Osborne plans lower public sector salaries outside of the south

pqrdef

Well there's obviously a huge problem at present, what with all the southerners queuing up to get jobs in the north, to take advantage of the lower living costs and be so much better off.

Thrugelmir

pqrdef wrote: »

Well there's obviously a huge problem at present, what with all the southerners queuing up to get jobs in the north, to take advantage of the lower living costs and be so much better off.

Over the years there's been periods of time when "Londoners" cash in, leave the smoke and move West.

More property for your buck.

globalds

It will make the gravitational pull of the South East even stronger.

Not a good thing in my opinion.

PasturesNew

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I agree.

But I do take issue when it comes to living costs. For instance, a person living in the city of London, who will be on better wages, pays less for a Band E property, then I pay for a Band A.

They pay less for transport.

They pay less for water.

Is any of this taken into account?

While I'm not against the idea, I just feel we should be mindful not to alienate the south east from the rest of the country too much.

Will MP's receive less based on their location? I think we can guess the answer.

You're right. It's only housing that's more expensive there. Like for like London's a cheaper place to actually live/buy stuff/do things.

GrungeMeister

There's surely going to come a point though where freezing the pay of low paid public sector employees, even reducing pay by forcing them to pay higher pension contributions until 2015 ... and continuing to increase benefits by inflation ... will bring us to a point where the lower grade civil servants on £15-16k per annum just might as well not bother going into work ?

Because once you factor in rent, council tax benefits etc, they wouldn't really be that much worse off by signing on as unemployed than by working ?

pqrdef

GrungeMeister wrote: »

will bring us to a point where the lower grade civil servants on £15-16k per annum just might as well not bother going into work ?

But if they're chained to their desks, they can't leave.

GrungeMeister wrote: »

Because once you factor in rent, council tax benefits etc, they wouldn't really be that much worse off by signing on as unemployed than by working ?

What makes you think benefits won't be cut as well? They'll have to be. Just a question of working out how.

GrungeMeister

For all that Osborne seems brave enough to take on the public sector unions, the civil servants aren't likely to riot. But start cutting benefits and there's going to be a repetition of what went on in August last year. So for all they'll trim here and trim there, there just won't be any severe cuts to the social security budget.

Excuse me while I do some minor arithmetic, I'm in the private sector on £16,800 pa and I want to see where I stand for working full time compared to my Brother, he's unemployed right now.

£307 JSA (from April)
£375 Rent Paid
£81 Council Tax Paid
Total £763 pcm. Plus he might also qualify for non-repayable grants, interest free loans from the Social Fund, free prescriptions, subsidised council facilities etc.

Me ? Take home after tax etc of £1,123 pcm, from which I have to pay everything.

So the hard cash advantage I have over my Brother, for me working full time compared to his unemployment, is only £360 per month as it is.

I guess my question really is how far would that have to narrow before you'd call it a day and just give up working ?? I mean, it's not like they're introducing regional rates of social security benefits, or regional rates of income tax, VAT etc.

It's just wages.

I admire people who work for comparatively low wages.

Generali

I think it's a good idea myself. Greece shows the result of having a public sector earning a lot more than people in the private sector could reasonably aspire to.

Derivative

To me this is very worrying if you believe in the mantra that more pay = better standard of employee.

Extend this a bit further to say, teachers, and you risk further entrenching the underperformance of state schools (as if it's not bad enough already).

It is bad enough that those with aspiration are almost forced to move South. Now the Government will actively be rewarding it.

oldvicar

There was once a time when many public sector workers had a sense of duty and sought job satisfaction through providing good public service. Coincidentally they were paid an appropriate but not excessive salary which paid the bills and their employer was considered decent and fair.

Now many turn up to work just for the money.

A very sad state of affairs.

With the attacks on pensions morale must have been reduced from poor to rock bottom. This latest proposal will, if possible, make it worse.

I'm NOT denying that something needs to be done about a bloated public sector. But the way the government is going about it will lead to the most demoralised and demotivated public sector workforce we've ever had. I doubt it will provide the quality of public services we deserve in future.