Gordo

Taken directly from the Times website this morning, some cheery facts showing how the public sector has bloated in the last decade under Labour - better paid, shorter hours, worse productivity, and 20% more working in the public sector than when the useless socialists came to power. Surely even the weak minded who usually parade out to defend Labour are going to struggle to justify this waste? Anyone noticed any benefits of the extra 20% public sector workers? Better policing, schools, health, refuse collections etc? Nope to all. Unless you're the archetypal one-legged lesbian single mother (preferably of foreign birth) you'll be unlikely to be better off under these hapless pillocks. And 20% under-eggs it, as it is after the impact of jobs outsourced to the private sector.

Choice extracts from the article:

"Since Labour came to power in 1997, the number of public sector workers has increased by 914,000 to more than 6m, just over a fifth of the workforce. "

"Public sector workers earn 7% more on average than their peers in the private sector — a pay gulf that has more than doubled since the recession began. "

Public sector pay races ahead in recession - Times Online


Time to take a scalpel to public sector cost and accoutability, and to ignore the weak who'll moan about "front-line services being affected".


Morning

Gordo

JonMc

iTrader: (51)

But who will be the first to moan when hospital waiting lists grow or school exam results drop.

The average worker is not overpaid, ie teachers, nurses, technicians etc, what is grossly wrong is the balance between staff and managers and the cull needs to look at streamlining management structures across the public sector. That is how money can be more wisely spent witrhout affecting the frontline.

Remember, public sector workers are capped at a 1% payrise this year regardless of the state of inflation.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Couldn't agree more - let's get them chopped down to reasonable numbers and make them do a proper day's work akin to that they would do in the private sector. If their wages were paid not from public coffers, but based on how they performed most of them wouldn't stand a chance.

I know of someone who worked in NHS administration, she got a better paid job in the private sector, but couldn't hack the hours and the workload of a real job so went back to the comfort and safety of the NHS.

Oh and btw this government aren't socialists, I do wish people on here would learn that.

Chip

Hospital waiting list figures are a farce anyway. I should know I've been waiting 9 months for an op now. I was on the waiting list to go on the waiting list for 3 months. It's a joke.

Maybe it's something to do with the 32000 beds that have been lost since Labour came to power.

Chip

JonMc

iTrader: (51)

Like I said, more staff at the coal face and not at the management levels. All these strategies are not working because there is no-one to implement them. More cuts will only make it worse as the front-line staff will be cut and not the overpaid hierarchy

Adrian F

I am looking for a job at the moment and public sector jobs are paying a lot less than the same job in the private sector were last year in fact the last 10 years!

Where wages are in the private sector at the moment seems hard to judge as they are in free fall at moment.

worley

On the button - no-one to implement them; The public sector is a slow moving beast, that will never be able to compete with the multinationals when it comes to job fulfillment. In terms of career progression, prison would seem a lesser restricted place to be.

The public sector will never attract the best talent, even with higher salary offers. In past jobs, I have had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the NHS and the military, it was a chore, a slow process with no willingness to achieve.

IMHO...


Nik

Gordo

I heard about a council gritter being paid double time over christmas to drive an EMPTY gritter to make people think they were doing their job, but they'd run out of grit. Then there's the council plumbers in Yorkshire who are helping a chap with his property developing business. A council I heard of last week that buys 300 top of the range mowers every year - and doesn't bother that they all go missing, as they have the budget to do it all again the year after. If they questioned it, they'd lose their budget. Madness, and needs to stop.

People will always moan when some meaningless measure is reported as worsening in the Daily Mail, but there has to be genuine performance measurements vs cost or to prevent the spectre of 'waiting lists getting longer' you'd keep throwing money at it ad infinitum.

Oh, and Labour has socialist principles at its heart - listen any day to the sh1te that comes out of Harman or Lord Voldemort's mouths and you'll identify the key traits - they're not pure socialists, but worryingly close enough to be labelled as such IMO.

Gordo

gtijames

ha ha as a lowly public sector employee i wish i was over paid like you imagine we all must be,i work bloody hard in a ****e job that just about pays my basic living costs,im too ashamed to say how much i earn a month but lets just say its less than most of the ***** wavers on here earn in a week, i have to do extra private work to pay for luxuries like my scoob,im expected to be on call for a 24 hr period during my working shift for which im not paid any extra for,ive never been paid anything other than my basic hourly rate for any overtime work.the only people who have done well out of this expansion in the public sector are middle and upper management.i live in a rural county in wales with a hell of a lot less of the problems that an inner city council would face,but at the last count there were around a dozen directors earning around 80k plus and the big boss man was on around +120k more than gordo brown earns .that im my opinion cannot be justified its the top 5% in the public sector that sucks the money out of the system and not the generally hard working front line staff.in about 6 months time we will all have our chance to decide who we want to run our public services,im not confident that any of them are able to do the job to the publics satisfaction.

JonMc

iTrader: (51)

^^^^^ Here, here.

I've been involved in too many streamlining and efficiency drives that result in less staff and more managers!

J4CKO

iTrader: (1)

I found at the Police that the work got in the way of flexi days or any of the other 32 days holiday, 8 bank hols, sickies, diversity seminars, Gay seminars, Disability seminars and attending meetings about nothing, public service however isnt well, paid, no perks apart from the pension and I am much happier and wealthier in a Private company, sometimes I think Local Goverment is a bolt hole for the lazy, the clueless, those sitting out retirement, those wanting to spend all day going on about their participation in a minority.

Wouldnt go back.

michaelro

The article mentions Public Sector wages increasing from being lower to being higher than private sector.
Does this take into account the recent outsourcing of work?
ie Lower paid jobs outsourced to private companies which would increase Public Sector averages and decrease Private Sector....

All Public Sectors are lumped together (inc overpaid Quangos) and those that take the p*ss pull the rest of us down.

SunnySideUp

And increase the unemployment numbers by at least 1,000,000???

Pillock!!

Remember, we will be paying these people to be on the dole - why not pay them to work?

There are less holes in a holey cheese than there are in your argument

rabbos

I agree in principal, but most of these public sector roles revolve around internet surfing, make-work and other inane uses of time. We could probably lose 50% of them without even noticing, maybe more...

Gordo

[Sigh] you don't change, do you. Just because you don't agree with me / can't have anything said against the failures currently in government, you have to resort to name calling. Poor. Very poor.


Firstly, you're wrong - I'm advocating more than 1 million need to be removed from the public sector. Wouldn't happen over night - if there aren't private sector jobs then tax incentives should be re-established to create them, not increasingly taxing the hell out of the private sector to keep boosting the bloated public sector.

Secondly, by your logic there should never be anyone unemployed - we should just give any waster / sad sack a job in the public sector as it's cheaper than 'employing' them in a job (that is of no use to society). Pathetic.

Gordo

cster

That's the French model

SunnySideUp

Well spotted!

Nowt wrong with that, it is the EU Model after all.

I would rather pay someone £300 a week to clean the streets than to pay them £300 a week to sit at home and maybe causing trouble on the streets!

Sound logic IMO - as opposed to your logic of throw people on the dole with all that entails ..... I would say that is pathetic!

rossyboy

iTrader: (8)

Where do you think all these public sector workers spend their money? Yup thats right, the private sector. So actually the money is all going back out there anyway.

I had a laugh at the public sector being paid higher than private aswell. What a load of guff.

Average hours of 35 a week? Dont think so. NHS is mimimum of 37.5 for ALL staff now.

baser999

iTrader: (2)

The hospital situation is made worse by the sheer numbers that are going in to A & E who really shouldn't be. I work for London Ambulance and during 2009 we received over 1,000,000 incoming calls! Yes, thats right, over 1 million calls. Clearly there are genuine callers but there's also those who don't have a doctor, there's those who think that as soon as the surgery shuts they have to go to hospital instead - never heard of out-of-hours services? We're a taxi service for many who can't be asked to drive their dearly beloveds to the hospital. . parking charges etc etc, those that think that by going in an ambulance will get them seen quicker, drunkards who think that being sick after a session is an effing disease and requires hospitalisation. . . grow up! To put this in perspective by 02.00 New Years Day morning, we'd done over 1,000 calls and at its peak we were doing 700 calls an hour! How many of them were alcohol related I wonder?
As a consequence of this, hospital waiting areas fill up, with waiting times of over 4 hours just to be seen and be sent home with painkillers!
Beds get taken up and elective surgery has to be cancelled.
And then the government cuts back on our funding and freezes nhs wages . . .something wrong somewhere me thinks.
Rant over. Thank you.

Leslie

When it comes to saving cash, can you ever see them cutting the bloated top heavy administration they have constructed after they have effectively bought all those votes?

Les

stilover

You're right, just how will they cope?

Every year they strike wanting 6%+ pay rise.

I work in the private sector, and what % pay rise did I get in 2009? 0%

Plus the public sector are on final salary pensions. Me? I'll be living in poverty on my private pension scheme, unless I give them half my wage. No joke, they actually want almost half of it. I don't pay that of course, as I wouldn't be able to live.

michaelro

Can you give examples of which Public Sector workers strike every year wanting a 6% Pay Rise?

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Exactly. A load of rubbish posted by Stilover......again! Final salary pensions havn't been offered for quite some time now, so get your facts right.

You weren't complaining when the private sector was getting 5-10% pay rises every year during the boom and the public sector workers were getting next to **** all.

My wife works for the police as a comminication officer (basically taking the 999 and public calls). Some of the calls they get are truely dreadful and I actually think they are under paid. £16,500 was the starting salary, however she has moved up 4 pay grades since then. But, you have to work hard to move up and pass exams, some of which are 'random' examples of your recent calls.

They are under staffed as it is. May be we should be focusing on the stupid amount of management that we have these days. However, due to the 'sueing' culture we now live in, we need silly amounts of people to 'dot the I's' and 'cross the T's'.

And as the previous posters have said, we need to sought out the time wasters. Send them a bill, cut there phoneline off, let them know that there are REAL emergencies out there. The wife has even had people calling on 999 and just shouting 'C*NT' down the phone before hanging up.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Teachers! Oh sorry no it is a 10% pay rise they are after!

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Go in high and settle somewhere in the middle. Isn't that what every person does come contract review time?

stilover

Hardly. Public sector workers have striked over demanding 6%+ pay rises in the past. That is a fact.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Your 'fact' was that they strike every year. Please tell me the last 3 strikes over pay.
Fire Service - hmm, once over the last decade.
Police - Hmm, can't remember the last strike.
NHS - Hmmmmmmmmmmmm.......

Please, go on.

I can think of a hell of a lot more private sector strikes than public sector. If you are going to bash someone, at least take the time to get in right.

baser999

iTrader: (2)

. . . until we have the legal right to say NO to these people they are always going to waste our time and continue to abuse Chris' wife and my colleagues at work. And all the time the genuine ones are likely to suffer and the taxpayer foots the bill. Over 1,000,000 calls to London Ambulance in 2009 alone sums it up really.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

I just fed up with tw&ts that just accuse anyone that works for the government as being a money grabbing fool.

These huge 1% per year wage increases were agreed 3 years ago when the economy was booming and after a hell of a lot of negotiations. Most private firms would quite happily give out 5-10% increases which nobody complained about at the time. Now when the purse string is being pulled, an increase of 1% for the public sector worker is viewed as ridiculous.

Yes, most politicians claimed far more than was morally acceptable. This has nothing to do with the emergency services and it is unfair to associate them with each other.

The argument that 'standards' haven't improved in the NHS or Police service is also unfounded as your cannot prove that things wouldn't be worse with fewer staff. Factor in the increase in timewasters that call 999 when they want a taxi or turn up at A&E because they fell over after consuming 15 pints and it isn't difficult to see why we need so many workers on the ground to deal with it as they don't have the power to turn them away.

Whether or not we need as much management as we currently have is something that needs looking at. But as I said, blame our sueing culture for that!
Can I assume that nobody on here has claimed £3000 for whip-lash when there was nothing wrong with them?

cster

Well if you are going to pay them the same amount to stay at home - they are not going to work are they?
Therefore you will have to pay them more to work than to stay at home.
Ergo - if they are unemployed, you will save money - simples.

Plus if they are unemployed, there is always a chance they might find something useful and meaningful to do with their lives.
You shouldn't just write them off because they are unemployed by giving them a will to live-sapping job in the public sector.