Public sector monster needs to be tamed

chewmylegoff

Generali wrote: »

The trouble is there are thousands of these jobs up and down the UK and overall they cost a fortune.

this is probably true, however, the truth of the situation is that the state has to pay these people one way or the other, be it benefits or a salary.

hence, the real issues are

i) could these people be doing something more useful - some of them probably could

ii) which people would it be cheaper to pay benefits to, rather than pay them load of money from the public purse - the answer to that is not the people earning £12,000 a year, but as i said earlier the worthless management who would not be able to do an equivalent job in the private sector, but are getting paid six figure salaries to ponce around at our expense.

Old_Slaphead

chewmylegoff wrote: »

ii) which people would it be cheaper to pay benefits to, rather than pay them load of money from the public purse - the answer to that is not the people earning £12,000 a year, but as i said earlier the worthless management who would not be able to do an equivalent job in the private sector, but are getting paid six figure salaries to ponce around at our expense.

To pay someone £12,000 will cost the council taxpayer around £18,000 when addiing in holidays, employers NI, employers pension, sick pay etc.

That seems a lot for chopping up a bit of fruit.

The equivalent unemployment pay is around £3500pa.

If I were an East Lothian council tax payer I'd suggest the council saved £14,500pa and get the end user wash and peel their own apples!

bigheadxx

Dont know if this is a new one but today on the radio there was a "broadcast" for the Anti Terror Helpline. It played something like this: "This is the sound of a shopping centre after a bomb didnt go off today (short silence) thanks to a shopper who reported people looking suspisciously at the CCTV" there were a couple more along the same lines as part of the broadcast.

1. Isnt this just scaremongering amongst the population at large?
2. Do we really need an extra helpline to do this?
3.Isnt this just propoganda to make it look as if the gvernment is doing something?
4. How many calls are they going to take, how many are genuine, how many actually produce a result, would that result have been achieved in another way.
5. How much does this cost to set up and staff?

I cannot find anything about this on the internet but I really do think that this is yet another government blind stab of incompetence that we could do without.

chewmylegoff

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

To pay someone £12,000 will cost the council taxpayer around £18,000 when addiing in holidays, employers NI, employers pension, sick pay etc.

That seems a lot for chopping up a bit of fruit.

The equivalent unemployment pay is around £3500pa.

If I were an East Lothian council tax payer I'd suggest the council saved £14,500pa and get the end user wash and peel their own apples!

the equivalent unemployment benefit might be £3.5k, but once you start to factor in housing, the lost council tax / other taxes, the cost of administering the benefits, the other free stuff the unemployed get - public transport, medicine etc, it's not going to be much different in my view. also, you can hardly count the employer's NI as a net cost to the tax payer, since it is paid to the tax payer.

in addition you then have to cope with the unquantifiable knock-on effects of cutting people from the public wage bill that will not be employed elsewhere. how many of them will resort to crime as a consequence of being out of work, for instance.

Old_Slaphead

chewmylegoff wrote: »

the equivalent unemployment benefit might be £3.5k, but once you start to factor in housing, the lost council tax / other taxes, the cost of administering the benefits, the other free stuff the unemployed get - public transport, medicine etc, it's not going to be much different in my view. also, you can hardly count the employer's NI as a net cost to the tax payer, since it is paid to the tax payer.

in addition you then have to cope with the unquantifiable knock-on effects of cutting people from the public wage bill that will not be employed elsewhere. how many of them will resort to crime as a consequence of being out of work, for instance.

Lot of "unquantifiables" there.

What about the employer's resource spent on light & power used, canteen, payroll, HR, training, EL insurance, share of rent,rates etc for their desk space.

nb I'm not aware that job seekers get 'free' medicine and transport

I think it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that if someone doesn't get a job in fruit preparation they may resort to crime. It's certainly not a justification for creating phantom jobs.

The problem of job creation (or maintenance) exacerbated Japan's stagnation in the 1990s where employers couldn't get rid of staff even though they were not being gainfully employed.

chewmylegoff

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Lot of "unquantifiables" there.

What about the employer's resource spent on light & power used, canteen, payroll, HR, training, EL insurance, share of rent,rates etc for their desk space.

i thought you were factoring them all in to your calculation that it would cost 1.5x salary to employ this person?

nb I'm not aware that job seekers get 'free' medicine and transport

pretty unemployed get free prescriptions, and think the latter may vary but pretty sure that jobseekers get free london bus passes. could be wrong, just based on what i remember of reading in the press.

I think it's a bit disingenuous to suggest that if someone doesn't get a job in fruit preparation they may resort to crime.

The problem of job creation (or maintenance) exacerbated Japan's stagnation in the 1990s where employers couldn't get rid of staff even though they were not being gainfully employed.

i don't think that just because someone doesn't get a stupid job in fruit preparation, but i do believe that an unemployed person is statistically more likely to commit crime. therefore if you make everyone in the public sector who does a non-essential job unemployed, then total crime is likely to rise, maybe not within the same week, but eventually.

i don't think anyone is proposing that a solution to the public sector problem could be had by sacking the fruit guy on £12k a year from kirkaldy and then saying "my work here is done". to reduce the public sector to what is absolutely necessary (anything that isn't necessary must be a "non-job") would be to ramp up unemployment on a considerable scale, and all the social problems that come with that.

Old_Slaphead

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i thought you were factoring them all in to your calculation that it would cost 1.5x salary to employ this person?

Afraid not...
Basic £12000 + Employers NI £920 Pension £2400 = £15320.
Assumed 33 days hols (incl stats) and 9 days sick (average LG)

£15320 for 218days worked. If cover required for full year exluding bank hols then cost will be 15320 x 252/218 = £17700

chewmylegoff

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Afraid not...
Basic £12000 + Employers NI £920 Pension £2400 = £15320.
Assumed 33 days hols (incl stats) and 9 days sick (average LG)

£15320 for 218days worked. If cover required for full year exluding bank hols then cost will be 15320 x 252/218 = £17700

fair enough, although this does assume that they retain a fruit consultant, to cover the fruit packer's holiday and sick periods.

if they do, the fruit consultant will probably cost £1200 a day, but will come from a different budget pot which the council haven't made some kind of budgetary pledge in respect of, so that's alright then.

ILW

Generali wrote: »

TBH, I think they do it so on Question Time or on Party Political Broadcasts they can say, "We've spent £[a fcking fortune] on relieving xxx".

Who cares if it works or not so long as we get elected/re-elected.

I really cheeses me off to hear politicians saying "We" have spent £xxx.
"They" havn't spent anything, they just take it off the taxpayer and pass it on to someone else.

donaldtramp

bigheadxx wrote: »

Dont know if this is a new one but today on the radio there was a "broadcast" for the Anti Terror Helpline. It played something like this: "This is the sound of a shopping centre after a bomb didnt go off today (short silence) thanks to a shopper who reported people looking suspisciously at the CCTV" there were a couple more along the same lines as part of the broadcast.

1. Isnt this just scaremongering amongst the population at large?
2. Do we really need an extra helpline to do this?
3.Isnt this just propoganda to make it look as if the gvernment is doing something?
4. How many calls are they going to take, how many are genuine, how many actually produce a result, would that result have been achieved in another way.
5. How much does this cost to set up and staff?

I cannot find anything about this on the internet but I really do think that this is yet another government blind stab of incompetence that we could do without.

Yup, you're not wrong. The easiest way to get people to agree with your thinking and how you are running things is to try to install a level of fear amongst the population.
See this recent article with the thoughts of Stella Rimington (former MI5 chief) about the way Comrade Brown's government is using the "fear" to make us conform.
One of the oldest tricks in the book!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/feb/17/government-exploiting-terrorism-fear

The former head of MI5 has accused ministers of exploiting fears over terrorism to restrict civil liberties, adding to mounting criticism of the government's record on human rights.
In an interview with a Spanish newspaper, Stella Rimington said state interference in people's privacy played into the hands of terrorists.
"It would be better that the government recognised that there are risks rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, [which is] precisely one of the objects of terrorism: that we live in fear and under a police state," she told La Vanguardia.

This "fear" installed into us makes us all fall into line and massive control over us possible. It's all in the name of "terrorism" "crime prevention" or whatever.
ID cards,
Civil liberty restrictions,
Government databases,
Thousands and thousands of new laws to control us,(Labour have brought in thousands since they came to power.)
Greater police powers, the raid on a member of parliaments flat, remember that?
This leads to a massive strangling bureaucracy staffed by ever expanding public sector workers.

All in the name of our "safety" and "security". This is what happens when the government/state gets too much power. They have to be obeyed and paid for without question. I think the state in the UK has got just a wee bit too big, it has to be shrunk for all of our sakes.

The only thing I'm worried about now is our ever increasing and controlling government.
Hopefully though, the UK has seen through the ever more controlling and non listening "great leader" that we have now.