I respect what you do but you clearly have no idea of life in the private sector especially where one does not have letters after one's name virtually guarantying employment.

Doctors very rarely get struck off...it's rare indeed, and when was the last time the health industry put a load of Doctors on the scrap heap??

Doesn't happen, can't happen.

You are well compensated for what you do and you have a position in society which is fairly well respected, being a Doctor is one of the last 'authority position' which still stands.

i have worked for the last ten years in the nhs as a back room administrator and before that was unemployed for couple of years and before that spent 20 years working for a large plc before being made redundant doing the same sort of job as I do now. My salary has only recently caught up with what i was earning back in 1995 before being made redundant. i work more than my 37.6 hours a week as do most of my staff just to get the job done i have seen both sides of the coin private and public sector and can say there are perks in both areas. ineeded a job to pay the mortgae feed the kids etc and the only job that i was lucky enough to get was the nhs job. if one had come through in the private sector i would have taken that its not our fault we get a reasonable pension entitlement it came with the job. in fact the pension i have frozen from my private sector employer is as good as the nhs schem is at the moment i work for my money and so do the staff i have working for me if we werent there there would be even more pressure on the medical staff doing the admin things .my wife took a job working for a solicitors about 10 years ago she doesnt get a pension but she knew that when she applied and got the job so does everyone when they apply for jobs. if you dont like the " perks" if you want to call them that then dont apply look for something else these. comments about public sector getting their just deserves now etc really pi** me off

That's a great attitude you have there, Firemen, Nurses, Police, none are brilliantly paid for what they do, but they do a job which Society needs, like it or not, all are in the main physical jobs, granted there are admin jobs but they are few an far between, what would the incentive be if the pension was destroyed and the pay was still as it is now, ok there's job securiity but that only goes so far.
If things change and people dismissed these jobs because the pay was not enough and the pension does not compensate then there may not be enough nurses to assist you at the A&E when your family are taken in on an emergency, or the Fire brigade don't stop your house burning down as there are not enough firemen it won't be your problem will it?

I say let the market decide. If the government has trouble recruiting then it should compensate more.

Some harsh words in this thread. There are good and bad in the public sector like in every part of life, just it seems the public sector isn't too good at getting rid of the bad. My Mum worked for a council when she was younger... from what she described there are many, many things wrong with it, but we do need some of the important services, and IMO it really isn't the fault of the people in the organisation if their incentives aren't great.

A council brochure came in the post the other day, where they're talking about the various things they've tried to do and have achieved over the last few years. There's a photo in it of some council workers and their bosses, and the workers look like the most dejected, demoralised guys I've ever seen... the bosses look like they think they're f*cking royalty standing behind them. That picture paints a thousand words about the structure and the incentives on offer. Ironically, these guys are always into unions and preaching about 'equality' whenever they get the chance.

Sure I think there is an local government apparatchik class which has grown out of all proportion.

Sadly it is this class of people who are tasked with saving money and they are not going to sack themselves!

Tory central government needs to light a fire under these people.

Precisely!

So to sum up the diagnosis by the critics who have no actual experience of working in the Public Sector there are to many in effective middle managers.

To solve this they propose in addition to 3 years of wage cuts the slashing of overtime they now say slash the pensions of all the staff! You actually criticise other people for poor management skills!

Once you have finished reducing the salary and pension package to level where you dont feel jealously no manger of any quality will ever choose to join public service and then you will complain about the poor quality of management where in fact you will reap what you have sown

I am quite happy to complain about the lack of quality service offered now from the management in Public Sector roles .I dont need to wait till they get their come uppance .
My local council is about to spend £50 million on fancy new offices for themselves whilst making similar amounts of cuts in services .Now figure that one out .These managers are costing me and you a fortune and need a wake up call .
Fire fighters ,tough job yes, but most have a second income stream ,coppers ,screwing the overtime and doubling their salary .Come on these people have been milking it for years .