300,000 jobs in public sector face the axe

chucky

JasonLVC wrote: »

Sorry Marklv, you cannot accuse someone of making generalised comments and then, without a hint of irony, then make a generalised comment.

"The public sector is mostly office based and professional".....No it isn't. The public sector consists of pen pushers and administrators, call centre staff, front of desk staff at job centres, the staff at local councils who process invoices, collect the rent, mow the parks and clear up dog muck, police back office staff, court clerks, etc.

i'm not in the public sector so wouldn't have a clue but would ask the question... that aren't these all employed by the private sector in companies that these services are contracted out to?

lemonjelly

chucky wrote: »

i'm not in the public sector so wouldn't have a clue but would ask the question... that aren't these all employed by the private sector in companies that these services are contracted out to?

Differs from LA to LA.

Some have kept these roles "in-house", so they are still employees of the LA & the LA retains direct control. Other LA's have outsourced this so day-to-day management of the service is done via the sub-contracting company, & the contract is reviewed on a regular basis.

In example, parks maintenance in Birmingham is done by Birmingham Council staff. Housing repairs was done by a firm called mitie, who got phenomenally poor reviews in respect of standards of service, quality of work, reliability & punctuality. I believe the council has now given the contract to another company for buildings repairs.

The old postcode lottery chestnut.

bryanb

JasonLVC wrote: »

"The public sector is mostly office based and professional".....No it isn't. The public sector consists of pen pushers and administrators, call centre staff, front of desk staff at job centres, the staff at local councils who process invoices, collect the rent, mow the parks and clear up dog muck, police back office staff, court clerks, smoking cessation officers, H&S advisors, etc. there are also some professionals such as surveyors, accountants and lawyers as well.

Just like to add Firemen, Teachers,Tree wardens,Drivers etc etc

JasonLVC

lemonjelly wrote: »

Trouble is, the private sector, consumerism, capitalism, greed & reckless lending & borrowing which was unsustainable caused the economic situation we are in. Essentially, the private sector.

Personally, my feeling is that the private sector should be bailing out the country. It is their mess.

We'd struggle without either side. But the vitriol that public sector workers get is ridiculous, unjustified & borderline discriminatory. Some of the nastiness coming across on here makes me wonder if people are trying to deflect attention from the shortcomings of their own lives onto others. Many of these debates become very disrespectful towards posters. Unneccessary.

Not sure how individual greed and consumerism is all the fault of the private sector - public sector workers clocked up debts they could ill afford too. Reckless lending yes, so blame the banks not not the entire "private sector".

I agree the vitriol towards the public sector is somewhat harsh and the personal attacks are a distraction from the debate. That doesn't change the reality that the public sector is over-staffed and a financial burden on the country.

How has the potato board improved YOUR life?.

How can 26% of your council tax bill be put towards the pension payments of past council employees leaving only 75% for the Council to actually spend on stuff today - no wonder councils struggle?

I suspect if things actually "worked", people would complain less and not begrudge the public sector workers their plight, but as consumers, our expectations are very high and rarely met by the public sector when we need them (planning applications delays, hospital stays and MRSA, schools using 'teaching assistants', the police never come round to record your crime, Councils snooping in your bins, etc)*.

*generalist statements I realise

princeofpounds

Trouble is, the private sector, consumerism, capitalism, greed & reckless lending & borrowing which was unsustainable caused the economic situation we are in. Essentially, the private sector.

It now seems like the public sector will be paying the bill. The private sector will get off lightly, & with the tories in, will get tax breaks, protecting them even further.

This is the sort of statement that sometimes makes me despair. So often views are based on personal perceptions and not evidence.

Let's look at the National statistics on GDP:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/gdp0410.pdf

Sorry, it gets a bit fiddly here but look at page 9. You can see that Government and other services declined 0.6% in 2009. That is better than any other single category, and way better than the aggregate minus 4.9%.

So the private sector DID pay the penalty. The public sector DID NOT. In fact, this was a deliberate Keynesian economic strategy pursued by the government where public spending was used to artificially boost the economy to smooth out the recession. There are differing views on whether this is the right thing to do, but that doesn't matter, it still happened.

The thing is, the private sector adjusted so fast that it's largely done now. And so now it's time for that policy to be unwound (leaving aside the fact that we can't afford to continue it). This is nothing more than the public sector taking its fair share.

Now I appreciate there is a separate argument to be had about how fair it is to cut (and my position would be that notions of fairness have little relevance - a government should never outspend its means as rule number 1 as it is just not sustainable). But it's simply not the case that the public sector is paying the price alone and that is very clear from the data. It shouldn't even be a matter of debate that it has barely started paying ANY kind of price at all.

custardy

Harry_Powell wrote: »

I love the fact that public sector workers admit their jobs are just the Dole by another name. Very revealing!

However, let's check out their assertion that it's cheaper to keep them in work...

Median salary for a public sector worker, according to national statistics is £28k. This works out as the following:

PAYE/NI Net Salary Tax Calculator Results

Salary breakdown for a salary of £28,000, with a tax code of 647L;
Fiscal Year 2010/2011

Income Tax (PAYE)...........£4,304
National Insurance (N.I)....£2,450
Total taxes.....................£6,755
INCOME........................£21,245


Annual Salary.....£28,000
Employers N.I.....£2,851
TOTAL COST TO EMPLOYER.......£30,851

Final Salary Pension - The CBI calculates that this pension promise is worth, on average, 26% of every public-sector worker's salary. This therefore equates to £7280 per annum retirement fund for public sector workers.

Therefore, it will save the government £24,000 per annum (salary - taxes the employee pays), plus the £7280 that the government wont have to find each year for a pension, which over a 20 year retirement could save the country £145600.

I'm sorry but the figures just don't bear out the suggestion that it's cheaper to keep public sector workers in jobs than on the dole. It's a ridiculous assertion!

and where does the money come from to replace their spending?

Oh and since it seems a requirement
I work in the private sector,same as i have always done except for 5 years at RM

chucky

lemonjelly wrote: »

Differs from LA to LA.

Some have kept these roles "in-house", so they are still employees of the LA & the LA retains direct control. Other LA's have outsourced this so day-to-day management of the service is done via the sub-contracting company, & the contract is reviewed on a regular basis.

In example, parks maintenance in Birmingham is done by Birmingham Council staff. Housing repairs was done by a firm called mitie, who got phenomenally poor reviews in respect of standards of service, quality of work, reliability & punctuality. I believe the council has now given the contract to another company for buildings repairs.

The old postcode lottery chestnut.

thanks

doesn't this then skew the public sector salaries upwards as these are usually 'lower paid' staff that are now in the private sector which makes the average salary in the private sector lower...

thescouselander

princeofpounds wrote: »

Well we can estimate quite roughly how good state pensions are. Here is a worked example for the NHS...

Assume a 'special class' employee (i.e. someone who joined before 95). They can retire at the age of 55, but let's say they work until 60 to get their maximum entitlement (40 years). Let's also assume a salary of 30k, which isn't far off the national average for public sector workers and is a nice round number.

The calculator below indicates that the retiree gets 45k lump sum plus 15k per year (index linked!)for life.
http://www.nhspa.gov.uk/PDweb/PensionCalculators/StandardPension/index.htm

So how much is this worth in today's money? Well, the 45k is easy, but the annuity required a bit more maths.

Thankfully best buy annuity rates are published which means that the private pension providers have gone out and done the maths for us (so I can spare you the annuity valuation calculation!), and on the FT website I can see that a single life annuity, RPI-linked, for a 60 year old man is 3.58%.

So to replicate the £15k per year on a commercial basis you would need a capital sum of 15/0.0358 = £419000. Add on the 45k and you are looking at £464k.

Four hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds. For someone who only reached a salary of £30k in their last three years of work (meaning their career-average earnings in today's money was probably much lower).

This is more than the cost of an average house, in fact it's nearer the cost of two average houses! You should see what the calculations looks like for early retirees with high salaries, like police and military personnel.

I dont see that your example is relevant. Why have you picked someone who started before 1995 when this sort of arrangement would not be available to a starter today? There are plenty of private sector final salary pensions that are still available to employees who entered the system years ago.

Secondly I dont think the capital sum is that much and I dont think anyone should be surprised by it. A private sector worker (who would probably be paid more) investing 15-20% of their salary in a pension over their working life could end up with a capital sum equal or even greater compared with your example. What is the problem?

Harry_Powell

custardy wrote: »

and where does the money come from to replace their spending?

Oh and since it seems a requirement
I work in the private sector,same as i have always done except for 5 years at RM

To turn your argument around (because let's face it, this is just going in circles otherwise). If you really believe that it costs the economy and the state more money to make these public sector workers redundant that we save in salary and pension contributions, then surely we could take your argument further and say that instead of making 300,000 people redundant, we should hire a further 300,000 people because we'll generate more money. Indeed, if we take on all of the jobless 3M? as public sector workers, we could generate so much money that we'll get out of the recession and have a boom!

Is that what you're saying?

custardy

obviously there are limits and Im not saying job cuts arent required
however to say 300K have to/will go doesnt mean its the right move
a lot depends on where these cuts hit and unfortunatly i expect it to hit the lower levels leaving tiers of management untouched
so many on this thread/forum seem to believe everyone not in the private sector lives the life of Reilly

I even saw a post in here stating that postal staff got a pay rise for no changes in working conditions recently
thats just 100% wrong,yet im sure the believe it for whatever reason