earn a little bit to feed/cloth and be able to send my two boys to uni?

For all of you who replied constructively , I say thank you. Special thanks to Doodles who pm me with some really useful info. Which he didn't want to share on this board because of the likes of MANINTHESTREET. I will keep searching on the NHS job websites until I see something that suits me - consider any opportunity for an inteview and take it from there.

I appreciate that each department/trust have their own policies and in most cases it is not down to the company but your colleagues especially the ones that sit next to you.

There is one thing I hate most & that's gossip and esp when the gossiper (not sure if that's a word) only gossips about other people downfalls and rejoices over them. Like having an inferiority complex where pointing others failures/mishaps is the yardstick for your sucesses. For nearly a year now I sit in a team where this happens constantly and I absolutely hate it. I resolve to listening to bbc2,3 & 4 and 5live all day just to drown out their voices - whilsting cracking on with my data mining tasks.

I guess my number one question at any NHS job interview will be about existing staff attitudes and morals. The question about salary will be decided if I was offered the job

Negative comment? I merely ASKED a question, that's all. In future, please criticise me for something I have actually written, not something you've imagined I've written.

worcester1

maninthestreet wrote: »

Negative comment? I merely ASKED a question, that's all. In future, please criticise me for something I have actually written, not something you've imagined I've written.

Please note that I only asked for people's thoughts/advice/experiences about me giving up my private sector job for a public one. Yet you picked on the point about me wanting to make a direct difference and not to fill the pockets of company bosses and shareholders

Any contribution made by my bosses and their shareholders to society such as the NHS will be an indirect contribution on my behalf me.:beer: