Good luck to state workers picketing today

drc

What I don't understand about the public sector is this; Under Labour when billions of pounds was poured into the public sector (some of it from raided private sector pension dividends ) and millions of jobs were created, my council tax increased by about 50% over 10 years. However, whenever I phoned my council, odds were that the phone would go unanswered or I would have to wait 20 minutes for them to answer and that was just the main switchboard (the same situation persists today). My rubbish only got collected once a week and this has not increased even though council tax has risen so much (under Labour). The rubbish bins were always overflowing with rubbish because collection was so spaced out.

What were Labour doing with all that extra council tax money? Certainly not using it to produce value and better service for taxpayers. And apparently a quarter to a third of council tax merely pays towards the pensions of council workers (this happened under Labour). Why the !!!! have I been funding their pension when I can't even afford to fund my own?

FTBFun

real1314 wrote: »

Hardly busted: Company Cars, Free Sky TV, All Fuel paid for including private use, Private Gym subsidised.
Just some of the perks in the private sector.

Hmm council gym vs private gym? Cheap travel v company car?

Generally "good" perks are available to few in either sector, people on average wages in the public sector might get a few minor extras, but I doubt anyone sees them as a deal breaker; but to the higher-ups, they almost always are better in the Private Sector.

And everyone at Sky gets £50 worth of package a month; How does that LA Gym discount work out? :cool:

So only perks if you work for Sky then. Sky employ approx 16,000 people in the UK so hardly a good example for the private sector as a whole.

I get none of these btw.

Jack_Johnson_the_acorn

julieq wrote: »

I'm not on a state pension. I'm on a company scheme, which is less generous than the one I'm funding through tax for a public sector that frankly is barely fit for purpose.

Let's talk about education standards shall we? If it cost nothing, who'd send their child private rather than risk the local comp? Who would turn down a free BUPA subscription given the chance?

The public sector performs poorly and demands excessive resources on the basis of an entitlement mentality. It doesn't even understand what a great deal it gets.

I forgot we in the public sector where all single minded carbon copies of one another with no differing of opinions.

Nice way to generalise there..... The private sector is the cause of the financial crisis and the cause of their own downfall..... Oh no that's a massive generalisation.....

Mallotum_X

Why would anyone care if Sky gives its employees a Sky package. The shareholders are obviously happy with the deal.

The private sector must answer to its shareholders (and government to some degree) on performance.

The public sector seems to forget that its shareholdes are in effect the private sector.

julieq

Jack_Johnson_the_acorn wrote: »

I forgot we in the public sector where all single minded carbon copies of one another with no differing of opinions.

Nice way to generalise there..... The private sector is the cause of the financial crisis and the cause of their own downfall..... Oh no that's a massive generalisation.....

Actually you're right. Excessive public spending is the cause of the financial crisis. Not banks. Banks triggered a slowdown that exposed the over-optimistic projections behind the spending growth.

And as for the public sector, well there are reasonable bits of it, but generally it's not as efficient as the private sector because there's no mechanism to drive efficiency improvements. In terms of Education and the NHS, it performs poorly - outcomes here are far worse than other countries, bluntly. I don't personally subscribe to the idea that public service is mostly non jobs, it's the actual jobs that need to be made more efficient.

I'd be pretty sure that in most cases the private sector would be able to do more, better for less. And we'd have a formal service level agreement.

But that's not the issue. The point is, why do you expect your pension to be subsidised by someone else instead of funding it yourself? Do you not see how that creates resentment, especially when other people are struggling to fund their own retirement with far worse deals? We can't really on some other group in the economy to top our pensions up, we have to cope with ours and yours.

Graham_Devon

Really2 wrote: »

To put the shoe on the other foot.

If it is that bad in the public sector why not join the private sector?

When anyone says anything usually against the public sector the standard response is "why don't you join the public sector if it is that good?"

I would like to know if it is that bad, why don't they leave and join us in our non subsidised pension equally low paid jobs?;)

Probably due to the fact that you don't get that many nurses, doctors, radiologists etc in the private sector, so the demand for those private jobs would be immense.

And I'm not sure which company runs a private police, fire or coastguard service.

Also not too sure which company runs Armys.

Also not sure which company runs payments to farmers etc

kabayiri

Chickens coming home to roost. That's all it is.

And the guilty parties ? Labour politicians mostly, inflating the numbers of the public sector by over a MILLION in a few terms of office. Not only that, they allow the lower paid roles who arguably needed most protection to be outsourced. This is why average pay in the public sector now stands comparison with the private sector.

Of course, like most Labour politicians, they have an inate inability to do their sums, and factor in the increased pension costs or the effects of longer living. Why should they? That's another politician's problem, on someone else's watch. I'd strip all the politicians of their pension for gross !!!!!!!g mismanagement.

If we remember back, Frank Fields was appointed to look at the pension issue, in the first Labour term of office. Of course, when he brought back the harsh reality they chose to sideline him; hide him away. Australian politicians attempted to address their pension problem across the board in the 80s. Our politicians show no such gumption.

Generali

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Also not sure which company runs payments to farmers etc

Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose or a wholesaler depending on where you buy your food.

FTBFun

Generali wrote: »

Tesco, Sainsburys, Waitrose or a wholesaler depending on where you buy your food.

He's referring to the, in no way a complete pile of !!!!!, Common Agricultural Policy.

chewmylegoff

real1314 wrote: »

Any evidence for this line or do you just make things up to suit your own pre-determined opinion? :cool:

well, i'm pretty sure there is a graph somewhere in the hutton report you are relying on which shows the declining cost of public sector pensions, you can look at it and see the basis on which it is prepared.

you can do some simple maths to work out that £4bn a year is not the real cost of public sector pensions. the average public sector pension is £5,600 per annum or something like that, which means there would only be about 715,000 people being paid public sector pensions. there are about 12,000,000 pensioners in the UK. that would mean only 6% of all pensioners had ever worked in the public sector and accrued pension benefits from doing so.