Cutbacks hitting those who need help most - it's starting

downshifter

I work with people with learning disabilities and mental health problems, helping them with basic skills and have just found out that my hours are being cut in half. It makes me so mad that cuts are made where they hurt the people on the bottom rungs of the ladder, who are just trying to learn enough to read signs or add up enough not to be short changed in shops! They will still be able to go to their classes but without additional one to one support - how are they supposed to learn anything when in a mixed class with others who are working towards GCSE level English and maths?

Apart from the fact that my pay - what little there was of it - will be cut in half and I scrape by with so little anyway and have no idea what I can do to replace it.

The bonus for one city banker would pay for all the basic skills students in this county, and more and more. Makes me SO angry!

Rant over for a wet Friday morning. Wish I could afford a lottery ticket.

DS

woody01

Thats what happens when you vote tory.I wonder how many people like you cast the 'blue' vote, and now realise how silly it was.

ceridwen

But we knew cutbacks were going to happen anyway - whoever came to power.

O.P. - I'm sorry to hear that you have been affected - and the people that you help.

I think it may well be the case that a lot of the coming cutbacks will be imposed on those "at the coalface" (as you are) - ie the jobs that are actually necessary and the salary payable is so low that not much money will be saved per job by cutting ones at that level.

Where the cuts actually need to come is often amongst those at a "higher" level in an organisation. Each job cut there would save a lot more money - because they get paid so much higher a salary. Unfortunately (and I do understand why people do this....) - it tends to be the case that many people look for promotion to a higher salary/status job and jobs often DO get "created" at some sort of intermediate management level to fit in these people (whether they actually merit promotion or no). It is the case - in many organisations - that there are too many "layers" of management specifically to cater for providing decent level/salary level jobs for those wishing for promotion and they then "chase their tail" trying to create tasks for themselves to do to justify the salaries/titles they have and, in the process, often spend money that simply isnt available to spend (thus costing the organisation a lot more money than just the salaries they are paid). One sees them sitting there thinking up new initiatives, buying new furniture, decorating somewhere that had only recently been decorated (ie by the last incumbent when THEY were trying to "do the new broom sweeping clean" - otherwise known as justifying their existence).

That is where the cuts really need to come - and not at the level of "coal face" jobs that ARE actually useful and only pay low level salaries anyway (hence rather a lot of lower-level jobs have to be cut in order to save much money).

One could say that the definition of having "arrived" at a keeper level job is when you never have to get your hands dirty/can always dress smartly/attend regular meetings to discuss the same subjects ad infinitum/are entitled to claim expenses or at least get fed at said meetings....

downshifter

Thank you Ceridwen . Unfortunately I think you're right. Having worked in local authorities, the NHS and the civil service- definitely the worse for senior people coasting until retirement payout day - there are a lot of people who are kept on just because it would be too expensive to get rid of them, or else there's a no-redundancy rule, fortunately changing now. Having said that, a lot of senior managers work their socks off on really valuable projects and strategic planning skills are needed even more now that there's a need to get the most value from everything.

When I first heard about my students this week, my initial reaction was to offer to work voluntarily with them, however there's so much red tape around doing that, as well as the fact that I need to work, that it's a non-starter sadly.

Anyway, having checked my bank account this morning, I see I have gone £37 over my overdraft level so for now, I need to look to my own situation and stop offering to do voluntary work! Where's that up your income board?

DS

maninthestreet

Perhaps if less public money was spent on underwriting shortfalls in the public service pension schemes, there would be more money available where it is really needed?

woody01

One could say that the definition of having "arrived" at a keeper level job is when you never have to get your hands dirty/can always dress smartly/attend regular meetings to discuss the same subjects ad infinitum/are entitled to claim expenses or at least get fed at said meetings....

I do all that, but in a private company.
I also employ people that are 'at the coalface' as you say.
Neither is more important than the other, and i say that as someone who has done both.