T_V Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I have just been contacted by a fellow contractor that works with the public sector and more specifically schools. He emailed me (I quote): "Large inner city comp, now an Academy, has just received its budget from the City/LEA. Although education was supposedly protected it seems only direct funding to schools is, other sources of income are not, as a result they have seen a 5% drop in their budget. They seem to have expected it as they immediately announced 21 redundancies (compulsory from what I understand) including some teachers. I have also been told the original number might be revised up (not down), in any case we are looking at jobs carnage in the public sector from April onwards if "protected" areas are affected like that." No need to comment, he says it all really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrappycocco Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Jaysus, couldn't they save 5% by a salary reduction for all except the lowest paid and therefore avoid redundancies since the future is not all that bright. This bloody public sector makes my skin crawl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperduck Quack Quack Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) I said education was being cut one here and someone else education budget is ringfenced - no it's not, schools ARE being cut, it's happening. Jaysus, couldn't they save 5% by a salary reduction for all except the lowest paid and therefore avoid redundancies since the future is not all that bright. This bloody public sector makes my skin crawl. So when your skin starts crawling and you go to A&E I hope they tell you crawling skin can't be treated on the NHS and you have to dig deep to get it done by some private "specialist" with a framed certificate on the wall of their degree in dermatology from the University of Lundy Island! Edited March 17, 2011 by Hyperduck Quack Quack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MonkeyNuts Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) My kid's school staff car park is full of posh cars: mini coopers and audi convertibles etc Teachers are obviously paid far too much.. and get too many holidays as well. Edited March 17, 2011 by MonkeyNuts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
exiges Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 No. Get rid of the front line and retain the managers and then the public will see just how bad these cuts are and how terrible things are under the tories. Ain't that the truth.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie The Tramp Returns Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 The greatest Education Era where school children and students actually learnt anything was in the 1950s. A time when young people could see a bright future if they were willing to work hard in their studies. A time when a young man I knew whose Father was a docker, his Mother a factory worker, living in a 2 up and 2 down rented house in East London Finally in the mid 1960s obtaining a PhD in Nuclear Physics and working for NASA in the USA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saberu Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 My kid's school staff car park is full of posh cars: mini coopers and audi convertibles etc Teachers are obviously paid far too much.. and get too many holidays as well. This may be a result of parents wishing to outdo eachother at school donation parties, I know mum's especially love to donate in front of their friends to show how well off they are! My mum was one of the poorer ones and had consistently donated at least 100 pounds year on year, I imagine in a school of 2000 students (not sure the real figure) that would be 200,000 per year if every students parents donated the same on average- and realise some would have donated 500-1000. And where does the donated money go? Well it pays for the managerial staff and headteacher's increased motivation to demand their LEA pay for new buildings etc in the school, I imagine half the donated money may find it's way onto this as a contribution and the rest pocketed. Also when I was at school a science teacher told me his basic pay hadn't been increased in 4 years, and that basically the whole staff pay system was based on who your friends were and if you had that ability to charm over your superiors to get you into the inner sanctum of pay rises. He was a REALLY good teacher too, one of the best at the school. I think what you see may be a case of the same thing, a handful of teachers getting good pay rises and many not getting anything. Britain is a really socialistic country, and when you go for a job interview it's probably likely to be how likable you are as a person rather than having a good skill set that gets you the job. Same thing goes for going up the jobs ladder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pauly_Boy Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) My kid's school staff car park is full of posh cars: mini coopers and audi convertibles etc Teachers are obviously paid far too much.. and get too many holidays as well. The problem is that teachers are sometimes the biggest idiots around. I've known a couple and they have no concept of finance at all and just load up with debt Edited March 18, 2011 by Pauly_Boy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superted187 Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Brushing aside the dinosaur posts claiming that we need a 1950s style education, and the ones claiming that all teachers are idiots, I would like to add that education IS getting cut. My misses is a secondary teacher and was threatened with redundancy until someone in her department left. Expect standards to drop. Expect Geography teachers teaching things like maths as schools try and get more for their money Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tahoma Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 A 5% cut is a rounding error with the sort of money that gets thrown around in the Public Sector. To immediately announce redundancies is just Washington Monument Syndrome, ie petty bureaucrats playing at politics with peoples lives. Far more immoral than anything the eeevil tories are doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
200p Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 We're in a box. The money's run out. What else can we do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Jaysus, couldn't they save 5% by a salary reduction for all except the lowest paid and therefore avoid redundancies since the future is not all that bright. This bloody public sector makes my skin crawl. Indeed. Horrific as the cuts have to be, if wages were sliced about a bit then everyone would still have a job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fluffy666 Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 We're in a box. The money's run out. What else can we do? Get serious about tax avoidance and evasion, make the retirement age a function of life expectancy and years in work, stop giving aid to nuclear powers, introduce a national pay scale for all government employees, slash the use of 'consultants', and render Eric Pickles down for fuel. Sorted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patfig Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 The greatest Education Era where school children and students actually learnt anything was in the 1950s. A time when young people could see a bright future if they were willing to work hard in their studies. A time when a young man I knew whose Father was a docker, his Mother a factory worker, living in a 2 up and 2 down rented house in East London Finally in the mid 1960s obtaining a PhD in Nuclear Physics and working for NASA in the USA. Max? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Loblaw Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I can see education being one of the real battles the Coalition will be ruing the day they started. As far as I know teachers do a very difficult job under extreme circumstances. Schools are already at breaking point with the number of pointless initiatives that have been created under Labour. At the school my wife works in there is a huge management structure with the school having: 1 Headteacher (£100,000+) 3 Deputy Heads (£60,000+) 10 Senior Leaders (£50,000+) Then you have a business development manager and who knows what else. Funnily enough 1 of the deputy heads has been off on the long term sick and one has been off on maternity leave, came back for two weeks and then announced she was pregnant again (and went off on the sick again). However, with the two deputy heads missing the school has been running as normal (some would argue even better). Funny that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tahoma Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I can see education being one of the real battles the Coalition will be ruing the day they started. As far as I know teachers do a very difficult job under extreme circumstances. Schools are already at breaking point with the number of pointless initiatives that have been created under Labour. At the school my wife works in there is a huge management structure with the school having: 1 Headteacher (£100,000+) 3 Deputy Heads (£60,000+) 10 Senior Leaders (£50,000+) Then you have a business development manager and who knows what else. Funnily enough 1 of the deputy heads has been off on the long term sick and one has been off on maternity leave, came back for two weeks and then announced she was pregnant again (and went off on the sick again). However, with the two deputy heads missing the school has been running as normal (some would argue even better). Funny that. Change that to 1 head teacher on £60K, 1 deputy head on £45K. Below that teachers on £35K, new entrants on £25K. It's all we can afford. With the holidays they get it's a good wage. And spare me the BS about how they spend holidays doing 'marking' and 'lesson plans'. If the place is a zoo, send the naughtiest little monkeys back to their parent/s. It's their problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fluffy666 Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I can see education being one of the real battles the Coalition will be ruing the day they started. As far as I know teachers do a very difficult job under extreme circumstances. Schools are already at breaking point with the number of pointless initiatives that have been created under Labour. At the school my wife works in there is a huge management structure with the school having: 1 Headteacher (£100,000+) 3 Deputy Heads (£60,000+) 10 Senior Leaders (£50,000+) Then you have a business development manager and who knows what else. Funnily enough 1 of the deputy heads has been off on the long term sick and one has been off on maternity leave, came back for two weeks and then announced she was pregnant again (and went off on the sick again). However, with the two deputy heads missing the school has been running as normal (some would argue even better). Funny that. I see it as a function of MBA management logic... In which the frontline delivery of services is seen like a production line to be automated and deskilled as much as possible, and the people who are best at it promoted to manage others and in theory make them more productive with their expertise. It's the same logic as you'd get when outsourcing software development; you end up banning the people who are best at writing code from coding and getting them to do management instead. By the same logic, Wayne Rooney should be managing the England team, not playing in it... The result ends up being very top-heavy structures full of people who are forced to manage instead of doing what they are good at. The alternative would be the unthinkable - doers paid more than managers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T_V Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 I can see education being one of the real battles the Coalition will be ruing the day they started. As far as I know teachers do a very difficult job under extreme circumstances. Schools are already at breaking point with the number of pointless initiatives that have been created under Labour. At the school my wife works in there is a huge management structure with the school having: 1 Headteacher (£100,000+) 3 Deputy Heads (£60,000+) 10 Senior Leaders (£50,000+) Then you have a business development manager and who knows what else. Funnily enough 1 of the deputy heads has been off on the long term sick and one has been off on maternity leave, came back for two weeks and then announced she was pregnant again (and went off on the sick again). However, with the two deputy heads missing the school has been running as normal (some would argue even better). Funny that. I have just been told that the figure has apparently gone up (now 26 are going) of which 2 are "senior" staff. As far as the 5% cut to all is concerned, I have also been told that this would mean a change to contracts for all staff, which for whoever has worked with the public sector will know is nigh on impossible. Easier to just slash the posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tahoma Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Get serious about tax avoidance and evasion, make the retirement age a function of life expectancy and years in work, stop giving aid to nuclear powers, introduce a national pay scale for all government employees, slash the use of 'consultants', and render Eric Pickles down for fuel. Sorted. Tax avoidance is not illegal - what is there to 'get serious' about?. I turn away work because the marginal tax rate makes it less than worthwhile; I'd rather spend the time paragliding. Is that 'tax avoidance'? When we have a series of financially incontinent governments, it is the duty of every (net) taxpayer to avoid paying as much tax as they possibly can. The money still gets spent, but on productive things rather than public sector b*llshit. Pickles must be doing something right if you hate him that much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oliver Sutton Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 Expect standards to drop. True, but a sad indictment of the public sector. After years of money being thrown at them like confetti they could easily absorb 5% cuts through lower wages, pensions, and efficiency savings. But no, they'd rather protect their own inflated wages and pensions than provide a good service to the public they allegedly "serve". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PopGun Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 To immediately announce redundancies is just Washington Monument Syndrome, ie petty bureaucrats playing at politics with peoples lives. Far more immoral than anything the eeevil tories are doing. This does smell of Union Sabre rattling I agree. I'd be suprised if natural wastage and other efficiences don't make up most of the short fall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rxe Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 The cuts don't seem to be in Berkshire at all. Here's a real live example, happening right now. Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council, Conservative controlled, is still pissing money up the wall. We live at the end of a lane, which is also a footpath/bridle path. Near the end of the lane, there is a foot bridge made out of great big sleepers, and it has a hand rail. It spans a ditch that is perhaps 18" deep. The bridge used to be in OK-ish condition, some surface rotting, but nothing frightening. I would cherfully have driven a car over it had it been wide enough. Anyway, about 4 months ago they sent in contractors to make repairs. New timber, new handrail. A bit over the top, but safety first and all that. So we arrive home yesterday, and there is a van parked up. A bloke has unloaded some massive bits of wood - really nice expensive beams. Apparently the (renewed) bridge is now to be replaced. They are going to make it wide enough for a wheelchair, and it will have two hand rails as well. Now I'm all in favour of wheelchair access...but you approach this thing over a sea of mud, and if you cross it, the next obstacle is a stile 100 yards away. If they want wheel chair access, they need to get rid of the mud, the stile, the next stile, oh and the mud in the next field. The contractor doing it is as bemused as we are. That said, his point is good - if they are paying the money, he'd be daft not to take it. Total cost - probably about £10K. Wasted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the gardener Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 The cuts don't seem to be in Berkshire at all. Here's a real live example, happening right now. Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council, Conservative controlled, is still pissing money up the wall. We live at the end of a lane, which is also a footpath/bridle path. Near the end of the lane, there is a foot bridge made out of great big sleepers, and it has a hand rail. It spans a ditch that is perhaps 18" deep. The bridge used to be in OK-ish condition, some surface rotting, but nothing frightening. I would cherfully have driven a car over it had it been wide enough. Anyway, about 4 months ago they sent in contractors to make repairs. New timber, new handrail. A bit over the top, but safety first and all that. So we arrive home yesterday, and there is a van parked up. A bloke has unloaded some massive bits of wood - really nice expensive beams. Apparently the (renewed) bridge is now to be replaced. They are going to make it wide enough for a wheelchair, and it will have two hand rails as well. Now I'm all in favour of wheelchair access...but you approach this thing over a sea of mud, and if you cross it, the next obstacle is a stile 100 yards away. If they want wheel chair access, they need to get rid of the mud, the stile, the next stile, oh and the mud in the next field. The contractor doing it is as bemused as we are. That said, his point is good - if they are paying the money, he'd be daft not to take it. Total cost - probably about £10K. Wasted. I'd ask him if I could salvage some of the wood. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 No. Get rid of the front line and retain the managers and then the public will see just how bad these cuts are and how terrible things are under the tories. nonsense, they should close the school and put everyone working there on gardening leave..on full pay and benefits till the earth is rich enough to pay for their services again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 This does smell of Union Sabre rattling I agree. I'd be suprised if natural wastage and other efficiences don't make up most of the short fall. If there is room for natural wastage, then there is WASTE right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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