Public sector wellcome to the real world

vbm

Sadly the final salary model is not fit for today. Fantastic benefit but is far too expensive to be practical these days.

I wind up and de-risk final salary schemes for a living, and see first hand the mess some companies get into trying to maintain these things. Even with the massive economies of scale the government can employ it stands to reason that the same factors are at play in the public sector as well. Sadly they belong to a different age with lower life expectancy and less job mobility.

Incidently being in that line of work I regularly see people move from the Pension Protection Fund or TPR into the private sector and vice versa. On the whole the working conditions (pay / holiday / pensions etc) are broadly equivilant. Obviously some love to resort to charactures the make their agruments, but real life is rarely like that.

Darren_G

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Ok show us your evidence that both jobs are identical. Are hours worked, duties & responsibilities the same? Holidays, sick pay, job security etc etc

Note I said nearest equivalent. They have the grass cutting contract - they cut grass (badly) and do very little else. Assistant gardeners in the local authority also do work on bowling greens and cricket pitches, which requires a greater level of skill to achieve a fine turf finish than a once over with a ride on mower at breakneck speed.

Salaries are based on the standard working week. The private firm have better terms for hours worked over 39 as stated in my post. Holidays are 20 days paid leave and 8 bank holidays for both 'sectors'. No such thing as job security these days for either.

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Also councils are paying much more into than you suggest into their employees pensions funds - my council is paying between 17.6 and 22% - and they're still underfunded!

Employer contributions are usually a static percentage (there may be a separate scale for chief exec's and directors, but they are a different kettle of fish altogether) - my understanding is that it is the employee contribution which varies depending on salary levels. My view is that maybe it is individual schemes that need looking at rather than the job lot. The average is 11%, according to the table in the review of MP's pensions.

Again, someone has tarred everyone with the same brush based on their own perception of what is happening in their locality. I would suggest you do a freedom of information request to your council to verify the level of employer contributions - or are you confusing local government employees with civil servants, who do have a scandalously high employer contribution?

relic

Darren_G wrote: »

Oops - it really is getting to be 'them & us' time again isn't it!



- please tell me where I can get a 40% rise so I can move there!



- My home city has privatised the grass verge cutting. The average private sector operative, who is trained to use a grass cutter and little else, gets paid approximately £14,400 with bonuses and is paid premium rates (ie, 1.5 and double time) for overtime on top of this.

The equivalent job in the council is an 'assistant gardener', who gets paid just under £12,500, with no eligibility for bonuses. Most overtime is paid at plain time. Holiday entitlement is the same as his/her private sector counterpart. Assuming an 11% employer contribution, the total benefits package is £13,875, which is 4% lower than the private sector worker.

A manager in the same industry is paid approx £41k plus company car, mobile phone and pension with employer contributions, bringing the total to just over £43k.

A mid level 'principal officer' in local government with the same level of responsibility is paid a 'career grade' of between £29k and £34k, with no car and has to reimburse for any private calls made on their phone. Assuming the upper income level and local government employer contributions of 11%, the total public sector package is valued at a maximum of £37.7k. That puts the private sector employee at just over 13% more than the public employee

These are real examples, and what is more, regardless of how much of the overall pay is apportioned to pension or living wage, the sum totals are being paid out of 'taxpayers' money (used the term loosely, since some readers may not wish to differentiate between council tax and income tax)

Who said it was a 40% pay rise? I'm looking right now on the JCP website where they are advertising private and public sector jobs in admin and call centers. Average wage for the private sector is around £12,500 where as the starting wage for a basic admin role in the public sector is £14,000. That isn't a pay rise, it's what it should be in general, but the private sector around here can demand whatever skills they want for whatever money, because people are desperate for the work.

You call your examples real, yet just give us numbers, if you are going to try and undermine other peoples comments don't try and make yourself look like you are speaking the truth without giving actual evidence.

There are cases where (especially in management) private sector outpays public. In the majority of cases in the areas I have lived in, and especially northern areas, this isn't the case.

relic

chesky369 wrote: »

I don't buy this north/south divide, implying that everyone down south is rolling in money and/or earning huge wages. There are literally hundreds of people working at places like Heathrow airport for the catering and service industries there, earning the basic minimum wage - then they have to find somewhere to live in an area which has some of the highest rents in the country. They're certainly not living the high life.

Who said that?

Wages in general are higher down south, but housing and other general costs are higher as well.

As for your example, they aren't earning minimum wage (I had family members doing that exact work) and the places they rent aren't much different to the equivilent up north.

Old_Slaphead

Darren_G wrote: »

Employer contributions are usually a static percentage (there may be a separate scale for chief exec's and directors, but they are a different kettle of fish altogether) - my understanding is that it is the employee contribution which varies depending on salary levels. My view is that maybe it is individual schemes that need looking at rather than the job lot. The average is 11%, according to the table in the review of MP's pensions.

No they aren't. There's many admitted bodies subscribing to LGPS - each with slightly different rates.

From the last actuarial review in 2010 Notts CC require employer contributions of 18% to ensure that their scheme is fully funded. I have been told that NCC is averagely funded.

See attached section 6.1.1

http://www.nottspf.org.uk/pension_fund_actuarial_valuation_report_2010.pdf

I'd be interested to see the source of your 11% figure.


nb - I don't need Freedom of Information requests. Info is available on LG websites for those who can be bothered to read it !!

ani_26

The strike action by the public sector tomorrow, has certainly opened a can of worms, and yes, welcome to the real world, public sector. Having said that as its been said previously, there has always been the option to add to your pension fund with avc's, though i would imagine few people have taken this option, or maybe knew, about it.

My personal view is life expectation has now increased dramaticaly, and its now unsustainable from the government pot. The UK, no longer is the land of plenty, for all. I think the government is making us take responsibility for our own futures, and retirement, and i think young people should address having a pension fund, at the earliest opportunity.

Speaking as someone who is self employed, and has neither a public or a private pension fund, forthcoming, i've had to think long and hard about pensions, and largely, i just have'nt had the spare cash to save regularly into a pension fund. Its certainly worth a fraction of the sums of money, quoted here.


In my view, its just time for everyone to take responsibilty for their own futures, and not take anything for granted.

2sides2everystory

[quote=relic]I've always been interested in where public sector workers get this idea that the jobs equal to theirs in the private sector are better paid?

This may be the case down south, but where I live public sector jobs in general have 40% higher wages than similar jobs in the private sector. I guess that's the problem with living in a smallish northern town.[/quote]It is a very old idea which was true when I finished university in 1978 and has gone the other way ever since, especially since the mid 90s when private sector pensions were first under systematic attack.

The public sector simply kept their heads down and did not support those of us in the private sector when we called foul.

We were inexplicably propoganda'd into swallowing the line that pension schemes were not part of the employment contract. Now the poor old public servants are expecting our hearts to bleed like they might be some returning war heros who've sweated away in Afghanistan risking life and limb and making all manner of sacrifice the rest of us never made on the understanding their country would look after them in retirement under an unwritten covenant. Then they tell us theirs is actually a written contract when ours wasn't. Bad news is that it ain't worth the paper it is written on now unless you get the support of the rest of us out of the goodness of our hearts.

So as the thread title says, Welcome to the real world. You didn't care about our pensions, and it is too late now for us to bother about yours because it wont help us.

Don't be such wimps ... Come on down, the waters lovely ...

Koicarp

2sides2everystory wrote: »

The public sector simply kept their heads down and did not support those of us in the private sector when we called foul.

Was calling "foul" the full extent of your resistance? Did your union or professional organisation request assistance from public service workers? What would you have expected them to do, strike?

2sides2everystory

Koicarp wrote: »

Was calling "foul" the full extent of your resistance? Did your union or professional organisation request assistance from public service workers? What would you have expected them to do, strike?

Wasn't the full extent of my resistance no Koicarp, because I complained loudly and still am to the extent that I strongly believe that if we started now with proper legal support, we could force the government to cause to be reinstated a hell of a lot of the private defined benefit pensions schemes. Most were wound up not because the employers had to do so to survive but merely because their shareholders were shown a path to follow which was ruthless and greedy and their consciences were wholly discarded as soon as they realised no-one had the strength or will to stop them, and that it suited some hidden agendae.

And the public sector were as much to blame for that as anyone because you were constantly outsourcing and inviting tenders to "preferred" private sector organisations who had dumped their expensive pension schemes (other than for directors of course!) to compete for "your" business purely on price. It has been a race to the bottom and was never about quality.

In reality it's all a bit late now - especially since no-one in or around government can even be bothered to take back the ill gotten bonuses the bankers sucked out of everything they got their hands on just in the last few years. Realisticly, the chances of reversing the busted pensions promises with the major corporates is even more remote I suppose.

So, you reap what you have been sowing perhaps?

Darren_G

Uglymug wrote: »

Hi Darren G

Re: your gardener example.

Anyone who accepted a private sector job paying £14,400 in favour of a public sector one paying £12,500 would need his head examining.
The council obviously privatised this position to reduce costs.

Uglymug - nobody had a choice in what they accepted, the work was put out to contract and the jobs were offered by the private company that won the contract. It is costing about £600k more using the private sector..