Average civil servant earns less than a private sector worker

marklv

bendix wrote: »

What is your job, marklv?

How important is it?

IT manager in the public sector, overseeing third party suppliers. It is important because if projects go pear shaped then the taxpayer ends up coughing up many millions more than necessary.

bendix

LOL . .. Given the public sector's innate inability to manage IT projects competently (largely I think because they're not using their own money, but the taxpayers), you certainly have your work cut out.

perplexed.com

bendix wrote: »

LOL . .. Given the public sector's innate inability to manage IT projects competently (largely I think because they're not using their own money, but the taxpayers), you certainly have your work cut out.

Surely most managers in the private sector aren't using their own money either?

carolt

Pennywise wrote: »

The reverse is true actually. I know several "administrators" who are earning around the £12k p.a. level in local private companies - firms which have been around for a decade or two, so must be doing something right. Compare that with a P60 I've seen for an "administrator" in the local council's engineering department - she tells me she mainly does filing, typing letters, etc (so a basic admin job) and her P60 shows £18,619 gross pay for 08/09 tax year. She says she doesn't like her job and is always on the lookout for another job, but that she can't get a job anywhere near her current pay level in the private sector and she doesn't want another job in public sector. In the city, yes, I suppose even basic jobs are fairly well paid and perhaps on a par or level with public sector, but out in the sticks, private sector pay is generally very poor whereas public sector national pay bargaining means that the public sector wages for relatively low levels are far higher.

As has been pointed out elsewhere in these discussions, how well/badly public sector admin type jobs are paid compared to the private sector equivalents depends a lot on what area you're in. In London and surrounds eg the Berkshire example above, it's fairly poor. Up north, say, it's probably a pretty good local salary.

So in some way, we're all right, just looking at it from our own local perspectives. :grouphug:

baileysbattlebus

carolt wrote: »

As has been pointed out elsewhere in these discussions, how well/badly public sector admin type jobs are paid compared to the private sector equivalents depends a lot on what area you're in. In London and surrounds eg the Berkshire example above, it's fairly poor. Up north, say, it's probably a pretty good local salary.

So in some way, we're all right, just looking at it from our own local perspectives. :grouphug:

I agree - we live in Berkshire, near Reading and public sector admin jobs are not classed as well paid - I worked for time as a contractor for a gov't agency in Reading and the Administative Officers starting salary was about £15.5k - that was classed as quite poor compared to the private sector where a similar job paid around $18k.

They employed a lot temps at the time and there was a national agreement with a couple of employment agencies (the gov't agency has offices in Reading, Exeter, Workington and Newcastle) and the hourly rate paid to temps varied throughout the regions and reflected local pay in each area. As I remember, the lowest paid was Workington, then Newcastle, Exeter with Reading being the highest paid - if they had tried to pay Workington rates in Reading they would have had no temp staff.

I don't think a lot of people realise just how many temps are used in the civil service or how many fixed term appointments. The dept I worked for had a staff of about 20 and only 2 of them were permanent, the rest were either temps or FTAs. FTAs could stay a maximum of 2 years. The low level of permanent staff was courtesy of the Gershon review - which left a number of dept's not able to function.

My sister lives in the north east and she thinks public sector admin entry level salaries are very good and generally better paid than the private sector. Apart from London the salaries of permanent staff are the same nationwide. She finds it hard to believe that the same jobs are not classed as well paid here.

And most private sector jobs have negogiable salaries within limits - entry level public sector doesn't. The pay is the pay.

Andy_L

bendix wrote: »

LOL . .. Given the public sector's innate inability to manage IT projects competently (largely I think because they're not using their own money, but the taxpayers), you certainly have your work cut out.

I know, its strange, its almost as if they can't recruit IT professionals/PMs to do the work in house or contract negotiators as good as the ones in the private sector companies to keep them in line. I wonder why that is......

donaldtramp

marklv wrote: »

IT manager in the public sector, overseeing third party suppliers. It is important because if projects go pear shaped then the taxpayer ends up coughing up many millions more than necessary.

Oh it certainly IS important isn't it.
What a fantastic job you lot must be doing eh?

Labour's computer blunders cost £26bn


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labours-computer-blunders-cost-16326bn-1871967.html

A series of botched IT projects has left taxpayers with a bill of more than £26bn for computer systems that have suffered severe delays, run millions of pounds over budget or have been cancelled altogether.

An investigation by The Independent has found that the total cost of Labour's 10 most notorious IT failures is equivalent to more than half of the budget for Britain's schools last year. Parliament's spending watchdog has described the projects as "fundamentally flawed" and blamed ministers for "stupendous incompetence" in managing them.
Further evidence has emerged over the failings of Labour's most costly programme, the mammoth £12.7bn IT scheme to revolutionise the NHS. The Independent has learnt that just 160 health organisations out of about 9,000 are using electronic patient records delivered under the scheme. The vast majority of those were GP practices. New figures have also revealed that millions of pounds have been paid out in legal fees. The taxpayer has footed a £39.2m bill for "legal and commercial support" for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

It continues, but first lets repeat this line...

Parliament's spending watchdog has described the projects as "fundamentally flawed" and blamed ministers for "stupendous incompetence" in managing them

Well done Marklv and all you're ilk.
You are just another example of the problems and debt that have been created by the massive expansion of the state and the public sector. There is no need to have ballooned the state up to the size it is with all the failed, massive waste of taxpayers money that pays YOUR wages.

iltisman

The way to decide whether a job is necessary or not ,is it needed at 3 in the morning eg most operational jobs, all others are just passengers.

marklv

donaldtramp wrote: »

Oh it certainly IS important isn't it.
What a fantastic job you lot must be doing eh?

Labour's computer blunders cost £26bn


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labours-computer-blunders-cost-16326bn-1871967.html


It continues, but first lets repeat this line...



Well done Marklv and all you're ilk.
You are just another example of the problems and debt that have been created by the massive expansion of the state and the public sector. There is no need to have ballooned the state up to the size it is with all the failed, massive waste of taxpayers money that pays YOUR wages.

You're an ignorant troll and obviously also an idiot. What the heck do you know about what really goes in these projects? As for the huge waste, that is because of bad government decision making, not what its employees do! If it wasn't for people like myself the waste would be several millions more than what it already is.

Enagage brain before expressing an opinion.

marklv

Andy_L wrote: »

I know, its strange, its almost as if they can't recruit IT professionals/PMs to do the work in house or contract negotiators as good as the ones in the private sector companies to keep them in line. I wonder why that is......

Rubbish. The problem has nothing to do with the IT employees employed by the various public bodies, the problem is caused by bad decisions that are made by ministers and hugely unrealistic project objectives. The result is that bidding companies promise the impossible just to get the contract, then fail to deliver on time and to an acceptable quality.