The Public Sector Cuts - Anyone worried?

NAR

Think someone should be asking in a Freedom of Information request "How much money was spent on providing the NICS Live conference at the Waterfront" yesterday.

Not only the cost of putting it on but also the number of staff hours (approx 1500-2000 Civil Servants attended) that were lost attending it.

In the current financial climate this event should have been cancelled IMHO.

tara747

AFAIK it didn't cost the NICS a penny (apart from the lost time at work of course) - it was paid for by the company organising it (Dods?) and they charged the private companies who had stands (Allstate etc) which covered the cost.

one2escape

The pay freeze is worrying and disappointing news. With the equal pay claim I earn less than the staff I manage even though I have worked in the civil service longer than them! It is just a hugely demotivator.

36square

one2escape wrote: »

The pay freeze is worrying and disappointing news. With the equal pay claim I earn less than the staff I manage even though I have worked in the civil service longer than them! It is just a hugely demotivator.

You should count yourself lucky that you're not getting a pay cut.

one2escape

36square wrote: »

You should count yourself lucky that you're not getting a pay cut.

:money:As posted I am acutally underpaid compared to the private sector and I have one of the jobs which does have a direct comparison. Cutting the wages of the public sector is not the answer. When will people wake up and see this?

highrisklowreturn

Just noticed this thread - and the NICS is recruiting again lol....

oldhand

D.A. wrote: »

Or all of you take a pay cut and give up the nice perks which your public sector job entitles you to, which the rest of us in the private sector have to pay for.

(and before you say it, my wife works for the Belfast Trust, so I hear every day how bad things are).

That pay you speak of was only arrived at after many years of pay well below private sector wages.I joined the D.O.E.(as it was known then)25 years ago when the wage paid then was pitiful but it was the only job around for me then,when I left (due to an accident) a few years back I was still earning less than a comparable job in private sector.

saverbuyer

oldhand wrote: »

That pay you speak of was only arrived at after many years of pay well below private sector wages.I joined the D.O.E.(as it was known then)25 years ago when the wage paid then was pitiful but it was the only job around for me then,when I left (due to an accident) a few years back I was still earning less than a comparable job in private sector.

That doesn't really matter. At the end of the day your public sector job is paid for by private sector taxes. One perk of the public sector is the inability to get sacked, a job for life. It's only right you get paid less in return for these perks. Considerably less.

oldhand

saverbuyer wrote: »

That doesn't really matter. At the end of the day your public sector job is paid for by private sector taxes. One perk of the public sector is the inability to get sacked, a job for life. It's only right you get paid less in return for these perks. Considerably less.

I also paid my taxes but I do agree about a job for life (at least it was in those days) now however there are a lot of people losing their jobs in public service.In the case of D.O.E.(now water service) many of the losses came about due to "outsourcing" contracts to the private sector with the results you can now witness day and daily with homes flooded with sewerage after heavy rainfall as pumping stations fail due to lack of maintenance,the same stations which failed before during adverse weather and water services reply is the standard "our contractors are working with water service personnel to rectify the problem" Those "contractors" replaced water service employees after tendering for contracts at a price they knew they could never do the work for.That is why you will see many of the "contractors" employees with little or no safety training,some of them (when I was still there) "doing the double" and much of their equipment not fit for purpose.

saverbuyer

oldhand wrote: »

I also paid my taxes but I do agree about a job for life (at least it was in those days) now however there are a lot of people losing their jobs in public service.In the case of D.O.E.(now water service) many of the losses came about due to "outsourcing" contracts to the private sector with the results you can now witness day and daily with homes flooded with sewerage after heavy rainfall as pumping stations fail due to lack of maintenance,the same stations which failed before during adverse weather and water services reply is the standard "our contractors are working with water service personnel to rectify the problem" Those "contractors" replaced water service employees after tendering for contracts at a price they knew they could never do the work for.That is why you will see many of the "contractors" employees with little or no safety training,some of them (when I was still there) "doing the double" and much of their equipment not fit for purpose.

There hasn't really been any public sector job cuts in NI. There's maybe a "freeze" on recruitment (more like slightly less recruitment) but no-one has lost their job really yet. No one who wasn't retiring anyway.

On the point about paying taxes, public sector workers don't "pay" taxes as all public services is paid through private sector taxation. You can't get paid from the tax pot and pay into it also.