Public sector monster needs to be tamed

treliac

Georgie4 wrote: »

I actually enjoy my job and where I work , I have spent 15 years working my way up and feel that I make a differencde to the people I deal with and the staff I manage

Then let's hope the public sector hangs on to you. Thanks.

Turnbull2000

RobertoMoir wrote: »

Well as you're sure that Financial Inclusion Champions and Exercise Referral Co-ordinators are "delights" then I'm sure your chums will be happy to apply for them?

I consider neither of these positions an essential service, even more so when the private work base that funds public employment such as this is dwindling rapidly. No doubt there'll be plenty of recently redundant private sector workers applying, but this all points towards and even greater economic imbalance as an expanding government sector places and increasing burden the shrinking private sector that funds it. A Financial Inclusion Champion and Exercise Referral Co-ordinator amount to financial largesse in times of crippling recession.

RobertoMoir wrote: »

they have costed it out that way then actually these jobs aren't a waste of public money after all.

And who decides that? Oh that's right, the council does.

Georgie4 wrote: »

I agree totally as someone who works in the public sector and could earn FAR more in the private sector , most of us earn below average national wage and have anything but gold plated pensions

If by "us" you refer to public sector workers, then your claim that they earn below notional averages is simply a lie. Public sector workers are well ahead in the earnings stakes.

Old_Slaphead

Georgie4 wrote: »

I agree totally as someone who works in the public sector and could earn FAR more in the private sector , most of us earn below average national wage and have anything but gold plated pensions

What absolute CARP - would you justify your statement?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1134490/Pay-apartheid-public-private-sector-workers-grows-50.html

Nurses, teachers, police, firemen etc all are paid more than average (ie for 'poorly paid' nurses - see link)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4860358.stm

If most of you earn below average wage then heaven help the rest of us.

As for pensions.....what job do you do Georgie4 and why don't you get a 'gold plated' pension (unless you've accidentally signed the opt out form!!!)

mrstinchcombe

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

What absolute CARP - would you justify your statement?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1134490/Pay-apartheid-public-private-sector-workers-grows-50.html

Nurses, teachers, police, firemen etc all are paid more than average (ie for 'poorly paid' nurses - see link)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4860358.stm

If most of you earn below average wage then heaven help the rest of us.

As for pensions.....what job do you do Georgie4 and why don't you get a 'gold plated' pension (unless you've accidentally signed the opt out form!!!)

!!!!!!? Since when have nurses had above average wages?

Not sure about wages for teachers but the wages for Police aren't exactly spectacular either. For a relatively dangerous job where you would have to work nights and weekends with a lot of responsibility the wages are less than a lot of cushy office jobs in the private sector where you push a pen around and go on Excel.

Pensions is no longer "gold plated" either. Single accrual rate of 1/70 for a final salary scheme where you pay in 9.5% of your earnings isnt fantastic

RobertoMoir

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

A Financial Inclusion Champion and Exercise Referral Co-ordinator amount to financial largesse in times of crippling recession.

I agree that this would certainly appear to be the case. I thought it was fairly obvious from the whole of the post you're quoting that I had my own doubts.

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

And who decides that? Oh that's right, the council does.

I don't really appreciate being quoted out of context. It was perfectly clear in my original post that I was asking people to think hypothetically for a moment. Was that just too difficult for you?

Incidentally, it would appear that the first job was a central government scheme, not something the local council decided on by themselves.

Old_Slaphead

mrstinchcombe wrote: »

!!!!!!? Since when have nurses had above average wages?

Pensions is no longer "gold plated" either. Single accrual rate of 1/70 for a final salary scheme where you pay in 9.5% of your earnings isnt fantastic

On nurses - they've had substantial pay increases over the last few years - only below band 5 get's below national average.

Police penson changed for new entrants in 2006

Prior to that they were very generous - now they're merely generous.

Half pay after 35 years service and - oops you forgot to mention the 4x annual cash sum Mrs T (which can be commuted to make pension up to 66%). Pensions can also be paid to unmarried partners (M or F) and children.
Entrants prior to 2006 can get full pension after 30 years service....not bad eh, 30 years at work and 30+ years on a good index linked pension and plenty of time to get another job...perhaps working in police force!

If that's not a fantastic scheme then I don't know what is. Try comparing it to what's on offer for the rest of us!

Turnbull2000

RobertoMoir wrote: »

I don't really appreciate being quoted out of context.

Yeah, sorry. I'm so used to arguing with public sector workers determined to retain the status quo of subsided pensions and inefficiency regardless of the burden on everyone else, that my mind was set to default when replying to your post.

beingjdc

donaldtramp wrote: »

And Sharon Shoesmith

Can you believe she appealed? An absolute disgrace.

If I was sacked with no notice by someone who wasn't even my employer, for something I genuinely believed I hadn't done, I'd probably appeal. There's an argument to be had about what was wrong with Haringey social services, how it came to be wrong, and at what level there was failure - but that argument isn't one that should be had by a Government Minister chasing quick headlines for the next day's papers.

Meanwhile, under media pressure the Government will continue weird tinkering with a system which overall works relatively well (far fewer people succeed in killing their kids in England than in most other developed countries), creating turmoil and confusion among staff, unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved among the public, and a load of extra cost and red tape.

Put in place any system you like, but unless you take into care every child where there is a suspicion that the parents are in some way malevolent, this will happen again - and if you do put that system in place, there'll be a slew of "local council childsnatcher" headlines. There are 50,000 children in Haringey. Even if only 0.1% of them are borderline cases where the parents might be psycho, or the kids might just be really clumsy, that's still 50 kids - more cases than the Director can reasonably supervise at the same time as all the other things that are part of that job.

When it happens, it's important to make sure everything that could reasonably have been done was done, but turning every case of a parent murdering their kid into a witchhunt against the authorities and an excuse to change the system again won't help anyone.

There are fatal crashes on our motorways on an almost daily basis. Where they are because of someone's negligence or recklnessness, they are prosecuted, but we don't re-route the motorway every time it happens, or sack the head of the police motorway patrol with no notice and no opportunity for them to present their side of the case.

In the newspapers, Sharon Shoesmith is bound to lose - but could she be any more hated than she already is? I doubt it. In an employment tribunal, I suspect she has a very strong case. If it had been done through the proper channels, she might have been sacked anyway for being a rubbish head of social services*, but since it was done on the sayso of a Minister, that all falls to bits.

I think we agree that the world is mad, we just fundamentally disagree about how.

* Which isn't surprising given that she had no social services experience, but got the job because of the mad thing the government did last time one of these cases was high profile, declaring that a Council's head of schools had to be the same person as their head of children's social services, despite the fact that they're different professional groups, and very few people had detailed working experience of both, so almost every council in the country now either has someone in charge of schools who mainly knows about social services, or someone in charge of social services who mainly knows about schools.

macaque_2

beingjdc wrote: »

Meanwhile, under media pressure the Government will continue weird tinkering with a system which overall works relatively well (far fewer people succeed in killing their kids in England than in most other developed countries), creating turmoil and confusion among staff, unrealistic expectations of what can be achieved among the public, and a load of extra cost and red tape.

If you are going to make claims like this, you should back it up with evidence. The maltreatment death rate in Britain is 0.4 deaths per 100,000 children. This is higher than some countries and marginally lower than others. Recent evidence also shows that child service departments are managed by over paid box ticking beauracrats.

The 'child protection industry' as a whole appears to be doing more damage than good. Our young people are the most unhappy in the developed world. They also suffer from record levels of depression, obesity, alcoholism and poor fitness. The more that governments spend on social engineering and micro managing people's lives the worse things get. Sections of population are systematically being stripped of their self respect and sense of maturity by busy bodies in local councils.

The biggest threats to children are broken marriages and poor employment prospects. If the government really wants to improve the lot of children, they should restore incentives for people to stay married and create a climate where companies want to invest in Britain again. This means cutting taxes.

Georgie4

Well thats not very polite is it - not so much a debate as an attack !

With all due respect you have absolutely no idea what I earn for the job I do or what that would be worth outside the public sector.

I am in a management position with huge levels of responsibility and 37 staff to manage for under £25k - I'd like to see how you think that compares favourably with the private sector ! And yes I will get a decent pension if I work in the civil service for 40 years , but in the private sector I would be eligible for year end bonuses etc something which very few public sector workers can achieve and don't even get me started on the governments use of the civil service to try out how far they can bend employment law - as we work for the government they seem to think our rights don't matter !!!