Public Sector

Skeeter said:
Automatic progression through the steps within your band was stopped I think? Back when I was in the NHS you got a incriment increase every year just for turning up, as well as whatever cost of living increase your union Rep was able to blag for you.
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At least in Scotland this is essentially a box ticking exercise for most staff, it's still automatic progression in all but name, mostly "thanks" to the unions.

Sadly the problem is the dead wood at the top of pay grades who have never worked privately and have no idea how they should behave professionally. They give the media an insane amount of ammunition to tar the rest of us with.

I try to move jobs ever 3-4 years, I can see me going back to the private sector shortly as I'm so sick of dealing with people picking up a pay check for essentially having co-workers doing their work for them.
 
My experience and those of some close friends are that it is full of lazy, stupid morons.

Can give some hilarious examples.
 
I currently work in the public sector, my two cents:

1. The majority of the new, younger starters coming through are of a similar standard to those moving into the private sector. Qualified, intelligent and hard working. I'm incredibly good at my job, arrogant and yet there we are.

2. A good portion of the "lifers" within the organisation are shambolic, and seem to magically retain their positions regardless of staffing cutbacks.

3. The age old cliche of public sector workers clocking in at ten and out at four is a myth. We're significantly underpaid compared to the private sector, we have been quicker to embrace flexible working practices however.

3. The sector is now chronically underfunded and our ability to recruit and retain high quality young staff members is all but extinct. As an example, our place pays new admin about £15k, in the same location they could walk into a private sector admin post paying £22k. Don't believe the nonsense about efficiency savings either there's not a local authority in the Country that could have saved 40% through efficiency, and Councils such as my own, historically very lean and efficient, are disproportionately penalised for responsible fiscal management during the good times.

4. Automatic increments are also gone, don't worry though, for the sake of balance they've also made it nigh on impossible to get a performance related payrise as well.

I work in a team of extremely competent and dedicated individuals, all of whom work way above what their job roles and pay grades require of them. I enjoy the work, as do the rest of my colleagues but I can tell you categorically that in 2 years time the top 50% of that team will have jumped ship to the private sector. You may assume that the best and brightest should migrate to the private sector anyway, but then consider the fact that the chaff will remain, and they will be the ones in charge of ensuring best value for tax payers, and providing core services such as care for the elderly and disabled etc.
 
FortuitousFluke said:
1. The majority of the new, younger starters coming through are of a similar standard to those moving into the private sector. Qualified, intelligent and hard working. I'm incredibly good at my job, arrogant and yet there we are.

2. A good portion of the "lifers" within the organisation are shambolic, and seem to magically retain their positions regardless of staffing cutbacks.

3. The age old cliche of public sector workers clocking in at ten and out at four is a myth. We're significantly underpaid compared to the private sector, we have been quicker to embrace flexible working practices however.

3. The sector is now chronically underfunded and our ability to recruit and retain high quality young staff members is all but extinct. As an example, our place pays new admin about £15k, in the same location they could walk into a private sector admin post paying £22k. Don't believe the nonsense about efficiency savings either there's not a local authority in the Country that could have saved 40% through efficiency, and Councils such as my own, historically very lean and efficient, are disproportionately penalised for responsible fiscal management during the good times.

4. Automatic increments are also gone, don't worry though, for the sake of balance they've also made it nigh on impossible to get a performance related payrise as well.
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I can't disagree with any of that. I got screwed on performance related pay rise as my manager was off sick for a few weeks, the paperwork didn't go in and my agreed job reassessment got put on hold pending a restructure ... during which I got screwed over for people already on the higher grade in other departments. So I'm stuck on top of grade, doing a job worth up to 10k more, and the people they've dumped in from other departments on that "correct" grade can't do the job they've been assigned. If they leave, freeing up the cash then they'll write it off as future savings and I'm still screwed.

Current flavour of the year is to take in lots of college leavers on Apprenticeship schemes, use them for menial tasks for the fixed term, at which point they are not renewed. It's wrong - there are a lot of bright young people coming into the organisation and leaving just as we get them trained up.

I say this a right-leaning person on the political spectrum. The Tories have broken the public sector. If Cameron's discussion with the Oxfordshire Council leader are any barometer, they haven't a clue what they've done ... and now it's too late. The general public won't realise for a couple of years.
 
I worked at the Council for 9 years, it really does suck the life out of you and yes, it does employ some absolute morons.
 
Andybtsn said:
I worked at the Council for 9 years, it really does suck the life out of you and yes, it does employ some absolute morons.
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So does the private sector. Big blue was just as bad when I worked there 10 years ago, before I went to the public sector.
 
Where I work in my dept it's quite mixed.

There's a few people who are seriously on the ball to the point where if they left the **** would be everywhere. I think they could easily be getting £££ elsewhere in the private sector, but I guess comfort, holiday perks and what is probably less stress just isnt worth the move for them.

Then there's a few people who are good at what they do, but they are nearly there ready to take early retirement or hoping the hand offers something to them, so they do the job but not to the point where they get stressed or let the ***** get to them.

And then there's a few people who do **** all. To the point where I'm amazed they haven't been sacked years a go. There 1 guy who gets in at 6 and finishes at 2. He gets in at 6 because that's when the building opens and there is no one else around, so he sits around doing nothing for 2 hours, his monitor faces a wall so no one sees that he's doing nothing though he is mainly on his tablet, when he's on call he rarely goes out unless it close to his home otherwise he just leaves a voicemail for who ever is on faults the following day, notorious for doing if at the weekend, and he gets 25% of his salary for that!
 
MagicBoy said:
So does the private sector. Big blue was just as bad when I worked there 10 years ago, before I went to the public sector.
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I worked for EDS for 9 years and Hewlett Packard for 5 years - they and the people who worked there were a ******* joke - retirement couldn't come soon enough for me! In contrast, when we dealt with the civil servants (we ran the DWP's computer systems), the civvies were nothing other than hard working, intelligent and good at their work - although their morale and motivation was sometimes *** due to the ongoing attacks they had to suffer re: their T&C's.

I'd happily work for the civil service again rather than that bunch.
 
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FortuitousFluke said:
I currently work in the public sector, my two cents:

1. The majority of the new, younger starters coming through are of a similar standard to those moving into the private sector. Qualified, intelligent and hard working. I'm incredibly good at my job, arrogant and yet there we are.

2. A good portion of the "lifers" within the organisation are shambolic, and seem to magically retain their positions regardless of staffing cutbacks.

3. The age old cliche of public sector workers clocking in at ten and out at four is a myth. We're significantly underpaid compared to the private sector, we have been quicker to embrace flexible working practices however.

3. The sector is now chronically underfunded and our ability to recruit and retain high quality young staff members is all but extinct. As an example, our place pays new admin about £15k, in the same location they could walk into a private sector admin post paying £22k. Don't believe the nonsense about efficiency savings either there's not a local authority in the Country that could have saved 40% through efficiency, and Councils such as my own, historically very lean and efficient, are disproportionately penalised for responsible fiscal management during the good times.

4. Automatic increments are also gone, don't worry though, for the sake of balance they've also made it nigh on impossible to get a performance related payrise as well.

I work in a team of extremely competent and dedicated individuals, all of whom work way above what their job roles and pay grades require of them. I enjoy the work, as do the rest of my colleagues but I can tell you categorically that in 2 years time the top 50% of that team will have jumped ship to the private sector. You may assume that the best and brightest should migrate to the private sector anyway, but then consider the fact that the chaff will remain, and they will be the ones in charge of ensuring best value for tax payers, and providing core services such as care for the elderly and disabled etc.
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Pretty much my experience when I was in whitehall. Yes you'd have your lifers there just counting down the clock because you can't get rid of them but there were a lot of intelligent hard working dedicated people who quite frankly only stuck at it because they loved their jobs and it gave them a satisfaction the private sector simply couldn't match. Most of us worked well over our hours we were paid for. Morale was shot to bits though, always felt under attack by either the press or even our own seniors. We also weren't helped by the stupidly inefficient system in which we had to work in. Got to love some penny pinching rules that normally ended up costing money rather than saving when you added the man hours it took up.

I think it's like a lot of places, you get dossers, you get grafters and you get those that cruise along and do nothing more than what their contract says. As others have said it's the same everywhere. I think it appears we have it easy as we don't typically have the same issues as those in private sector (e.g. job security) whilst having a whole different set of them to deal with.

We also had issues with staff retention as the grads stuck around whilst they gained a level of experience that normally let them wipe the floor with their private sector counter parts when in competition for jobs and left for double the money 3-4 years later. Lost a lot of our guys to finance and energy sectors.

Looking at generalised averages for public and private sector pay doesn't really highlight the gap as firstly a lot of the roles have no counter parts in the private sector and secondly private sector has a whole glut of low paid jobs dragging the figures down. Looking at like for like roles, especially in skilled areas often shows the differences especially as you become more experienced. The civil service will face significant challenges with staff retention in the future for the London region as they simply can't pay the wages. further out it's not so bad, hence my own decision to take a post away from the city where relatively my pay is pretty good but it has killed my promotion opportunities. I suspect I'll jump ship in a few years when life priorities change.

I currently work with a lot of representatives from other governments now and they're amazed at how poorly we are treated/paid in comparison to them.
 
Worked in both. Not much difference to be honest there are hard workers in both the public and private sectors. The hard workers in the public sector are usually expected to do more for less.

There are dossers and idiots in both.
 
Andybtsn said:
I worked at the Council for 9 years, it really does suck the life out of you and yes, it does employ some absolute morons.
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Public sector very much is a moron enabler, it's so hard to get rid of people, who would never make it past the first 6months in private sector. Then as there's so many it can suck you in.
Plenty of people who don't, but they normally move regularly and move about whilst climbing the ladder.
 
A friend of mine has just moved from the public sector to the private sector. She's amazed at the free tea and coffee and how she can get access to a stapler without a 3-month delay in ordering. :D
 
Diddums said:
I spent two years working at a hospital, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that the NHS contains some of the slowest, laziest, unmotivated and underqualified people I have ever come across.
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where in the hospital did you find these slow lazy underqualified people in the hospital ?

Are you talking about front line staff such as HCAs, RGNs, Doctors etc or administrative staff ?

MagicBoy said:
The public sector is a big all encompassing thing. If I went to do the job I'm doing now (and not getting paid for due to budget constraints) in the private sector, I'm looking at a 42% pay rise.

So that's why I'll be moving on ... after I've done the the Microsoft training I've got scheduled in February and March.
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public sector jobs aren't paid 42% less than private sector ones. You mention microsoft training so I assume you do IT support. General 1st line support in the north is about 18k. I doubt you're on 9k at whatever public sector job you do so you're not comparing like with like. You probably work in a council or similar that has no 1st line / 2nd line support type structure and just have 2 or 3 of you looking after iT.You can't compare that type of role to some private sector specialized 2nd line support server specialist role that needs microsoft certifications where you could be earning high 20s.

That's down to your council or similar not needing that type of skill level to keep their IT ticking over. its not public sector / private sector pay gap.
 
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Had a stint myself - but only lasted 6 months. Frankly no one was bothered and the rate at which work was being done made the job boring. At the worst of it was asked to raise a change on a Monday (change process was a 2 weeker start to finish). That took 1 hour. The following Monday had to confirm it was in the system and then the following Monday did the work which took about 2 hours. In between all this there was nothing else to do. Once that was done someone else dreamt up another 2 hour job and we started the process again

The people were nice enough and no different from other places tbh

Workwise never again - soul destroying....
 
Been Public Sector for 7 years.

5 in the MoJ as a Prison Officer, pretty sure I knew the meaning of a hard days work there. 60h working weeks, stress, violence and a crap management, the pay wasn't great but I'm not going to complain about £27k.

Currently in the MoD, big mix of either "want a promotion and willing to work for it" and "cba with work, doing my hours and that's it, screw this place and it's 31 days holiday per year and 37h flexi time contracts"

I've never experienced it but I believe that it takes a Gross Misconduct to get rid of someone, people here get away with loads and it seems to go unpunished.

But I graft, my job isn't the most full-on and isn't difficult but that's because I am good at what I do and try to stay ahead of the curve so suprises are very little. Only drama I have is that Promotions in my area are very competitive, but I like a challenge.
 
I work for the NHS and the management at all levels seems to be a joke, most of them just swan about doing nothing for hours on end, dreaming up money saving ideas that cost a fortune but never seem to be implemented. When you do go to one of them with a problem, do you ever get a reply, never lol.

I have been off after an operation on my foot since the 14th of November and I am due back at work on Saturday, I was told I would have to come back on phased return, that's fair enough. I phoned my manager last Friday to sort out my return and was told "I will have to make some phone calls as I am not sure and I will ring you Monday"

This is a guy who has been a manager for 7 years and he did not know. It is now Thursday and has any one been in touch with me. No so I have no idea now what to do.

All good fun.
 
Spent 5 years in the army - it's a massive bloody doss, the less you do the more you seem to succeed. Granted when on exercise or on tour it can be hellish but when not, my god, never met so many wasters in my life. Hats off to the officers though, almost everyone I met is absolutely top, they're the best in the world.

Now in the private sector, this is what it's all about, work hard, get noticed, get promoted, get £££.
 
Half the people here are posting whilst at work, so they can't be that busy :D

For what it's worth, my girlfriend is public sector (local government), works from home and doesn't stop all day.

She's deals with adults with learning disabilities and elderly/infirm adults with social care needs. Social/mental health care (at least locally) is underfunded/understaffed.
 
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