Pay Rise Cancelled for NHS staff

chewmylegoff

treliac wrote: »

Cue Mr Tramp-Slaphead ..... :rolleyes:

fixed your post.

Wookster

I'm not surprised by this.

The government is broke. Utterly broke.

chewmylegoff

the trouble with public sector expenditure is that the political focus is to reduce the wage bill - there is no regard to the overall cost. hence you get (a) demoralised and less productive staff who often wait over a year to have their pay deals agreed, only to find out that they are getting nothing at all and (b) rampant waste elsewhere.

yes there is a lot of fat on the wage bill, but unless you control the other budget pots then you're achieving nothing. all that will happen is that more key staff will leave (it's the useful people who are driven out by the pressure on salaries, as they are employable elsewhere), they won't be replaced and therefore consultants/temps fill the void. they are, generally speaking, paid out of a different budget and don't appear on the politically contraversial wage bill.

the total cost to the taxpayer is greater.

i'm not saying that pay should not be frozen, but there needs to be a proper joined-up approach to controlling public sector expenditure. firstly the public sector needs to have proper discretion on how to distribute its wage pot between its staff. blanket pay rises (or freezes) are a product of the government being too scared of the unions to say "no, we'll actually take individual ability and performance into account, rather than just pay people more based on how long they've been here (a measure which is probably inversely proportional to their ability in many cases)."

Graham_Devon

donaldtramp wrote: »

Not before time, but when does the cull begin??;)
This will be the first of many cuts.
How typical, Unison still pressing for wage increases!!! I've got a sneaky feeling they are going to be very disappointed in the coming months.....

The unions are not pressing for anything.

Last year, the government, instead of giving an inflation matching pay rise of around 4.3% at the time, decided to put an offer on the table of a 3 year deal at 8%.

After much arguing about the ins and outs, the government won and got their 8% over 3 years deal. This involved NHS, Police etc.

This 8% deal was bought up after below inflation pay rises for the previous 3 years, and much arguing, which meant no one got their pay rise until around Novemeber / December, further deminishing the effect of the pay rise.

The reason for the arguing is that the government had pushed through a banding system, and not honoured their part of the deal.

So the whole reason for the 8% over 3 years deal was because the government simply was not honouring their side of the deal, so gave this, which was less than it should have been, but the unions voted to accept it, even though inflation was rampant, because they could see they were not going to get anything else.

This 3 year deal was accepted when inflation was 4+% and rising. The government was happy, they had got their way of providing lower than inflation rises. Or so they thoughts.

Are people really suggesting now that these workers should have to lose again, simply because the economy has changed?

If this is so, and we want to give them a pay cut, and break yet another deal, surely they would be entitled to go back to the original deal, which said the pay rises would match the CPI rate of inflation?

In that case, surely last years pay rise should be around 4.4%, and notthe 2% they got, as part of the 8% over 3 years deal.

People praised this 8% deal at the time, I remember some private sector workers on the forum laughing saying the public sector were stupid, can they not see that inflation is rocketing and they accept 8% over 3 years.

Now, the same private sector people are stating it's outrageous, there should be a cull, they shouldnt get it.

The generel consensus, every year, is that "some" private sector workers think they shouldnt have anything at all.

Spartacus_Mills

hermanmunster wrote: »

ha ha

what's new - my NHS pay hasn't gone up for 3 years, however my NHS pension contributions have gone up by a third this year!!!!!!

How unreasonable to ask you to fund your pension. Would you like me and all the other taxpayers in the private sector to chip in and pay for it while I look at the wreckage of our own pension schemes.

morg_monster

my OH works in pay in a govt dept and for the past 3 years most of his working time has been spent developing a new pay / bonus system for this dept... 3 yrs of negotiating with the powers that be and the unions, it has really taken it out of him. Now it's finally nearly ready but now they are wondering if it will ever actually be implemented. OH is very down about it - not the potential pay freezes, he understands that, and we are very thankful that he has such a safe job in the CS - but that the last 3 yrs of his job has basically been completely pointless. All those evenings coming home at 10pm... all the times i ate dinner on my own ... :-) Ahh well, we shall see what happens.

Thrugelmir

mitchaa wrote: »

Without evidence linked to, the above is just spreading rumour mill. Was your source a mad raving lunatic asylum seeker, or a government health official?

My source was extremely well informed. Only last week staff were informed that they were getting the rise.

The UK's finances are in such a bad way that nothing should come as a surprise.

Graham_Devon

Thrugelmir wrote: »

My source was extremely well informed. Only last week staff were informed that they were getting the rise.

The UK's finances are in such a bad way that nothing should come as a surprise.

Obviously not that well informed considering Alan Johnson has already announced to the millions of public sector employees this effects, that the deal WILL be honoured and the rumours are unfounded.

Thats some commitment from him.

ILW

morg_monster wrote: »

my OH works in pay in a govt dept and for the past 3 years most of his working time has been spent developing a new pay / bonus system for this dept... 3 yrs of negotiating with the powers that be and the unions, it has really taken it out of him. Now it's finally nearly ready but now they are wondering if it will ever actually be implemented. OH is very down about it - not the potential pay freezes, he understands that, and we are very thankful that he has such a safe job in the CS - but that the last 3 yrs of his job has basically been completely pointless. All those evenings coming home at 10pm... all the times i ate dinner on my own ... :-) Ahh well, we shall see what happens.

Another none job paid for by the taxpayer.

twirlypinky

I just rang my friend who works in NHS finance.

Not only have they been told no such thing, but she says their budget setting for 09-10 currently taking place is including a 2.4% pay deal.

This was all signed and sealed last year in a 3 year agreement, which was so low in the first year that compared to inflation it amounted to a pay cut.