Public sector monster needs to be tamed

A._Badger

You're on shaky ground with law degrees, beingjdc. Fewer lawyers in either the public or private sectors wouldn't go amiss.

bigheadxx

beingjdc wrote: »

Ten years ago, I did a law degree. Now, in the public sector, with all the experienced gained since then, I earn the same wage as a younger friend of mine with a law degree just got as their starting salary at a London law firm.

Am I in it for the money?

LAW and LONDON are not exactly good examples. My friend, in a small provincial town, obtained a law degree a couple of years ago and their starting salary in the private sector was £16,000. Probably at least 4 more years of earning about £20,000 and then if she wanted to become a partner it will cost her £25,000. Currently aged 25, no pension provided by employer, will probably be 40 before even contemplating planning for retirement.

beingjdc

RobertoMoir wrote: »

The "crazy" jobs that grab all the headlines? I suspect there's less of those overall than the headlines would have you believe. But I blink with disbelief at some of them too.

If it helps, sometimes I do - but generally the uninteresting ones that don't seem very relevant to anything, not the exciting headline ones. Honestly, everyone's gone nuts about the street football co-ordinator, earning the princely sum of £19k a year. Well, it might sound odd, and it'll be something I'm sure is reconsidered int he light of the difficult financial circumstances

BUT if someone being paid not very much can encourage kids to get out and play football, work with the police to keep the area safe, help get pitches set up in a way that doesn't put the kids at risk from traffic, then how much might that person be saving the NHS, in people being healthier, the police, in kids having an alternative to crime, A&E, in teaching them how to use the streets safely, and their parents, in expensive computer games they aren't spending all day indoors playing?

Turns out that the "street football co-ordinator" was supported by donations from local business who saw less vandalism, graffiti, arson and anti-social behaviour around their premises, and only cost the Council £3000. Not that bad.

On the pay issue, The Guardian has apparently done some digging into the statistics. The public sector appears to be more equal, but not overal any better paid, if anything the opposite;

The Office for National Statistics reveals in its labour force survey that 8.6% of private employees are graded as professionals, whereas these form 24.5% of public employees. So if you stupidly average up all jobs, regardless of qualification, of course the public-sector figure is higher. An example: one in five in the public sector is a teacher.

Managers, professionals and skilled trades are paid an average of 70p more an hour in the private sector. However, the few remaining unskilled public workers are paid an average of 90p an hour more than their equivalents in the private sector.

beingjdc

A._Badger wrote: »

You're on shaky ground with law degrees, beingjdc. Fewer lawyers in either the public or private sectors wouldn't go amiss.

I agree - I'm not a lawyer.

A._Badger

beingjdc wrote: »

"On the pay issue, The Guardian has apparently done some digging into the statistics. The public sector appears to be more equal, but not overal any better paid, if anything the opposite"

I'm not sure the level of individual salaries is really the point (though I'd dispute with you the value of the legion of non-jobs advertised each week in The Guardian).

What really matters is the effect en masse. We have an unbalanced economy, I'd suggest, in which the public sector is too dominant.

To be brutal, the rest of us just cant afford it any longer.

RobertoMoir

bigheadxx wrote: »

I could earn more in the private sector than I currently do in the public sector

This is your misaprehension.

If by misapprehension you mean 'Roberto actually reads the salary figures on the recruitment offers he gets all the time' then yes I suppose you're right. I'd agree that on the whole there isn't some magic pixie dust that means that everyone in the public sector could earn more in the 'real world', but I was talking about myself (and people in similar roles) specifically.

It would be nice to see the rest of my points addressed rather than you seize on just one line that you think you can dismiss easily as if that proves something.

bigheadxx wrote: »

Nobody I know who works in the Public Sector is not their for the money and that is a fact.

Ok. Fair enough. Can't argue with facts like that.
Incidentally, how many people from the public sector do you know? Hopefully you know enough people from enough different public sector jobs up and down the country in order to form a statistically valid sample? Otherwise you'd just be confusing anecdotes about your friends with data about the public sector as a whole...

Old_Slaphead

There are relatively few jobs within public & private sector which are comparable (well in volume anyway).

Teachers, nurses, armed forces, firemen, doctors etc don't have similar job opportunities in both sectors and recruitment into the private sector would generally be at higher pay rates because they want the best as the service is paid for by individuals rather than 'free'.

No two jobs are directly comparable therefore assumptions have to be made on crude averages. We can all say "I know someone who is better off in private/public sector etc etc "


THe fact that public sector pay rates have been increasing and are now generally as good or better than in private sector means that the raison d'etre for such a fantastically generous pension scheme now no longer exists.

Keep all the benefits pension accrued, but going forward, the schemes in both public and private sector should be roughly equal (either by employer contribution or tax break)....not as now very strongly biased to public.

We can't have this ridiculous 'Equitable Life' situation (and I say this as one who lost out on that fiasco) whereby the priviledged few can 'fill their boots' at the expense of other personal pension contributors who have no hope of getting anywhere near to their fair share of the pot.

Why should public sector have inflation proof guarantees when the rest of us are denied such benefits.

RobertoMoir

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

THe fact that public sector pay rates have been increasing and are now generally as good or better than in private sector means that the raison d'etre for such a fantastically generous pension scheme now no longer exists.

Except of course for those people who don't fall within your "general" rule. Of course as this abolishing of govt. pensions is dressed up as being fair then of course we have to find a way of taking care of those people. Got to be fair after all haven't we. I'm sure that won't cost anything.

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Why should public sector have inflation proof guarantees when the rest of us are denied such benefits.

Oh I absolutely agree with that. There is an issue there and it's starting to look unsustainable. I might work in the public sector, but does anyone here think that makes me overjoyed to see my council tax and income tax spent inefficiently?

The only point I've been trying to make is that it's not as simple as :
1. Abolish public sector pensions overnight
2. ????
3. Profit!
Because some people do seem to think it really will be that simple.

macaque_2

beingjdc wrote: »

4) I quite like systems where more money is charged to people who break the rules, it keeps things cheaper for the rest of us. You know what will happen if you succeed in "causing massive money problems nationwide for Councils", and you won't like it. Neither will I.

There are two problems with this:

1. Councils cannot be trusted to act in a fair and reasonable manner when collecting fines. In the case of parking fines, councils (or their agents) employ widespread dihonesty and deception to increase revenues. In other cases, councils force people into impossible positions. Bin collections are less frequent which is making like impossible for some people. This is being exploited by councils to extract fines from people.

2. Whilst the private citizen faces fines for a growing list of minor errors and omissions, the public sector remain largely unaccountable for their appalling performance.

"Edward Leigh, chairman of the Committee, called the National Offender Management Service (NOMS) project a “spectacular failure” and a “masterclass in sloppy project management”. He said: “Following blunder after blunder by senior managers, the programme clocked up delays of three years and forecast project costs had trebled.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5891179.ece

"The project was behind schedule within two years. The report highlights failings including inadequate oversight by senior officials of theservice, headed by Helen Edwards, the £150,000-a-year former chief executive."

To this can be added daily disasters by public servants (Equitable Life scandal, abject failure by the FSA in the credit crunch, failure to catch Dr Shipman etc etc) which go unpunished and uncompensated. People who are falsely imprisoned get board and lodging deducted from their compensation. How peverse is that? How would you feel if the council fined you for not sorting your rubbish properly and then you discover that they are still sending it to land fill. This is dishonest beyond belief.

Can it be any surprise that people get angry when they see these double standards.

vivatifosi

macaque wrote: »

1. Councils cannot be trusted to act in a fair and reasonable manner when collecting fines. In the case of parking fines, councils (or their agents) employ widespread dihonesty and deception to increase revenues. In other cases, councils force people into impossible positions. Bin collections are less frequent which is making like impossible for some people. This is being exploited by councils to extract fines from people.

I think that this is the case with some but not all councils. My local council is much more pragmatic about the bins issue and fines. My sense is that this has helped them get buy in from the local community, particularly over the bins issue, and we have a really good recycling rate as a result. A little bit of common sense goes a long way.

macaque wrote: »

Whilst the private citizen faces fines for a growing list of minor errors and omissions, the public sector remain largely unaccountable for their appalling performance...
People who are falsely imprisoned get board and lodging deducted from their compensation. How peverse is that?
Can it be any surprise that people get angry when they see these double standards.

I've extracted the bid about board and lodging because I was gobsmacked when I read it. Can I have a link please? That is outrageous if true.

You are right, people are increasingly angry about the public sector - particularly over issues such as the Baby P case (especially as it followed Victoria Climbie), and there are certainly elements of the public sector that needs to be investigated and people's jobs should not be immune. However there are vast swathes of the public sector that do work well, or work as well as they can given the constraints that they work with.

As a trustee of a (private sector) final salary pension scheme that has been clobbered by government intervention, I do think that the public sector pension scheme issue has to be addressed, probably through closure of final salary schemes to new members, possibly through the accrual of less generous benefits moving forward. I hope that the government doesn't see this as an opportunity to play with anyone's (public or private sector) accrued benefits as that is fundamentally unfair.