Pensioners Versus Public Sector Snouts

[Euphorion]

Some people, like English and French towns should be twinned

Sylvia Hardy

Faith Boardman

The first is a pensioner who can't or won't pay her council tax.

The second is a public sector profligate whose prize-winning, poll-tax popping, pensioner pillaging prose is given above...

Sylvia Hardy has just left the dock, did not pass go and went directly to jail.

Faith Boardman, was effectively fired from her 180k public sector do-gooder post, collected a lump-sum gratuity of 220k, a 74k pension forever and was allowed to remain on full salary at 180k + bonus (presumably to compensate her for not giving her the 100k extra for "hurt feelings" she asked for). She yelled yippeeee as she collected this bundle of cash as she passed go. Source: Private Eye 19 Aug 2005.

What is interesting about this is that accompanying the rapid expansion of private credit (which some members have identified as the major source of house price inflation via lax lending, btl and mew), there has also been a rabid explosion of public credit (in the NE, Wales, Northern Ireland the % of gross regional product is working its way up quite nicely to 70%) particularly in local authorities. This reckless public credit which results in council taxes way above the rate of inflation is simply a spending binge the same as the private one. Except that you're not actually maxing out on your credit card with the immediate attendant pleasures (paid for later), Faith and her fellow public snouties are. They've lifted your cards and treated their mates.

So, as in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, we have a tale of two women: a Victorian old biddy whose savings and property are destroyed by public spending and she is taken off to jail while... the socialist visionary who sacrifices all for her fellow (wo)man...er goes off with her pile of swag to a hoilday home in the Dordogne.

You don't think Faith lives in a Council Flat do you ?

Public sector salaries, pay-offs and pensions (at least at middle management level and above) have been almost as responsible as btl for fuelling hpi.

Edited September 26, 2005 by Euphorion

[Bluelady]

Sylvia Hardy is 73 - by my reckoning that means she was born in 1932, George V was on the throne then so she's hardly Victorian, if she were she'd be 104 at the very youngest.

[Sarah Beeny!]

Keep talking!

Your point is?

Bloody 'Public sector' non-jobs, contribute nothing and take, take, take.

Before you start WE ALL exclude nurses etc...

Soon there will be £250k a year council 'CEO' (!) in charge of regiments of non-job jobsworths. You and I will be paying for it.

Never mind, Gordon has f..ked it majorly big time so it will soon be over thankfully.

[Euphorion]

Sylvia Hardy is 73 - by my reckoning that means she was born in 1932, George V was on the throne then so she's hardly Victorian, if she were she'd be 104 at the very youngest.

ok, she's Georgian then.

[numbersix]

Keep talking!

Your point is?

Bloody 'Public sector' non-jobs, contribute nothing and take, take, take.

Before you start WE ALL exclude nurses etc...

Soon there will be £250k a year council 'CEO' (!) in charge of regiments of non-job jobsworths. You and I will be paying for it.

Never mind, Gordon has f..ked it majorly big time so it will soon be over thankfully.

Agreed... I also despise most of the execs of large private organisations who are grossly overpaid but I can generally choose whether or not to buy their companies products .

I cannot affect the Councils policy on expanding their existing legions of pen pushers and hiring these people who are not really needed.

Obviously service industries are not there to make a profit but they should provide excellent services at as low a price (i.e. tax) as realistically possible.

[underpressuretobuy]

Public sector salaries, pay-offs and pensions (at least at middle management level and above) have been almost as responsible as btl for fuelling hpi.

As someone who works in the public sector and has seen these pay offs I can tell you that nobody wants this situation to continue. Bizarrely the reason for these high salaries and high pay offs is that the public sector is heavily unionised in a world where most unions were broken long ago. To me it sounds like the ultimate Sir Humphrey / Yes Minister joke, the civil servants advise the government to break the unions in most industries whilst in the meantime forming incredibly powerful unions themselves. Bizarrely it seems to be the people in the top jobs who benefit most from this system which, most annoying from the point of view of hard working front line staff, makes it virtually impossible to fire top managers in government jobs.

[Euphorion]

Twinned: Alfred Ridley (council tax, go directly to jail) and Bob Coomber (Chief Executive, Southwark Council Strategic Services.

Alfred Ridley

Bob Coomber (Booker Prize winning prose)

According to this week's Private Eye, Bob Coomber is on 160k a year, wants a "redundo worth more than two years' salary, plus a six figure pension, in a done deal..."

So pensioners go to jail for 50 quid and council chief execs give themselves 100,000+ pensions (plus the 200,000 payoff plus...)

When the public sector is this lax and lavish, it is, in debt terms, the public equivalent of the private debt mountain.

Edited September 29, 2005 by Euphorion

[IPOD]

Bizarrely it seems to be the people in the top jobs who benefit most from this system

There's nothing bizarre about it. All the chief execs of big companies axe thousands of staff and offshore the jobs of ordinary workers (the little guy), while they wallow in obscene wealth and hobnob with the political elite. It surprises me very little to see that this is also the case in the public sector. In such circumstances the gravy train is run for the benefit of the powerful few, not the disenfranchised many.

[bottletop]

If remember right from yesterdays telegraph Sylvia Hardy takes home a not unresepectable 250pw since she has a public sector pension.

[Civil Servant]

Interesting posts. What is most interesting is the difference between central government pay and local government pay. Contrary to what some might expect, local government pay is far higher than central government.

Central government departments are run by the quaintly termed 'Permanent Under Secretaries' (PUSs). A PUS of a major Government Department e.g. Education, probably takes home less than 200K. Nice money, but in comparison to the budgets they administer, tiny. The 'Daily Express' factor and that the knowledge amongst Ministers that excessive public sector pay will lose them votes in our (generally high turn-out) general elections helps keep a pretty solid cap on pay. You could pay peanuts, but then you'll ensure you get monkeys.

Local Government 'Leaders' in contrast have their salaries set by the local Councils. Local government elections in the UK have notoriously low turnout rates, salaries are of less interest to much of the media and therefore, perhaps, Councillors don't feel the same pressure to keep a lid on salaries. Also, it isn't glamorous. Strange though this sounds, there are some people who enjoy the 'glamour' of working in central government and so are prepared to do so for less money. It probably takes more to attract folk to Peckham High Street (btw - used to live in Peckham so I'm not knocking it).

Numbersix: if it annoys you so much, why not stand for election to Council and do something about it? You don't need that many votes to get onto a local Council.

[Euphorion]

Civil Servant is quite correct.

Central Government functionaries are paid less than municipal titans but have greater responsibilities and bigger brains.

However, for those of you lower down the food chain, municipal or central government is equally good in a recession and the place you definitely do not want to be is the private sector. If, as I think, this recession will rival the 80-84 recession, and may even be longer, a municipal or central government post is going to seem like a soft toy in the dark when the screaming starts.