Call To Cut 1 Milllion Public Sector Jobs

ILW

Primrose wrote: »

If the government hadn't spent the past ten years building up the public sector to its current massive level, we wouldn't find ourselves now having to cut it back. One of the basic fundamentals of good management, whether in the private or public sector, is the constant review of staffing levels to ensure that you constantly operate a lean but efficient organisation. Over the years, the public sector sadly, has become neither, and now its employees are going to pay the price for that incompetence. The irony of it is that those people being made redundant will be receiving redundancy pay which will amount to a MASSIVE cost, further increasing government indebtedness. So it's doing to be a doubly whammy.

I have never understood why public sector workers seem to get way over the legal minimum if made redundant. Is this a fair way to use taxpayers money?

Andy_L

ILW wrote: »

I have never understood why public sector workers seem to get way over the legal minimum if made redundant.

because it's in their contract.

Old_Slaphead

I read somewhere that for redundancy, senior CSs can get up to 6 years pay. If true, that seems a tad generous.

These generous benefits are often (deliberately?) forgotten about when comparing public vs private remunerations.

JP45

lemonjelly wrote: »

ruggedtoast it is so true that you have sections who work ridiculously hard & are so overwhelmed it isn't true, & next door are a team doing nothing save look on facefook.

This is so true and it's true of both the public (where I used to work) and private (where my wife used to work) sectors.

I still haven't fathomed why this happens but it seems to be an almost universal state of affairs. You'll find some people working their socks off whilst others do sweet FA. During my last years in the public sector I and my colleagues worked for a female boss who literally did next to nothing, other than delegate whatever came her way. She subsequently left the Department and was replaced by another female boss who was the complete opposite - hard-working, caring, diligent, really couldn't fault her. Same job, same pay, one useless, the other a real asset.
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ILW

Andy_L wrote: »

because it's in their contract.

And quite often negotiated above at time of redundancy. I dont get it.

Andy_L

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

I read somewhere that for redundancy, senior CSs can get up to 6 years pay. If true, that seems a tad generous.

These generous benefits are often (deliberately?) forgotten about when comparing public vs private remunerations.

3 years is the max redundancy payout for CS. You may have heard of the, up to, 6 years extra service if retired early rather than made redundant. Iirc there's a court action ongowing to get early retirees redundancy instead so I presume its not as good as the redundancy package.

As a slight aside all CS get the same terms, senior cs's payouts will just be more because their salary is higher

kennyboy66_2

Andy_L wrote: »

3 years is the max redundancy payout for CS.

3 years is frankly astonishing.

ILW

Andy_L wrote: »

3 years is the max redundancy payout for CS. You may have heard of the, up to, 6 years extra service if retired early rather than made redundant. Iirc there's a court action ongowing to get early retirees redundancy instead so I presume its not as good as the redundancy package.

As a slight aside all CS get the same terms, senior cs's payouts will just be more because their salary is higher

In the private sector, i belive the norm is one week per year employed. To get 3 years you would have had to worked for them for 50 years, or 100 for the 6 years pay.

JP45

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

I read somewhere that for redundancy, senior CSs can get up to 6 years pay. If true, that seems a tad generous.

I believe this is the case, although it doesn't apply to all (it was limited in my Department to those with so called reserved rights). Besides, if the Government gets its way, these overly generous settlements will cease from April next year, as the following article makes clear:

Hundreds of thousands of civil servants will be eligible for cash payouts worth two years’ salary in a reform ordered by Gordon Brown of Whitehall’s much criticised “gold plated” compensation culture.

However critics said the new arrangements, which will take effect from April, were still too generous when compared with typical redundancy settlements in the private sector. The Tories said the Government had caved in to union pressure.

The Prime Minister said earlier this year that he wanted to cut Whitehall’s compensation bill by £500million, by rewriting the rules governing pay-offs.

Under the plans, civil servants who are sacked will be able to qualify for a pay-off worth two years’ salary after working for as little as 14 years. If they resign voluntarily, they can also receive a month’s salary for every year worked, up to a maximum of two years.

Officials stressed that the new settlement terms, which apply from April, are a significant cut to the current deals, which can see civil servants receive payments worth as much as six years of pension and salary when they leave.

However Francis Maude, shadow Cabinet Office minister, criticised the new arrangements, saying they were far “out of sync with standard practice in the private sector”. He said: "The Government's original proposals were for minimal change. Now under pressure from the unions they've retreated even from those timid reforms.

"The public sector needs to show some restraint during the recession to reflect the difficult economic circumstances. Such a casual attitude to public money sends out the wrong message to hard working families up and down the country."

Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, added: “Any reductions in the hugely excessive arrangements we have at the moment are welcome, but even after this reform the scheme will remain very much overly generous.

"These kind of compensation requirements will make it extremely expensive to make the reductions in civil service numbers that are clearly necessary.

"Any Government cutting back the civil service will be doing so to save money, so it is deeply unwise to require them to bear this massive extra burden.”

Public sector unions, who have threatened to challenge the new terms in the courts, were unhappy with the deal, which they said was imposed on them.

The Public and Commercial Services Union said its executive would meet on Tuesday to decide the next step. A spokesman said: “In the meantime, we shall be consulting our lawyers on legal action to stop the process.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/6418368/NEWS-HOLD-500000-civil-servants-to-get-two-years-pay-after-14-years-work-in-Whitehall-crackdown.html

Optimist

ILW wrote: »

In the private sector, i belive the norm is one week per year employed. To get 3 years you would have had to worked for them for 50 years, or 100 for the 6 years pay.

You could never achieve that on normal redundancy terms in the private sector

It actually depends on age and years service with a different formula applied for each period

The maximum salary that can be taken into account is £380 and the max service amount of service is 20 years.

The absolute max of redundancy you can get unless your terms and conditions state better is £10260

http://www.berr.gov.uk/cgi-bin/er_feb07_reconner.pl