Poll: The Budget

[No1newts]

http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16190693

To be honest I have been pretty solidly behind the con/lib coalition and the difficult decisions they have had to make to keep this country away from becoming another Greece.

However I cannot help but be completely incensed with the current proposals. On one hand they will try and save money by paying public sector workers in the regions less because it costs less to live, so essentially you will do the same job in Liverpool as someone in London and get paid less for your troubles. Complete disgrace they should instead be looking at offering extra incentives for public sector workers to live and work in busier areas rather than knocking down the salary of those away from more expensive areas.

With some serious arguing I could possibly be convinced this isn't a complete disgrace but then in the same budget that they propose to take money away from those who will be working for lower salaries... they propose to scrap the 50p tax rate and give more money back to the rich any savings they make from ripping off the poor will just be given back to the rich!

I am not a drama llama and if you look at my post history I am generally against union sabre rattling and public sector workers claiming they have a hard life but I really cannot understand how they can begin to justify such a hypocritical decision.

Anyone else miffed by this decision?



And yes it is a slow saturday night for me to be posting about this at 10pm

 

[meghatronic]

However I cannot help but be completely incensed with the current proposals. On one hand they will try and save money by paying public sector workers in the regions less because it costs less to live, so essentially you will do the same job in Liverpool as someone in London and get paid less for your troubles. Complete disgrace

Well almost everyone non-public sector has regional variations in salary. I would get incensed about something more egregious.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I do wonder what this will do for some of the regions. At the moment, if the figures are to be beleived, you can live and work in a less than great area and benefit financially (if the figures are to be beleived) as a result. Or you can live and work in a far nicer area but you'll end up with a higher proportion of your wages going in living costs.

Under the new scheme if the pay is reduced for the less than great areas... why would people bother working there? Might as well move somewhere nice and enjoy the same sort of disposable income as a result of higher wages offsetting the increased living costs?

If someone works in London and ends up with £0, after paying for all the bare essentials of life... whilst someone else does exactly the same job, in the north, but ends up with £5k, after paying for all the bare essentials of life... is that fair on the person in London?

Well - they get to live in London, which though some will disagree, is a world city with many benefits of being there. It's a great place to live. Rotherham, on the other hand, is pretty crap. So currently you can live in London and be less well off but benefit from living in a great city. Or you can live in a crap city but benefit financially..

Why would anyone want to live and work in some of the places in the UK if there was no financial advantage to them doing so? Will we see talented teachers simply upping sticks and thinking they might as well live in Hertfordshire?

 

[No1newts]

If someone works in London and ends up with £0, after paying for all the bare essentials of life... whilst someone else does exactly the same job, in the north, but ends up with £5k, after paying for all the bare essentials of life... is that fair on the person in London?

You get London weightings for all sorts of jobs, because the living costs are that much higher.

In my OP I said they should look at weightings not reducing the salary of those in the regions. If you can have the same standard of living somewhere not so nice or in London for the same financial benefits why would you live somehwere ****? I am not saying living away from a big city is inherently bad, but why should you be financially penalised for not living in the big city?

As Fox says

Under the new scheme if the pay is reduced for the less than great areas... why would people bother working there? Might as well move somewhere nice and enjoy the same sort of disposable income as a result of higher wages offsetting the increased living costs?

They will shift workers away from less desirable areas if they can operate to the same standard of living, be it better or worse, in a nicer area.

 

[daz]

So currently you can live in London and be less well off but benefit from living in a great city. Or you can live in a crap city but benefit financially..

Why would anyone want to live and work in some of the places in the UK if there was no financial advantage to them doing so? Will we see talented teachers simply upping sticks and thinking they might as well live in Hertfordshire?

Because this is the same decision that everyone else in the private sector makes when looking for a job, and because money isn't the only reason why people stay wherever they're currently living?

This is a very sensible move in my opinion. There's no justification to be paid exactly the same across the country, where living costs and the economic realities are complete different.

 

[Jokester]

The problem with people in say Wales getting paid the 20% or so more than the local economy warrants is that it pushes up prices for those that don't have public sector jobs.

I'm surprised this was ever the case to be honest. Seems entirely fiscally irresponsible.

 

[[TW]Fox]

Because this is the same decision that everyone else in the private sector makes when looking for a job?

Which no doubt contributes to the deprevation and generally crappyness of some parts of the country. There is a reason people would rather live on the M4 corridor than the North East - money. You can earn loads more by working down in the South and South East than you can up North, so many people do which contributes to the North/South divide. At least uniform national pay reduces this issue for professions such as teachers. You really don't want all your teachers living in a certain area so they can be better off - at least its not quite as big an issue if all your bankers move down South..

 

[stockhausen]

I am far more bewildered by the Tories alleged plans to abolish the 50% tax rate for those earning over £150k.

It appears that Clegg's long-suffering muppet back-benchers may finally unearth a backbone and tell him and his Tory pals to go take a hike.

 

[daz]

Which no doubt contributes to the deprevation and generally crappyness of some parts of the country. There is a reason people would rather live on the M4 corridor than the North East - money. You can earn loads more by working down in the South and South East than you can up North, so many people do which contributes to the North/South divide. At least uniform national pay reduces this issue for professions such as teachers. You really don't want all your teachers living in a certain area so they can be better off - at least its not quite as big an issue if all your bankers move down South..

So spend more money to invigorate local private businesses by reducing business rates or reducing employers NI or a whole host of other measures rather than paying public sector employees significantly more in real terms in certain areas.

 

[RomanNose]

What are they doing with 50p tax rate? Have they not seen how much the country hates Rich people? The recent economic crisis has just made this hatred even bigger. Now they are considering dropping the tax rate, they are just taking the micky.

 

[[TW]Fox]

So spend more money to invigorate local private businesses by reducing business rates or reducing employers NI or a whole host of other measures rather than paying public sector employees significantly more in real terms in certain areas.

There are measures like that in place - thats what Enterprise Zones are for.

You don't see BMW and Oracle moving the head office from Bracknell to Newcastle do you? They don't want to be there and neither do the staff want to live there. The South is just.. nicer. There is more money in the South, there are better jobs that pay more in the South, etc etc. This is already a problem, this scheme would seem to just make it worse to me?

Why link wages to cost of living at all? Would you expect your boss to give you a payrise because your mortgage is expensive, or would you expect him to give you a payrise based on your performance, ability and usefulness to the company?

Thats a partly rhetorical question as supply and demand in the labour market will naturally have at least *some* link to cost of living, but you see my point.

That said would this neccesarily lead to a reduction across the board or would it balance it out? I guess if there are people who are paid more in public than private I'm sure in some areas the reverse is the case? Would they get an increase? You'll get paid more as an accountant working in a practice or for a private firm than you'd get paid working for the council, for example. And what about professions that don't exist in the private sector? There are no private sector primary school teachers so how do you adjust the pay of a primary school teacher to match that of the private sector? What about fireman? How much do you pay a fireman based on local private sector wages?

You can't just average out ALL professions and do it in blanket fashion, as that'll lead to admin staff in Henley on Thames getting the big bucks because everyone locally in the private sector is a solicitor or an accountant and engineering staff in Blackpool getting paid nothing because everyone in the private sector in Blackpool sells hot dogs and kiss me quick hats on the seafront..

 

[daz]

There are measures like that in place - thats what Enterprise Zones are for.

Enterprise zones will do nothing for most small businesses other than in the tiny areas that have been designated as such. Business rates are ridiculously regressive against small businesses, and lowering them in place of a percent or two on corporation tax would be helpful to a lot of small businesses out there. Encouraging entrepreneurship and enabling small businesses to grow is the way forward, not getting people hooked on public sector bloat.

You don't see BMW and Oracle moving the head office from Bracknell to Newcastle do you? They don't want to be there and neither do the staff want to live there.

Sage are headquartered in Newcastle.

I'm just amazed that you think that the government distorting the labour market in particular areas is a good thing.

 

[[TW]Fox]

I'm just amazed that you think that the government distorting the labour market in particular areas is a good thing.

When you put it like that I can see where are you coming from but... a teacher teaching kids should be able to look forward to a particular salary regardless of whether she takes on the challenges of a comprehensive in Stafford or a comprehensive in Basingstoke...

I guess I am focusing on professions where there is no direct and easily comparable private sector alternative. For ones where there is.. I guess it's a different story.

 

[Jokester]

What are they doing with 50p tax rate? Have they not seen how much the country hates Rich people? The recent economic crisis has just made this hatred even bigger. Now they are considering dropping the tax rate, they are just taking the micky.

The 50p tax rate costs the public purse money.

 

[daz]

When you put it like that I can see where are you coming from but... a teacher teaching kids should be able to look forward to a particular salary regardless of whether she takes on the challenges of a comprehensive in Stafford or a comprehensive in Basingstoke...

I think that you can get good and bad schools in Surrey, inner city London, Cambridge, Newcastle. Especially when comprehensives are concerned. You will get a correlation of % of free school meals and low performing GCSE results and this is where money should be directly targeted, to schools themselves rather than to areas.

This is just a question I don't know the answer to: do 'academy'/free schools get to pay whatever they want (perhaps within a set of boundaries) for teaching staff? I'm just wondering whether they get more freedom to attract teachers by paying a little extra over a standard school.

 

[Floogie]

The 50p tax rate costs the public purse money.

Do you have any evidence to prove this? Or will I be referred to the Laffer Curve?

 

[No1newts]

When you put it like that I can see where are you coming from but... a teacher teaching kids should be able to look forward to a particular salary regardless of whether she takes on the challenges of a comprehensive in Stafford or a comprehensive in Basingstoke...

This.

Ultimately people will move to areas where there is a better standard of living especially if salary becomes an issue. I can have the same standard of living in London or Scunthorpe... hmm...

Will just make it a struggle to get teachers in less urban/less well thought of areas.

 

[easyrider]

http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16190693

To be honest I have been pretty solidly behind the con/lib coalition and the difficult decisions they have had to make to keep this country away from becoming another Greece.

OH DEAR

 

[[TW]Fox]

I think that you can get good and bad schools in Surrey, inner city London, Cambridge, Newcastle. Especially when comprehensives are concerned. You will get a correlation of % of free school meals and low performing GCSE results and this is where money should be directly targeted, to schools themselves rather than to areas.

True, but at least if you teach at a crap school in Surrey you get to go home to your nice house in Surrey at the end of the day.

If you were no better off why would you think 'Actually... Sunderland seems nice'?

 

[Jokester]

Do you have any evidence to prove this? Or will I be referred to the Laffer Curve?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8911390/50p-tax-band-will-cost-Britain-1bn-a-year.html

Higher taxes on salary encourage the rich to either leave or move to more tax efficient ways of payment.