Another public sector pay outrage

Nick_C

Thrugelmir wrote: »

I comment from my own experiences. And yes the public sector is cushy. Though I agree the culture is changing in some areas but it is a slow process. Most change is occurring where external management is being appointed. With a far more commercial approach. Totally outsmarting the old Union guard who thought that were invincible.

I don't think you can generalise about "the public sector". I worked for local councils in London for over 30 years, and saw a dramatic change in staff attitudes and professionalism during this time. I think the biggest change was the introduction of compulsory competitive tendering for white collar / professional services in the 1990s. Some staff took pay cuts while others took redundancy in order to beat off bids from private sector competitors. Managers were forced to strive for greater efficiency, and deal with issues such as abuse of sick leave which had previously gone unchecked.

I have also spent time managing contracts for services delivered by private sector partners, and have worked in the private sector myself. I think the changes in local government have largely been brought about by the managers who were already in place responding to new challenges.

I have seen both good and bad managers in both sectors, but have to say that someone who left local government 30 years ago would not recognise the current organisations. In my experience, local authority employees are mainly professional, hard working, and effective.

Automatic increments have become a thing of the past in Town Halls across the country. Increments are either subject to achieving targets, including "stretch" targets beyond the scope of the job description, or simply do not exist at all, having being replaced with flat salaries.

Many council staff routinely work unpaid overtime. They have had their salary cut by more than 15% in real terms in recent years, and are paying more for less generous pensions. In Local Government, the final salary pension is being replaced by a career average scheme next month.

Fella

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Public sector service is a vocation for many. They are taking advantage of people's good will....you expect better if you if you are serving your country.

When I worked in the public sector it was a vocation for many people. People who were so monumentally useless they knew full well they had no chance of holding down a job in the private sector.

The pay was poor but the level of effort required was ludicrously low. If you got in at 10am, took a 2 hour lunch then went home at 4pm you were considered a hard worker. Tons of people went to the pub at lunchtime then never came back every day. Anything up to about 4 weeks of sick absence per person per year went uncommented on. There was literally no dependency on quality or quantity of output.

This was nearly 30 years ago & I'm sure it's not so slack now, but I'm equally sure it still doesn't compare to the private sector, where underperformers are routinely got rid of & one mistake will often see someone canned the next day (happened a week ago to one of my colleagues who was in his role for 15 years).

People capable of doing a higher-paying job generally do so. Everyone else just complains about their pay being too low.

ruggedtoast

Fella wrote: »

When I worked in the public sector it was a vocation for many people. People who were so monumentally useless they knew full well they had no chance of holding down a job in the private sector.

The pay was poor but the level of effort required was ludicrously low. If you got in at 10am, took a 2 hour lunch then went home at 4pm you were considered a hard worker. Tons of people went to the pub at lunchtime then never came back every day. Anything up to about 4 weeks of sick absence per person per year went uncommented on. There was literally no dependency on quality or quantity of output.

This was nearly 30 years ago & I'm sure it's not so slack now, but I'm equally sure it still doesn't compare to the private sector, where underperformers are routinely got rid of & one mistake will often see someone canned the next day (happened a week ago to one of my colleagues who was in his role for 15 years).

People capable of doing a higher-paying job generally do so. Everyone else just complains about their pay being too low.

Yep, you've got all the stereotypes in there fella that's for sure. I'm sure you'll get about a dozen thanks.

Fella

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Yep, you've got all the stereotypes in there fella that's for sure. I'm sure you'll get about a dozen thanks.

They may be stereotypes but everything I posted about the department I worked in is true. Don't flatter yourself that I deem you important enough that I'd make stuff up.

You have a policy of not believing anything that doesn't fit with how you want to believe the world is. It's very foolish.

Graham_Devon

N1AK wrote: »

And a very large number aren't whereas all public spending is founded upon money earnt via private enterprise. Farmers would still exist without public medical services, I'm not sure how long nurses would last without farmers

Aye, but how far would farmers get without the civil service and the common agricultural policy in todays age? Or Defra?

Swings and roundabouts. The private sector and public sector often go hand in hand.

BillJones

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Yep, you've got all the stereotypes in there fella that's for sure. I'm sure you'll get about a dozen thanks.

It was the same when I worked as a civil servant. It drove me mad, the fact that no-one cared or checked what work was done, and that progression was based on time served and moving up the scale irrespective of merit.

So I left, did a doctorate,mane then found a job where pay and promotions were purely down to value added.

bigheadxx

grizzly1911 wrote: »

In two trusts I have knowledge of Occupational Health now vociferously police absence for both repeat minor issues and more serious accidents and invasive surgical cases.

There is no doubt some abuse as in all large organisations.

Poor management strategy is often the cause of people starting to malinger.

They may police it, that's their job. Another example of creating a workload that would not otherwise exist. The best way of solving people taking advantage of the generous sick pay arrangement is to end it. This is partially happening soon as I hear a proposal that staff won't be getting their 'unsocial hours' premiums when they are sick in the future.

Generali

adouglasmhor wrote: »

East India Company was a private company, it only had shareholders and it wasn't the government.

From memory your knowledge of history is far greater than mine but didn't the East India Company have a rather complicated relationship with Government?

IIRC they had a monopoly on trade with a large chunk of Asia which had been obtained in return for taking on the national debt. I believe they were particularly unusual that as a private company they were allowed to have a standing army as well as being able to rely on the Navy to police their trade routes (the latter was normal I believe).

I guess C21st equivalents could be arms companies or, at a stretch, Halliburton or even the banks (too big to jail etc).

J_i_m

It's all very well getting heavy handed with sickness. But you've also got to look at why staff go sick in the first place.

Nursing is a responsible job, they have peoples well being in their hands. Now imagine prolonged periods when you're working with vastly reduced staffing levels, overseeing inexperienced agency staff and coping with all manner of other problems that will still come irrespective of the staffing situation.

People still expect all the standards to be met, even when there are significantly less staff to cover a shift. Workload increases when they are less staff covering a shift. But nurses are human too and with the best will in the world can not work miracles.

The problem is that the management don't manage these situations well.. and so the stress and pressure on the staff increases and it's sometimes inevitable that the health of some staff will suffer as a result, and they'll go of sick.

It's not good form to push staff to breaking point and then beat them with a stick when they get ill.

If the management was better in supporting staff in the first place then less would be going sick, staff would then be able to deliver better service and care and money would be saved with less cover having to be arranged.

Generali

J_i_m wrote: »

It's all very well getting heavy handed with sickness. But you've also got to look at why staff go sick in the first place.

Nursing is a responsible job, they have peoples well being in their hands. Now imagine prolonged periods when you're working with vastly reduced staffing levels, overseeing inexperienced agency staff and coping with all manner of other problems that will still come irrespective of the staffing situation.

People still expect all the standards to be met, even when there are significantly less staff to cover a shift. Workload increases when they are less staff covering a shift. But nurses are human too and with the best will in the world can not work miracles.

The problem is that the management don't manage these situations well.. and so the stress and pressure on the staff increases and it's sometimes inevitable that the health of some staff will suffer as a result, and they'll go of sick.

It's not good form to push staff to breaking point and then beat them with a stick when they get ill.

If the management was better in supporting staff in the first place then less would be going sick, staff would then be able to deliver better service and care and money would be saved with less cover having to be arranged.

My mate works in a prison. He goes off sick because that way there is a fair amount of overtime for everyone to share.