The Budget

gazter

stator wrote: »

Evil little Osborne has been rubbing his hands with glee since the election. Can't wait to make more people homeless, foodless and in poverty.

Homelessness is at an historic low point, though higher than it was three years ago. Poverty is the lowest since 1980.

Tromking

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Been effective so far. The cull has reduced costs and a lot of dead wood.

Nice line but not my experience.
In my public service area the workforce is rapidly ageing as the hastily recruited low paid newbies don't hang around too long and it's the so called deadwood holding things together....just!

westv

I know someone who works at the coal face at the Land Registry and they say people in their office won't be getting any more rises ever. Not sure if they misunderstood thay though.

Tromking

westv wrote: »

I know someone who works at the coal face at the Land Registry and they say people in their office won't be getting any more rises ever. Not sure if they misunderstood thay though.

85% of my colleagues are in a "closed grade" and have been told that until the newbies catch up then we can expect no pensionable pay rises. That's great for long term government pension liabilities of course but it's no way to run a public service long term.

ukcarper

BobQ wrote: »

I think this is a wild generalisation.

I think some have got used to better employment conditions and less aggressive management practices and do not transition well. But there are many who work very hard given clear objectives. So it is unfair to generalise.

The civil service is quite diverse. Many of the job losses will simply be in functions that no longer need to be done (eg managing WTC).

I am told that there are loads of people in some areas of the civil service who are queuing up for voluntary exit schemes.I suspect they will be the ones who are well qualified, young enough to change career or close enough to a pension not to care.

Not civil service but very similar. When BT started losing staff with the opening up of telecom services the majority of people that left were the well trained and move motivated people who could take redundancy and move into better paid jobs straight away.

chucknorris

ggb1979 wrote: »

In my limited experience in private industry the people I've seen come from public sector have flopped big time. Couldn't cope with the hours, the pressure, lack of structure and generally just having to get stuff done. Imo public sector people aren't very employable.

I work in the public sector, when previously I worked in the private sector, I used to work very long hours quite often, once from 9 am Thursday to 6 pm Friday, that wasn't my only session over 24 hours, in fact over a 10 year period I worked virtually every weekend and also my holidays. I was also running two businesses in my 'spare time' too, that would sometimes involve going into work early, so that I could do some work involving my businesses in teh late afternoon and evenings .

Could I cope with long hours again? Yes easily, but the question is 'would I' (not could), and the answer is definitely no!

wymondham

Mersey wrote: »

I'm amazed there's 350,000 council tenants earning over £30k pa.


Not just Frank Dobson then.

Give them 6 months notice and house people who need it....

Mistermeaner

chucknorris wrote: »

I work in the public sector, when previously I worked in the private sector B]we used to get up in the middle of the night before we went to bed and lick the road clean before my father beat us about the head and neck with a broken bottle[/B
Could I cope with long hours again? Yes easily, but the question is 'would I' (not could), and the answer is definitely no!

but you're chuck norris, you can do anything. And you're loaded, and you have some rental properties.

mwpt

michaels wrote: »

My heart is in favour of inheritance tax to increase equality of opportunity, my brain says people pay tax on their income, why tax them again on the same money when they die - after all if they pass on the money while they are still alive they don't pay tax on it.

I know what you mean.

On balance, I'd say I'm in favour of higher inheritance tax. In terms of fairness, it is hard to argue the other way. Children of wealthy people are no more 'deserving' of a huge handout than poor people who receive handouts from the state (ie. our tax), which people enjoy complaining about.

Again, on balance, I think higher inheritance tax would be a good thing for society overall. Individually, people will not like it, but those people have built their wealth on the back of the state (roads, facilities, artificial land scarcity, etc).

ukcarper

wymondham wrote: »

Give them 6 months notice and house people who need it....

Yet in large parts of south east you can still get LHA if you are earning £31k