Public sector wellcome to the real world

Koicarp

Similar to Prudent and Debbie I have no problem with increasing payments (double them if it helps) and I have no problem with average salary but can't see myself being fit enough to work past 60. As long as we keep the ability to retire at 60 I will be happy as I know I can make enough provision to do so.
Dunston, one of the few things I disagree with from your posts is that "public servants are a net drain" I think the NHS helps people get back to work, and the education sector prepares the youth so some of that would have to be factored into the equation.

bigjl

will-in-estoril wrote: »

These are absolutely disgraceful comments, which are unworthy of the MSE forum, let alone this debate.

A typical comment from somebody that is so unimformed as to think the economy is being ruined by the banks and the public sector pensions.

Where EXACTLY have I mentioned race, creed, colour or religion?

Nowhere.

That fact that some immediatly assume that the mention of uncontrolled immigration is a race issue says an awful lot more about the person that is saying it. As they are the one that has brought in the race, colour or religion which may or may not be involved.

This forum is not a debating point for such things.

However if you wish to blame the public sector for the countries ills then consideration must be given to where the money is actually being spent.

You do realise that a very large percentage of the public sector is made up of skilled immigrants?

So does that make anybody attacking the public sector pensions doing so on racial or religous grounds?

I would say no.

But you feel free to think what you want.

The NHS for example would certainly be the same or similar size without the recent immigration.

Why?

Well simply because the NHS spending is sorted out partly by using data from the census forms of previous years, and indeed this year.

As a lot of migrants tend not to fill in these forms for one reason or another then this actually reduces public spending.

I take it this isn't difficult for the uniformed to understand.

Without the unexpected overuse the NHS for example would be better resourced and the service we all pay for would be as good as we expect it to be.

The NHS for example doesn't make the waiting lists. In the same way the council doesn't make the housing waiting list.


To try to twist this into a race tgread is a pathetic thing to try and do to try to avoid looking at the real reason for the countries economic position.

This is without considering the amount of money that is sent out of the country every day via Western Union or similar, this also has a negative knock on effect to the economy.

I have first hand experience with that as my wife regularly sends money home to her mum and various cousins etc.

Nice to see the loony left is alive and well.

Ever wondered why so many NHS and Social Services staff move to Canade, New Zealand and Australia?

Do you really need me to answer that.

antrobus

Debbie_A wrote: »

I have only had a brief scan through this thread but the strength of feeling against public sector workers is palpable.

I believe that to be an accurate reflection of the state of public opinion at present.

Debbie_A wrote: »

I am a teacher. I am well qualified (1st class degree and PhD) with 20 years experience. I manage a department and I work hard for typically 46 weeks a year. I am not complaining: I do enjoy my job but I have never earned enough to pay higher rate tax, and never had a bonus or company car.

Most people who work in the private sector don't pay higher rate tax and have never had a bonus or a company car either. Some of them manage departments and work very hard for 46 weeks a year as well. The fact is that the typical public sector worker is paid more for doing the equivalent job in the private sector.

in April 2010, public sector employees were paid on average 7.8 per cent more than private sector employees. This was an increase of 2.5 percentage points since 2007, where the pay difference was estimated at 5.3 per cent.


http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/public_private_sector_pay_july2011.pdf

Debbie_A wrote: »

The pension that I was "promised" 20 years ago does compensate for this. It doesn't come cheap (20.5% of salary split between me, 6.4%, and my employer, 14.1%). Indeed our contributions went up four years ago in order to make it "sustainable".

Well, firstly there is nothing to be compensated for and, secondly in 2006 all the Teaching unions agreed to a cost sharing agreement which placed a ceiling of 14% on the employer contribution to the TPS from 2008 onwards. (Which oddly enough is less than the current employer contribution rate of 14.1%.) So there's really nothing to argue about. If it is the case (and it appears to be the case) that the cost of providing teachers pensions exceeds 20.5%, then 100% of that excess is to be borne by the employees, and the only thing left to negotiate is the extent to which that excess is funded by increased employee contributions or reduced benefits.

Debbie_A wrote: »

I do appreciate the feelings of those in the private sector whose pensions have already been destroyed. I am sorry that they have suffered. But public sector workers did not cause this problem and some postings are little more than schadenfreude

So presumably therefore you'd have no objection to paying (say) an extra 5% or 10% in income tax or national insurance contributions to fund a compensation scheme to make good the pensions of those who have suffered.

bigjl

Koicarp wrote: »

bigjl it looks as if you are saying that you pay large pension contributions because of avc and the 100 hours per month overtime which (you infer) you regularly carry out. For that to be possible you would have to work 5x12 hour shifts per week and 6x12 hour shifts every 4th week (I think). You do this routinely? really? for years? This would not be allowed in any NHS trust in which I've worked, because we know that staff make many more errors when working such long periods. Which is why we have taken on many of the roles traditionally carried out by doctors, to enable the reduction in doctors working hours which has taken place over the last few years.

Having been a bricklayer for a few years and now working as an NHS nurse, I can tell you I find working as a nurse far more tiring due to the concentration required over long periods to do your best for your patients.

You then (I think?) go on to say that you are disabled because of your work, and that you are not capable of carrying out the job any more- have I got this correct?

The amount of O/T I have quoted was a regular think for many year in the LAS, in fact every NHS AMbulance Trust whose staff that i have spoken to have similar stories about O/T levels

It is common for staff in LAS to do 6 12 hr shifts a week, and when you consider incidental O/T and late jobs many 14/15 hr shifts are worked, 100 hrs O/T is easily worked as it only works out at less than 24 hors O/T a week. If you do three 10 or 12 O/T shifts on your 3 day weeks and then 1 or 2 10 or 12 hour shifts on your four day week it is easily possible, it was actually easier on the 8 hour rosta if you had a finish about 22:00 as you could offer to work on till 03:00.

Additional years contracts and pension payments have nothing to do with your pensionable pay and doing a thousand hours a month would make zero difference to your pension. But surely you would know this being an NHS staff member surely.

Your pensionable pay is fixed. Surely you don't need me to tell you that?

The reason why I am now leaving the NHS is due to capability following two bads accidents at work whilst performing my duties as a public sector worker.

No fanfare, no huge payout, no golden handshake, no redeployment. Simply 9 weeks notice and off you go.

My Ill health Pension is still a battle to be fought, as is everything that should be considered a right.

The Ambulance workers in the UK used to have a forum, BWTS, BigWhiteTaxiService, that was closed down with threats of legal action from the LAS. But that was a good way for Ambos from the entire country to get together and where a lot of bad practices were exposed, and also the similarities that were present throughout the various NHS Trusts.

My point, which nobody seems to understand, is that most public sector employees that i know, so maybe we should make that NHS employees pay extra contributions to ensure a reasonable pension on retirement, many have private pensions aswell as their NHS Pension.

I would add that I doubt you have done many hours in a busy A/E in or near London if you think that O/T is unusual in the NHS clinical environment.

The A/E i used to take most of my patients to used to, until agency staff were no longer used, have the majority of staff doing all their O/T as Agency staff as the rates where better.

I have personally never heard of that many staff not doing large numbers of overtime, it is a part of the job in London, at least up until they have an O/T ban like they do at the moment, so staff are now doing A/E support work for other NHS Ambulance Trusts or working at events and festivals providing medical cover.

The only rule that is relevant to long working hours is the fact that you need to have 10 hours between shifts, but that is often overlooked when demand is high.

5 yrs ago two staff members worked 36 hours straight over Christmas, why it was allowed I have no idea, but they did mange to get their head down half way through for a few hours, I wouldn't do that personally, the longest shoft I have done was 18 hrs because we got a late job that took as past time and no day shift crew was available to take our place, but it was mostly sitting about on standby so it wasn;t that bad, as we had been to the briefing with the Old Bill nobody could realistically have taken our place anyway.

Until you have worked in the NHS I don't think many people have much of an idea how many hours are worked, though I think that the Ambulance Trusts are probably the worst for excessive O/T. The union did talk about excessive shift times and asked for tachos to be considered but they were ruled out by management due to the fact they think we only drive for a small amount of time before getting to scene or to hospital.

Prudent

jem16 wrote: »

The idea is that whatever you have built up before the changeover will remain. So if you have 20 years you would be able to retire at age 60 with 20/80ths.

You would then have a choice of either taking the rest that you have built up in the new scheme at age 60 also but it would be actuarially reduced, probably by about 5%pa, because you are taking it early. Or you would be able to leave that part until age 65 and take its full value.

Jem16 , that is brilliant news thank you. This probably means with the provision I have put in place that I will be able to go at 60 anyway as I can live well on quite little.

jem16

antrobus wrote: »

Most people who work in the private sector don't pay higher rate tax and have never had a bonus or a company car either. Some of them manage departments and work very hard for 46 weeks a year as well. The fact is that the typical public sector worker is paid more for doing the equivalent job in the private sector.

in April 2010, public sector employees were paid on average 7.8 per cent more than private sector employees. This was an increase of 2.5 percentage points since 2007, where the pay difference was estimated at 5.3 per cent.


http://www.statistics.gov.uk/articles/nojournal/public_private_sector_pay_july2011.pdf

The article also stated that it is very difficult to compare the two directly.

For example it also stated;

"Comparing employees who have a degree or an equivalent qualification shows that, on average in 2010, those in the public sector earned around 5.7 per cent less than those in the private sector."

jem16

Prudent wrote: »

Jem16 , that is brilliant news thank you. This probably means with the provision I have put in place that I will be able to go at 60 anyway as I can live well on quite little.

Remember that these are only the proposals at the moment but this is certainly what Hutton has advocated in his report.

As I am likely to have 39 years teaching service when the proposed changeover in 2015 happens, I would feel very aggrieved not to be able to retire at age 60.

cvd

I believe that to be an accurate reflection of the state of public opinion at present.

Reference please.

Last poll I saw (Yougov July 2011) was 47% of people oppose the Government’s changes to public sector pensions compared to 37% who support the alterations.

Jegersmart

There will always be contention in the private vs public sector debates. So we can stick to facts:

Public Sector workers do not create wealth, they are merely a cost to the country's taxpayers - and both the civil servant in question as well as me (for example) pay for his or her salary through taxes. In some respects the Government has to tread a very fine line between providing employment and becoming too high a cost to the taxpayer base. The public sector has grown enormously since the 1950/60's in the UK - and in some areas of the country are the major employer by a mile. Is this right? Do we need such a big public sector? I don't know the answers, but I do know that taxpayers not in the employ of the public sector globally are propping up the system. How long can this last? What can we do to address the balance towards private sector so we can all benefit? On a stronger note, when are the taxpayers going to stand up and refuse to be taken for a ride by the goverment, banks, corporations and so on? A question or debate for another thread perhaps?

Jegersmart

cvd wrote: »

Reference please.

Last poll I saw (Yougov July 2011) was 47% of people oppose the Government’s changes to public sector pensions compared to 37% who support the alterations.

That is not that surprising, as I believe around 47% of the country are employed by goverment...;)