We are all in this together, well not if you are in a union.

The_White_Horse

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

That is not the correct way to asses how much you should be willing to pay to have someone else do it for you.

E.g take a receptionist. Say they get paid £14k by the nhs to work 9-5. Would you be happy if the nhs decided instead to pay £20k to an external firm to provide reception cover between 9-5?

no, but I would be happy if they said the receptionist will be paid only 10k a year from now on.

and lets face it, the nhs receptionist is always a hateful morose unhelpful person, whereas the receptionist in the private sector is usually bubbly and helpful.

Andy_L

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

That is not the correct way to asses how much you should be willing to pay to have someone else do it for you.

E.g take a receptionist. Say they get paid £14k by the nhs to work 9-5. Would you be happy if the nhs decided instead to pay £20k to an external firm to provide reception cover between 9-5?

Irrelevant to my point (although I wouldn't be happy with it - unless it was for short term cover where it made more sense than recruitment action). The point is that that receptionists salary (plus all the other overheads) has to be divided among all the procedures carried out to find the true cost of performing them.
Now in the case of BUBA vs NHS they both need receptionists so its not a great example but the principle extends among all the other non-surgury costs such as those I listed

bigheadxx

marklv wrote: »

Who the heck cares about what the CBI says? Who are these people that we should listen to everything they say as if it was bible truth? They're just a bunch of rich people who want to get richer. Sod them!

The reason that the average salary is higher in the public sector is because there are more professional people working there proportionally. Simple as that. The private sector includes a lot of people on minimum wage, like loo cleaners, waiters, etc.

Polly Toynbee (The Guardian) states that public sector workers grade for grade earn 70p per hour less than in the private sector. But it is impossible to compare directly given that 2 similar jobs are not directly comparable and there are big differences in how jobs are graded.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/12/conservative-public-sector-cuts
However if you add on pension entitlement and more generous holidays then even this figure ceded by the left, once analysed, shows that the financial reward in the public sector is more than in the private sector.

Does this figure include the generous overtime/unsocial hours payments and enhancements in the public sector where somebody with a basic salary of £17,000 in the NHS can easily earn £25,000 plus I do not know. What I do know is that a job paying X amount in 2000 in the public sector is paying considerably more in 2010 than a job in the private sector that was paying the same amount in 2000.

Old_Slaphead

bigheadxx wrote: »

Polly Toynbee (The Guardian) states that public sector workers grade for grade earn 70p per hour less than in the private sector.

She provides absolutely no evidence to support that and quite frankly it's drivel.

Just 1 example....at the lowest grade/skill private sector workers get £5.74/hr whereas public sector get at least £6.12/hr (+pension+extra hols+job security etc etc)

bigheadxx

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

She provides absolutely no evidence to support that

I know. Absolutely none whatsoever.

Procrastinator333

Andy_L wrote: »

Irrelevant to my point (although I wouldn't be happy with it - unless it was for short term cover where it made more sense than recruitment action). The point is that that receptionists salary (plus all the other overheads) has to be divided among all the procedures carried out to find the true cost of performing them.
Now in the case of BUBA vs NHS they both need receptionists so its not a great example but the principle extends among all the other non-surgury costs such as those I listed

Yes I agree that you need to divide all costs by all procedures to find the true cost of completing them. Absolutely. But that isn't what you shoul pay someone else to do them. Many of the costs are fixed and don't change with increases in numbers. E.g. Bupa don't actually build a whole new hospital with new admin staff solely for nhs work. They use the assets they have in place. The building is built, the receptionist will be on the desk whether the nhs patient comes in or not. The cleaners will clean whether the nhs patient comes in or not. When bupa decode whether to take on the nhs work, they just look at the question of if the amount paid is greater than the incremental cost, if yes, they will drive it as high as they can, but they will do it.

lostinrates

Procrastinator333 wrote: »

Yes I agree that you need to divide all costs by all procedures to find the true cost of completing them. Absolutely. But that isn't what you shoul pay someone else to do them. Many of the costs are fixed and don't change with increases in numbers. E.g. Bupa don't actually build a whole new hospital with new admin staff solely for nhs work. They use the assets they have in place. The building is built, the receptionist will be on the desk whether the nhs patient comes in or not. The cleaners will clean whether the nhs patient comes in or not. When bupa decode whether to take on the nhs work, they just look at the question of if the amount paid is greater than the incremental cost, if yes, they will drive it as high as they can, but they will do it.

There are private hospitals though, where the costs of receptions staff etc must be met.

Kohoutek

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

She provides absolutely no evidence to support that and quite frankly it's drivel.

It certainly doesn't make much sense, especially given Labour recent manifesto commitment:

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/business_money/labour+pledges+minimum+wage+rise/3609712

Labour added that to underline its commitment to helping the lowest paid, Whitehall departments will be asked to follow the lead of those already paying the so-called Living Wage, which is almost £2 an hour higher than the minimum wage.

I don't understand why working for the government means you should get paid £2 more an hour than you would in the private sector - given that people in the private sector, including those on minimum wage, are paying for the 'living wage'. A good bribe to make low paid people in the public sector vote Labour I suppose...

Labour's manifesto said the move to a higher wage will be supported by measures to address high pay in the public sector, reducing "pay bill pressures" in the coming years.

Hardly a convincing way of costing this measure. It seems both parties have suggestions coming out of their ears on how to increase spending, not reduce it.

The_White_Horse

polly toynbee - hateful lefty that cannot be trusted, just like gordon.

Procrastinator333

lostinrates wrote: »

There are private hospitals though, where the costs of receptions staff etc must be met.

Yes. Ok, I will try and make my explanation a bit clearer as a paragraph of text is not very friendly.

Say an NHS Hospital. The cost of paying the recptionist, cleaner, 24 hour care etc totals £1m.

Normally they do 200 operations a year. That is £5k of cost per operation.

How much does it cost to do 201 operations? Not £1.005m.

In BUPA, say it costs £500k to run a hospital without all the extra the NHS needs. They normally do 100 operations on the private side, so there is a £5k cost there too.

Again, how much does it cost BUPA to do 101 operations? Not £505k.

If anything, the NHS should be blowing BUPA away in terms of costs. It has massive economies of scale in its favour. BUPA should never be able to perform an operation as cheaply as the NHS.