Public sector pay freeze

[chriscpritchard]

Firstly those jobs (not sure about the ambulance driver) have the potential to earn a lot of money.

£40k for a PC after 10 years i.e. 30 years old.

Similar for firemen, who get a lot of downtime, which is fair enough considering the job and the risks, but it isn't a bad deal.

Soldiers may get less money in the short term, but many come out with a trade and very nice pension.

I have gone back through the posts and my original point was that public sector workers are not all badly paid and although there are winners and losers (as with everywhere) there are an equal number of badly paid jobs in the private sector.

As a previous poster said, workers are workers.

Paramedics wages don't get that high... £34,417.50 per year is the max, that's with unsociable hours (there's more for working in London). They can get higher after doing an extra postgrad degree though, or going into management.

 

[eStu]

Public sector cuts and job losses will hurt everyone. When you're lying in the street having a heart attack you wont appreciate the 999 number being understaffed, too few ambulances and drivers, rough bumpy under maintained roads on route, too few nurses at the hospital to look after you and generally a lot of unhappy workers at every stage of your ordeal!

These cuts are avoiding the real issues! Cut the chav benefit theives, tax the bankers bonus' more, enforce the Robin Hood Tax on the banks who have brought the world too its knees (http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/).

Plus osborne looks like a fiddler!

 

[aproctor]

Paramedics wages don't get that high... £34,417.50 per year is the max, that's with unsociable hours (there's more for working in London). They can get higher after doing an extra postgrad degree though, or going into management.

Doesn't sound too shabby to me.

 

[Mad old tory]

I think the banks should pay. They are the ones who cocked it all up.

They were also no doubt responsible for eye watering amounts of CT during the good times, which persuaded Gordon and Alistair to go on their merry little spending sprees.

Fact is the country is broke and needs to cut back. That either means massive tax rises and keeping the public sector as is, massive cutbacks on public sector and small tax rises or something in between.

I'd be inclined to think that there should be a balanced approach but the private sector should be favoured as it's likely to lead to higher returns and quicker road back to growth which will help lower the deficit more rapidly. I'm still a bit worried that we're going to do a Japan and double-dip if George has got his sums wrong and overdone it. Only time will tell but I really don't fancy going through the stress of another round of redundancies at work. I kept my job last time but it still wasn't a fun time at all.

 

[Mad old tory]

These cuts are avoiding the real issues! Cut the chav benefit theives, tax the bankers bonus' more, enforce the Robin Hood Tax on the banks who have brought the world too its knees (http://robinhoodtax.org.uk/).

Plus osborne looks like a fiddler!

Looks like you've got your wish then

Bank levy
Housing benefit and disability benefit to be cut and harder to get in the first place.
Child benefit frozen
Benefits to rise in line with CPI rather than RPI
CGT going up to 28% for high earners meaning certain parts of bankers' bonuses will be taxed at a higher rate.
Oh and that's not forgetting their marginal rate is already 50% and there was the levy that employers had to pay on their bonuses last time round.

 

[Sukh]

I think that most people appreciate the public sector work that goes on, its just the waste that the private sector despise.

Even in this thread, the 40k prison diversity rubbish, just fire this waste and bring more front line staff in.
Also make the gold plated pension a thing of the past.

 

[eddiemcgarrigle]

£40k for firemen, who get a lot of downtime, which is fair enough considering the job and the risks, but it isn't a bad deal.

I wish you where the Government lackie who decided on my wage structure. I have been a fireman for 13 years and currently earn £28k not £40k. The downtime you speak of does not exist as almost every minute we are not out fighting fires, we are stuck at PCs.

 

[Draeger]

£40k for a firefighter. That wage figure doesn't come into play until you hit Flexi Station Commander "B" level. Firefighters, fully qualified take home a wage of @£28k. I'm a Crew Commander and I take home @£31k per year.

However, that is at the top. Net we pay Income Tax obviously, Council Tax and a HUGE chunk of percentage gets taken off our wages to go towards our pension scheme. This thing that is getting kicked around within the press regards "Public sector workers and their gilt edged brilliant pension schemes" certainly does not apply to the Firefighter pension scheme. I've been paying a fortune off my wages every week ( 11% ) towards my pension scheme for 22 years hard service so far. I have no problem at all with having to "up" my contributions towards it if need be come September when the public sector pensions review starts appearing, but people, don't be mislead by the media - We ain't retiring on cushy "paid for by everyone else" pension schemes, this simply is not the case.

 

[Windle]

Edit: Wrong thread fail

 

[MrMoonX]

this gold plated final salary pension crap is so wrong, my pension isnt final salary and certainly isnt gold plated! they changed the civil service pension scheme years ago! the nuvos pension scheme for new starters is even worse!

I fail to see how cutting my below inflation payrise is really going to help, cos we have been getting shafted on pay for years, but now for some reason we are the whipping boy.

 

[scorza]

I repeat, the pay freeze is the least of the public sector workers' problems. Guy on radio 4 this morning indicated that the 25% cut to the home office budget could be achieved by for example 35,000 police officers being made redundant. So much for all these "efficiency savings" huh?

 

[Dolph]

Why can't those who work in the public sector grasp the simple concept that they are paid for solely on the graft of others, and therefore should not be entitled to disproportionate levels of benefits and pay increases?

Labour massively and unsustainably increased spending and headcount in the public sector, creating a faux unemployment benefit of the whole setup with little real gain for the people actually paying for it.

Given that Labour doubled the cost of the public sector and staffing it, and we saw virtually no improvement in services, why are some people absolutely convinced that cutting even £1 from any budget will destroy the service completely? It's either completely backward thinking or thinking-irrelevant ideology coming to the fore.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Why can't those who work in the public sector grasp the simple concept that they are paid for solely on the graft of others, and therefore should not be entitled to disproportionate levels of benefits and pay increases?

Presumably for the same reason that everyone in the private sector thinks they all are revenue generating wonder workers. What do you do, Dolph? How much profit did you personally generate for your organisation last year?

Or are you also paid on the graft of others?

Below inflation pay rises are not disproportionate.

 

[Dolph]

Presumably for the same reason that everyone in the private sector thinks they all are revenue generating wonder workers. What do you do, Dolph? How much profit did you personally generate for your organisation last year?

Without sitting down and going through the various workstreams, I'm not sure, certainly far more than my salary though

Or are you also paid on the graft of others?

Below inflation pay rises are not disproportionate.

Above the average pay rise of those forced to pay the bills is disproportionate.

 

[RDM]

I repeat, the pay freeze is the least of the public sector workers' problems. Guy on radio 4 this morning indicated that the 25% cut to the home office budget could be achieved by for example 35,000 police officers being made redundant. So much for all these "efficiency savings" huh?

And that is the problem when it comes to trying to save money in the public sector. Yes, you could save all that money by making 35k officers redundant and no doubt this is what will be suggested. Why? Because it is politically untenable to sack 35k police officers, so that is what the department head can do to try and save his department from cuts.

It is one of the main problems with saving money in the public sector, making cuts that impact the customer makes more political noise to you get more budget, less cuts etc. However in the private sector it is more advantageous to try and keep the impact of cuts away from your customer as much as possible.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Without sitting down and going through the various workstreams, I'm not sure, certainly far more than my salary though

You always dodge that question. I can only imagine its because your position is incompatible with your ideals. After all the support functions of a private sector organisation are not revenue generating....

Above the average pay rise of those forced to pay the bills is disproportionate.

It was their choice to seek employment in a sector where wages and salary are often linked to company performance, benefiting from higher wages for years...

 

[scorza]

And that is the problem when it comes to trying to save money in the public sector. Yes, you could save all that money by making 35k officers redundant and no doubt this is what will be suggested. Why? Because it is politically untenable to sack 35k police officers, so that is what the department head can do to try and save his department from cuts.

Tbf this guy (Prof. someone) did acknowledge that and also looked at other ways the savings could be achieved. I think it's inevitable that we'll have less police officers in future though - maybe not 35,000 but a lot still. I think it's because public services are generally a lot more efficient than the private sector (no unnecessary duplication of non-jobs) the only thing you can cut is the front line.

It is one of the main problems with saving money in the public sector, making cuts that impact the customer makes more political noise to you get more budget, less cuts etc. However in the private sector it is more advantageous to try and keep the impact of cuts away from your customer as much as possible.

Or move to the Ryanair model and charge your customers for a previously "free" service like taking bags onto a plane.

 

[Dolph]

You always dodge that question. I can only imagine its because your position is incompatible with your ideals. After all the support functions of a private sector organisation are not revenue generating....
..

but they can be revenue protecting, which is just as valuable.

 

[Moley]

After all the support functions of a private sector organisation are not revenue generating....
.

They may not be directly revenue generating but if they are keeping the revenue generating portion of the business working and it generates more than enough revenue to pay for itself and the support functions, then the support functions are indirectly contributing to the profitability of the company (and indeed likely the company couldn't function without them).

Public sector support functions on the other hand do not support a revenue generating function and are therefore a net drain - just like all the public sector.

Its a simple thing to grasp really - the public sector doesn't generate money, it only consumes it. The private sector generates the money for the economy and it's the private sector that pays itself as well as the public sector.

It's appalling to me that the public sector has been allowed to get so big in this country and no surprise that as a result the books don't balance. We need to move people out of public and into private - and not financial services or any other kind of service industry, we need to encourage businesses to come to the UK and invest in our country and employ our people.

 

[[TW]Fox]

but they can be revenue protecting, which is just as valuable.

What's your job Dolph?