Public Sector Optimism

[Biffo the Bear]

In local government people are just as worried as their counterparts in the private sector re. impending redundancies; remember that most county councils are Conservative controlled now, so there are going to be major cuts next year to support the council tax freeze.

However, there's an element of truth in what's being said, Bloo Loo has taken it to an extreme, but is thinking in the right terms. I've bored people to death with my 'plan' for a more efficient local government before, but basically it involves a £100k salary cap, reduction in use of consultants (private sector fleecing public sector for all they can get, for very little in return) and a compression in salaries of the management strata.

In our place, you've got managers on £50k+ who manage teams of less than ten people, which to me, is completely wrong.

During the single-status process, many people though, "Oh, this'll be fair, equalising of salaries etc etc." But what happened was that people on salaries of £25k and below (roughly) were evaluated by different criteria to those on salaries of £25k+. Predictably, those on the £25k+ individual assessments came out very well, because it was senior officers and management - they managed to feather their own nests very well. While those on the lower salaries were evaluated in groups, and generally their salaries were brought down, because it was a case of using the lowest common denominator in said grouping to evaluate day to day function.

It was a scam; low paid staff came out with lower pay, and higher paid staff came out with more! You can bet your bottom dollar that when redundancies do arrive, it'll be the rank and file on below £25k who'll be punished, whilst managers will be sitting pretty. It really bothers me because a lot of these 'senior' people are the 'man and boy' people who don't seem to have an obvious function, whereas the rank and file contain a lot of the new generation of public sector worker (like myself) who've come from the private sector and know how to do a damn good job.

Anyway, I can rant on for hours about this. In a nutshell, £25k and below and you've got a lot to worry about. £25k+, and you'll be sat there chuckling away.

[Bloo Loo]

They'll play an extra round of a golf a day and sod you.

then their contracts are poorly drawn. a good reason to get rid of the contract writers. and then to sue their sorry backside.

[Moo]

Apparently it wasn't really much of a recession anyway (so they told me) and it was really press/bankers etc talking us into a recession - basically labour have done a sound job and labour have won their vote for handling of the economy.

You can't win can you.

Erm... the public sector is generally a Labour stronghold anyway. What does it actually matter?

[Bloo Loo]

Close down departments, mothball the buildings or let them out cheaply to people who can do something with them.

And go where? Into the vibrant new 100% private healthcare, personal care and education industry of course.

But look, you seem to be in complete denial here that the state has no privileged position with regard to the labour market. For useless staff, there needs to be a wide cull not the dripfeeding of money to mediocrities. But for the rest, there is a world market out there. A good surgeon, a successful professor or whatever go practically anywhere in the world and be offered a job. We saw this in the early 90s when the nurses decamped en mass to the USA. You can stamp your foot all you like, it might work in la-la land but it won't work here.

it was not me that suggested getting rid. I said, cut the emoluments.

remember, the Loo Cutting Strategem is cutting the pay ABOVE what half the UK population earn by 50%.

differentials will be maintained, services are kept, the surfs are kept in service, the managers will think twice about waste, and yes some will try and leave, other will see its an answer.

the 100K surgeon ( 100K is a HUGE amount of salary) will see 37K lopped off, thats a drop of about 18K net thats 350 a week( thats more than many actually earn) still leaving a very nice salary indeed.

his colleagues and all comparables will drop the same.

whatever they do, and cutting the serfs is what they WILL do as always, is going to hurt. IMHO, best hurt the wasters and overpaid first, then deal with the other unfair benefits these people get.

[Bloo Loo]

snip

Anyway, I can rant on for hours about this. In a nutshell, £25k and below and you've got a lot to worry about. £25k+, and you'll be sat there chuckling away.

there an opionion that agrees with mine.

Ive seen this so many times before, and I cast my mind back to a visit to a pruchasing department of the gas board, I think it was. the nuts and bolts were out on strike, and I walked into the buyers office to discuss sales of toilet blocks...bloo loos as it happened.

the managers were all in there and of course the strike came up in the conversation

they were well chuffed, because althought the N+Bs wer out getting th public ire, WHEN they got their rise, differentials ensured all the management got their raises too....and the management were supposed to be THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TABLE...because of the way they were paid, they didnt give a shit about the result, unless it meant a cut.

Waste....its BUILT IN to the system.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Bloo Loo

[aa3]

In local government people are just as worried as their counterparts in the private sector re. impending redundancies; remember that most county councils are Conservative controlled now, so there are going to be major cuts next year to support the council tax freeze.

However, there's an element of truth in what's being said, Bloo Loo has taken it to an extreme, but is thinking in the right terms. I've bored people to death with my 'plan' for a more efficient local government before, but basically it involves a £100k salary cap, reduction in use of consultants (private sector fleecing public sector for all they can get, for very little in return) and a compression in salaries of the management strata.

In our place, you've got managers on £50k+ who manage teams of less than ten people, which to me, is completely wrong.

During the single-status process, many people though, "Oh, this'll be fair, equalising of salaries etc etc." But what happened was that people on salaries of £25k and below (roughly) were evaluated by different criteria to those on salaries of £25k+. Predictably, those on the £25k+ individual assessments came out very well, because it was senior officers and management - they managed to feather their own nests very well. While those on the lower salaries were evaluated in groups, and generally their salaries were brought down, because it was a case of using the lowest common denominator in said grouping to evaluate day to day function.

It was a scam; low paid staff came out with lower pay, and higher paid staff came out with more! You can bet your bottom dollar that when redundancies do arrive, it'll be the rank and file on below £25k who'll be punished, whilst managers will be sitting pretty. It really bothers me because a lot of these 'senior' people are the 'man and boy' people who don't seem to have an obvious function, whereas the rank and file contain a lot of the new generation of public sector worker (like myself) who've come from the private sector and know how to do a damn good job.

Anyway, I can rant on for hours about this. In a nutshell, £25k and below and you've got a lot to worry about. £25k+, and you'll be sat there chuckling away.

I completely agree with what you said. My thoughts are every socialism deteriorates into this that I have seen. More and more managers making more and more money, while the frontline or anyone who does any real work gets squeezed more and more.

Actually the process happens in big corporations over time too. Since managers make the decision on where money goes, its never going to be towards less money spent on managers. Its actually politically very dangerous if you are up high in an organization to even suggest that. The focus must always be on how to make the frontline more efficient.

The only way I can see us dealing with this problem is it has to come right from the prime minister.. and he would instantly be hated among the elite strata of society. But imo it will be neccessary if we are to avoid Injinian style state collapse, liek the Soviet Union, where by the end nearly everyone was an administrative worker of some sort. This whole problem is also very inter-related with the growing bureaucracy problem large organizations face.

[Cogs]

it was not me that suggested getting rid. I said, cut the emoluments.

remember, the Loo Cutting Strategem is cutting the pay ABOVE what half the UK population earn by 50%.

Why stay in the NHS then when there is more money on the table in private practice?

And obviously once enough of them have left, there will be even greater demand.

Again, you've already seen this with dentists, all you are doing is hastening its spread everywhere else.

Fortunately though the clockwatchers and the terminally useless will still have safe jobs so thats OK.

Or, according to you, everyone will understand your concerns and poke themselves in the eyes with forks because you want them to. Heres an idea, if they all worked for nothing that would be even better, why not eh?

Do you not see there is a something of a contradiction in the view that the public sector is so vast and bloated that it can be reasonably treated as monolithic? I put it to you that the people with other options are the very people you probably don't want to be pushing around.

I stand by the belief the best thing Cameron can do at his first cabinet meeting is to instruct half the people in the room to begin shutting down their respective departments. Its time we all started acting like adults and accepted that there are some things that state can no longer be in the business of providing.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Cogs

[Authoritarian]

In local government people are just as worried as their counterparts in the private sector re. impending redundancies; remember that most county councils are Conservative controlled now, so there are going to be major cuts next year to support the council tax freeze.

However, there's an element of truth in what's being said, Bloo Loo has taken it to an extreme, but is thinking in the right terms. I've bored people to death with my 'plan' for a more efficient local government before, but basically it involves a £100k salary cap, reduction in use of consultants (private sector fleecing public sector for all they can get, for very little in return) and a compression in salaries of the management strata.

In our place, you've got managers on £50k+ who manage teams of less than ten people, which to me, is completely wrong.

During the single-status process, many people though, "Oh, this'll be fair, equalising of salaries etc etc." But what happened was that people on salaries of £25k and below (roughly) were evaluated by different criteria to those on salaries of £25k+. Predictably, those on the £25k+ individual assessments came out very well, because it was senior officers and management - they managed to feather their own nests very well. While those on the lower salaries were evaluated in groups, and generally their salaries were brought down, because it was a case of using the lowest common denominator in said grouping to evaluate day to day function.

It was a scam; low paid staff came out with lower pay, and higher paid staff came out with more! You can bet your bottom dollar that when redundancies do arrive, it'll be the rank and file on below £25k who'll be punished, whilst managers will be sitting pretty. It really bothers me because a lot of these 'senior' people are the 'man and boy' people who don't seem to have an obvious function, whereas the rank and file contain a lot of the new generation of public sector worker (like myself) who've come from the private sector and know how to do a damn good job.

Anyway, I can rant on for hours about this. In a nutshell, £25k and below and you've got a lot to worry about. £25k+, and you'll be sat there chuckling away.

The major flaw with the public sector is that its pricing mechanism is divorced from reality. This allows it to be very crap and at the same time offset its crapness by forcing citizens to pay excess taxes. Lets take one example: the improvment of the transport links from Canterbury where I live to London:

http://www.enewswire.co.uk/2009/07/08/kent...cted-than-ever/

There’s no doubt that high speed rail will boost the economy in Kent – with more businesses attracted to the county and residential properties in areas like north Kent, Ashford, Canterbury and Folkestone becoming more accessible as well as offering great value for money.

A lot of the the value that this improved service creates will spill over into residential property prices, great if you're a home owner but not so great if you're a renter like myself. The point is that in neglecting to tax back this surplus value public service providers are cutting themelves off from their natural income stream. Its a bit like me going to work all day and saying 'don't worry about the wages' which would be my legitimate source of revenue and then going out robbing people as I've got no money.

[Bloo Loo]

Why stay in the NHS then when there is more money on the table in private practice?

And obviously once enough of them have left, there will be even greater demand.

Again, you've already seen this with dentists, all you are doing is hastening its spread everywhere else.

Fortunately though the clockwatchers and the terminally useless will still have safe jobs so thats OK.

Or, according to you, everyone will understand your concerns and poke themselves in the eyes with forks because you want them to.

Do you not see there is a something of a contradiction in the view that the public sector is so vast and bloated that it can be reasonably treated as monolithic? I put it to you that the people with other options are the very people you probably don't want to be pushing around.

I stand by the belief the best thing Cameron can do at his first cabinet meeting is to instruct half the people in the room to begin shutting down their respective departments.

nah, private sector has to compete with the NHS for salaries, not the other way round.

dentists, now there is a government induced shortage if aver I saw one. by the way, it appears private treatment is cheaper in dentistry...thats because the dentist gets to keep the fees, whereas the NHS gets to keep the tax payers money and pays the dentist peacework.

I went private a couple of years ago, and I get cleaner teeth and my bills have fallen...Its true.

As for shutting down departments, I agree, but the winers here are alwasy teh highly paid scalpers...their departments will blossom.

course, with direct culling as you suggest, there is redundancy to pay too. thatll be golden parachutes all round boys, or for many grey hairs, the 50 year old early retirement on index linked pensions, another issue that is going to be addressed or forced on them.

[Warwick-Watcher]

no, its my opinion.

PS workers are paid way too much.

better to cull the salaries of the above average waged than to sack them all. at least this will get the cuts in the right place, and not in the working nts and bolts of services....which will be the first things they cut in current thinking.

Simple solution - pay them all net of Tax and NI so that they know full well that they are public servants, with the emphasis on serving the public, not self-serving.

That should cut about 20-25% off the wage bill for the government.

[Bloo Loo]

Simple solution - pay them all net of Tax and NI so that they know full well that they are public servants, with the emphasis on serving the public, not self-serving.

That should cut about 20-25% off the wage bill for the government.

that wont cut much at all, after all, the tax and NI are recycled through the PAYE systems, the saving being in the recycling.

course, when governments go bust, wages are not paid at all.

I think chosing to close departments will take too long, and be designed to inflict max pain of the service recipients so the government can prove they are effective.

a pay cull will be 100% effective on cutting the costs....and it could happen THIS AFTERNOON.

[Cogs]

nah, private sector has to compete with the NHS for salaries, not the other way round.

dentists, now there is a government induced shortage if aver I saw one. by the way, it appears private treatment is cheaper in dentistry...thats because the dentist gets to keep the fees, whereas the NHS gets to keep the tax payers money and pays the dentist peacework.

I went private a couple of years ago, and I get cleaner teeth and my bills have fallen...Its true.

As for shutting down departments, I agree, but the winers here are alwasy teh highly paid scalpers...their departments will blossom.

course, with direct culling as you suggest, there is redundancy to pay too. thatll be golden parachutes all round boys, or for many grey hairs, the 50 year old early retirement on index linked pensions, another issue that is going to be addressed or forced on them.

Ok then, how about an additional tax of 50% on everything everyone earns over 25k?

Apparently nobody will mind and be just as motivated as ever.

Edited July 23, 2009 by Cogs

[Bloo Loo]

Ok then, how about an additional tax of 50% on everything everyone earns over 25k?

Apparently nobody will mind and be just as motivated as ever.

im game, but I would rather that the public sector costs were reduced first, COS THATS WHERE THE TAXES ARE SPENT.

tax CUTS all round.

[blankster]

Many public sector workers are married to private sector workers, so they see the recession first-hand.

Also, local authorities are going to have to make sweeping cutbacks and workers are aware that now is the calm before the storm. The classic way local councils make cuts is by freezing recruitment. This means that as staff leave or retire, they are not replaced and the remaining staff have an increased workload as a result. People on the shop floor of local services generally work hard and are under considerable stress, it's the senior management that is unaccountable and prone to tailoring their own job to fit their own predelictions.

So, in short, I don't see any optimism in the public sector workers I meet.

Edited July 23, 2009 by blankster

[Flat Bear]

Apparently it wasn't really much of a recession anyway (so they told me) and it was really press/bankers etc talking us into a recession - basically labour have done a sound job and labour have won their vote for handling of the economy.

You can't win can you.

That is exactly the attitude shown by people working with Ms FB. (local gov. dept) It is still the prevailing attitude.

"What recession?" "It's all been blown out of proportion and anyway its all over now"

I can't wait till we see mass redundancies in this sector. We've been carrying them for far too long.

[Guest absolutezero]

My husband is a depute head in a secondary school and he and his colleagues have just been job-sized. All of them went down and one guy, who started recently and therefore doesn't have a conserved salary for the next three years, got a £4K pay cut. It is, of course, possible that they were all paid too much anyway but it seems more likely that the boom days for the public sector are very much over and that these kinds of methods of decreasing salaries may become more widespread.

Given that schoolteachers are paid on nationally agreed payscales, how did this come about?

[Guest absolutezero]

I went private a couple of years ago, and I get cleaner teeth and my bills have fallen...Its true.

What a load of crap.

A check up with scale and polish AND x-rays on the NHS is £16.50. Twice a year is £33.

* £16.50 - This charge includes an examination, diagnosis and preventive care. If necessary, this includes X-rays, scale and polish, and planning for further treatment. Urgent and out-of-hours care also costs £16.50.

* £45.60 - This charge includes all necessary treatment covered by the £16.50 charge PLUS additional treatment such as fillings, root canal treatment or extractions.

* £198 -This charge includes all necessary treatment covered by the £16.50 and £45.60 charges PLUS more complex procedures such as crowns, dentures or bridges.

You telling me you can get private treatment cheaper?

I don't believe you.

Edited July 23, 2009 by absolutezero

[Si1]

What a load of crap.

A check up with scale and polish AND x-rays on the NHS is £16.50. Twice a year is £33.

* £16.50 - This charge includes an examination, diagnosis and preventive care. If necessary, this includes X-rays, scale and polish, and planning for further treatment. Urgent and out-of-hours care also costs £16.50.

* £45.60 - This charge includes all necessary treatment covered by the £16.50 charge PLUS additional treatment such as fillings, root canal treatment or extractions.

* £198 -This charge includes all necessary treatment covered by the £16.50 and £45.60 charges PLUS more complex procedures such as crowns, dentures or bridges.

You telling me you can get private treatment cheaper?

I don't believe you.

I seem to pay a lot less as a private patient - under NHS the dentist suggested every treatment under the sun. Now it's private, the dentist minimises the work and makes clear suggestions. I only see her once a year because my teeth are so good now, and it costs me very little, including polishing a few dirty bits. Private is simply a different attitude. It's not just about the absolute numbers.

[Si1]

That is exactly the attitude shown by people working with Ms FB. (local gov. dept) It is still the prevailing attitude.

"What recession?" "It's all been blown out of proportion and anyway its all over now"

I can't wait till we see mass redundancies in this sector. We've been carrying them for far too long.

it'll only be under the tories that the cuts actually happen, so they'll therefore infer that labour managed the economy better

[D.C.]

course, with direct culling as you suggest, there is redundancy to pay too. thatll be golden parachutes all round boys, or for many grey hairs, the 50 year old early retirement on index linked pensions, another issue that is going to be addressed or forced on them.

We had this debate a while back and I was getting lambasted for basically saying exactly the same as you.

Lay offs in the public sector cost a lot of money and you end up with sky rocketing unemployment.

Instead of a straight pay cut stick all non frontline staff on a 4 day week. That doesn't help enough, drop them to 3 and frontline (nurses, police etc) on a 4 day week.

No increase in unemployment and no redundancy to pay.

To help the unemployment figures out let SME's claim 80% tax relief on the cost of taking on an unemployed person for 12 months. (capped at certain percentage of staff)

[Si1]

We had this debate a while back and I was getting lambasted for basically saying exactly the same as you.

Lay offs in the public sector cost a lot of money and you end up with sky rocketing unemployment.

Instead of a straight pay cut stick all non frontline staff on a 4 day week. That doesn't help enough, drop them to 3 and frontline (nurses, police etc) on a 4 day week.

No increase in unemployment and no redundancy to pay.

To help the unemployment figures out let SME's claim 80% tax relief on the cost of taking on an unemployed person for 12 months. (capped at certain percentage of staff)

some serious, even right wing, economists have said much the same, that just doing plain layoffs would cause its own problems like this

[Bloo Loo]

some serious, even right wing, economists have said much the same, that just doing plain layoffs would cause its own problems like this

pay cut is best, as they wont get any less work done, itl just cost less.

course, putting many of them admin staff on a one day week would have the same effect.

[Elizabeth]

pay cut is best, as they wont get any less work done, itl just cost less.

course, putting many of them admin staff on a one day week would have the same effect.

The 'admin' staff are working their butts off. They generally get around 17-18K in the counties and around £22-24K in London. Its not a lot to live on, particularly when you factor in house and rent prices. Its stuff such as managers that squeeze 5 days into 4 for 'work life balance' reasons (a privilege generally not available to front line staff and low level staff as they are needed to be available constantly). People who work 4 days should be paid 4 days. Higher level managers are generally not tracked either for their leave and sick leave since their supervision is generally more 'strategic'.

[Si1]

The 'admin' staff are working their butts off. They generally get around 17-18K in the counties and around £22-24K in London. Its not a lot to live on, particularly when you factor in house and rent prices. Its stuff such as managers that squeeze 5 days into 4 for 'work life balance' reasons (a privilege generally not available to front line staff and low level staff as they are needed to be available constantly). People who work 4 days should be paid 4 days. Higher level managers are generally not tracked either for their leave and sick leave since their supervision is generally more 'strategic'.

would any private sector organisation believe it reasonable for people to squeeze a workign week into 4 days and get paid the same as for 5? In my previous experience flex time was limited to one day gained per month, and that was that in the private sector.

Seriously, anyone?

[Twig Vase]

The 'admin' staff are working their butts off. They generally get around 17-18K in the counties and around £22-24K in London. Its not a lot to live on, particularly when you factor in house and rent prices. Its stuff such as managers that squeeze 5 days into 4 for 'work life balance' reasons (a privilege generally not available to front line staff and low level staff as they are needed to be available constantly). People who work 4 days should be paid 4 days. Higher level managers are generally not tracked either for their leave and sick leave since their supervision is generally more 'strategic'.

At the university I work a lot of the academics "work from home" once or twice a week.