Northern Ireland Economy

[bearsrus]

yup

pity its costing the taxpayers £8.4 million or 17k a job

this is still better value than those lifers in the government job club suckling on the public sector teat.

ie. a friend has just retired /early redundo at 51 from the civil service with a tax free lump off 90k and a indexed linked pension for life on 14k per year.

[R + R]

this is still better value than those lifers in the government job club suckling on the public sector teat.

ie. a friend has just retired /early redundo at 51 from the civil service with a tax free lump off 90k and a indexed linked pension for life on 14k per year.

they must have been a small cog

have a look at how the big cogs remunerate themselves

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11692971

rock on!

[Reraise]

I don't think the health trust pay packets are excessive at all. William mckee of the Belfast trust managed tens of thousands of employees and the biggest healthcare budget in Europe. I would have thought he'd have been on more. It's a nice headline though, and you can always count on jim wells to bitch about trust employees when it suits him.

[Ride_on]

this is still better value than those lifers in the government job club suckling on the public sector teat.

Depends if you think banking offers as much value for money as it costs. It provides jobs, just like gov't, but does it add value? If it did they would have to charge VAT.

Edited November 5, 2010 by Ride_on

[uncivilservant]

this is still better value than those lifers in the government job club suckling on the public sector teat.

ie. a friend has just retired /early redundo at 51 from the civil service with a tax free lump off 90k and a indexed linked pension for life on 14k per year.

31 years 'sucking the teat' and having to deal with ignorant uninformed gabsh**es talking a load of billhooks - for starters only the first £30000 of any redundancy payment is tax free and your friend is obviously yanking your chain - I would guess his name is Harvey.

[talksalot81]

I don't think the health trust pay packets are excessive at all. William mckee of the Belfast trust managed tens of thousands of employees and the biggest healthcare budget in Europe. I would have thought he'd have been on more. It's a nice headline though, and you can always count on jim wells to bitch about trust employees when it suits him.

I don't know th validity of your statement but I am inclined to ask how it comes to be that this can be the biggest healthcare budget in Europe!! What the hell? This is Belfast. We are a piddly, half forgotten off region of a massively indebted country with considerably less than a million people. How can we have need for the biggest budget?

I do not think anyone is complaining about a few high level individuals earning high salaries. What people will object to is hundreds of people earning high salaries with no apparently good justification.

[bearsrus]

Depends if you think banking offers as much value for money as it costs. It provides jobs, just like gov't, but does it add value? If it did they would have to charge VAT.

hi ride_on

i still think those 500 jobs for citi bank offer good value at 17k once off payment, it keeps the employees of the dole and hopefully they,ll be paying taxes .

even if those jobs only last a few years (delorean) its still cheaper than funding some non essential unsackable public sector employee who,s costing the state at least 40k per year given pensions,sickies ,lumpsum and salary.

as to your different question( i think) on the cost or value of banking bailouts ,we all know if the government or their appointed buddies in the FSA were awake on duty we wouldn,t be on the hook for the banking mess.

[talksalot81]

I have an increasing level of concern about all of these IT roles. I know people will disagree with me but the recruitment processes these guys are using are not a good sign. The old approach was to get good people with a strong analytical mindset. However, looking at the interviews and tests that are going on, they are looking for people who know the terminology and the actual ability of the candidate is secondary. So basically they are trying to employ IT robots. That is all well and good for getting people into jobs here and now... but robots are not well known for innovation and development. I fear that we are being milked. I fear that, in a few years, somewhere else will have cheaper robots and suddenly we have a whole bunch of IT professionals who are great at writing a bit of code for this and that but are simply not equipped to put it all together without a big organisation holding their hands...

[Reraise]

Talksalot, unlike most of the rest of Europe, healthcare is almost exclusively publicly funded in the UK. Belfast trust is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) trust in the UK. It all depends where the trust Borders are and the size of the population it provides for.

[talksalot81]

Talksalot, unlike most of the rest of Europe, healthcare is almost exclusively publicly funded in the UK. Belfast trust is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) trust in the UK. It all depends where the trust Borders are and the size of the population it provides for.

Does that not then indicate that we need a rethink such that we do not have such a large and (apparently) unwieldy organisation?

In any case, the trust being large does not change the reality that there are many hundreds of very highly paid individuals. The public would like some kind of justification for the very large number of very high salaries which were reported in the press this week. Even if the pay and numbers are in line with the UK over all, we need to remember that NI earnings are considerably lower than the UK as a whole. So we would still need justification as to why NI health sector staff can reasonably expect to be better off (with respect to the population average) than they would be elsewhere in the UK.

I am playing devil's advocate here. Something has to be done to save a whole load of money... unless very good reason can be given (and it hasn't), it is unreasonable for there to be exceptions.

[Reraise]

I actually think the trust should be bigger or that the administration for all northern ireland health trusts should be done centrally. As it stands, we have duplication of management and administation across the trusts.

Paying our public sector staff less than the rest of the country would be unfair on the individuals involved (and not possible in many cases given that many professions agree salaries at a national level), and not a good idea from the point of view of the economy.

[talksalot81]

I actually think the trust should be bigger or that the administration for all northern ireland health trusts should be done centrally. As it stands, we have duplication of management and administation across the trusts.

Paying our public sector staff less than the rest of the country would be unfair on the individuals involved (and not possible in many cases given that many professions agree salaries at a national level), and not a good idea from the point of view of the economy.

Merge things together and the administration just become bigger. More managers. More administrators. Jobs made to ensure no one loses out in the transition... the theory is good but practically I think it would end up costing proportionally more.

You are right about the pay but the fact remains that these people are being paid proportionally more than the rest of us because they have a job which is paid on national scales whilst the rest of us are held back because this is NI. As such, additional care needs to be taken because the general population is already left with the feeling that the health sector is doing pretty well...

As I said before, the problem exists and the money needs saved. Either the service needs cut or public perception needs to change such that they are more keen to protect health at the expense of something else. Arguements to any other end are just spitting into the wind.

[Ride_on]

The old approach was to get good people with a strong analytical mindset. However, looking at the interviews and tests that are going on, they are looking for people who know the terminology and the actual ability of the candidate is secondary.

Yes I have found this aswell, as an Engineer with 20+ years experience and a non-BSer I tend to not use the buzz words, I think this has cost me at least 2 job applications. I get the impression this is all caused by fair employment laws. HR staff now demand that interviewers use a points system and are able to thoroughly support their decision on paper. The easy way to do this is box ticking. When someone asks me a question like 'describe a project you worked on', if I don't mention the words they are looking for I don't get a tick, unfortunately I have done more projects that the interviewers and their questions are usually not specific enough for me to describe a particularly relevant project. Of course they are also fairly happy to not employ someone with more experience than them.

I should mention I am talking about the private sector, in the public sector HR do the interviews and can only box tick.

[Ride_on]

hi ride_on

i still think those 500 jobs for citi bank offer good value at 17k once off payment, it keeps the employees of the dole and hopefully they,ll be paying taxes .

even if those jobs only last a few years (delorean) its still cheaper than funding some non essential unsackable public sector employee who,s costing the state at least 40k per year given pensions,sickies ,lumpsum and salary.

as to your different question( i think) on the cost or value of banking bailouts ,we all know if the government or their appointed buddies in the FSA were awake on duty we wouldn,t be on the hook for the banking mess.

Imagine a country where everyone worked and got paid just for the sake of having jobs that didn't produce anything useful. Saying there are worse evils does not justify it, they are not alternatives.

I was talking about jobs that add value, nothing to do with the bailouts. IMO banking and general finance/trading does not add the value that they pay themselves or that they or anyone share trading 'earn'. Gambling is a leisure activity, and gambling on gamblers even more pointless. Having said that the banking crash did indicate that banking is a fairly low value activity, as they lost more money in 6 months than they ever earned in 20 years.

[talksalot81]

Yes I have found this aswell, as an Engineer with 20+ years experience and a non-BSer I tend to not use the buzz words, I think this has cost me at least 2 job applications. I get the impression this is all caused by fair employment laws. HR staff now demand that interviewers use a points system and are able to thoroughly support their decision on paper. The easy way to do this is box ticking. When someone asks me a question like 'describe a project you worked on', if I don't mention the words they are looking for I don't get a tick, unfortunately I have done more projects that the interviewers and their questions are usually not specific enough for me to describe a particularly relevant project. Of course they are also fairly happy to not employ someone with more experience than them.

I should mention I am talking about the private sector, in the public sector HR do the interviews and can only box tick.

Which is merely a repetition of the examination system. People are not so much being educated, they are learning how to do exams better.

[R + R]

yes comrade margarate we must be flexible

why should our lead swingers be afflicted with dirty hands?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11706738

and of course a government non job

is a job till early retirement!

rock on!

Edited November 7, 2010 by R + R

[Malthus]

yes comrade margarate we must be flexible

why should our lead swingers be afflicted with dirty hands?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11706738

rock on!

Defending the indefensible

[R + R]

the green shoots seem somewhat elusive

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11706740

rock on!

[PJ1977]

Just in case anyone was concerned that Nama was merely a bail out for bankers and some favoured developers it turns out it will also be putting food on the table of sundry solicitors, estate agents and consultants. Trebles all round.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11708787

[R + R]

the green shoots seem somewhat elusive

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11706740

rock on!

leaving arlene frustrated!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11712414

rock on!

[pajd]

leaving arlene frustrated!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11712414

rock on!

Following the publication of the "Quarterly Sectoral Forecasts" report, Ms McGowan said that rebalancing the economy from public to private sector growth is "no longer an aspiration, but a necessity".

And how long is that going to take!

[BelfastVI]

Yes Ulster bank lost how much 178 million last year so they're going to be anxious to throw more money at NI.

Not that I will in any way try to support the bank. However, they made £110m on the trading they carried out or the money they threw at NI last year. At the same time they had to write down £270m on the loans they give out in the boom. I have no doubt they have further losses to write off before this is over but in the mean time they continue to trade at a profit and make good money on their current trading (while squeezing the life out of everyone).

[Malthus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11717418

The gravy train just never stops rolling.

One of the plus sides of a recession/depression is that all this stuff comes out and is stopped

[paul65]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-11717418

The gravy train just never stops rolling.

Talk about MLA's snouts in the trough ...... again!

[R + R]

I am sure that the elderly people who have to choose between heat and food this winter will be happy to know that their representatives are well fed.

considering the humungus amount of hot air expelled on the hill

surely it must require an inordinately high calorific intake from the good folks there to produce it

a wee 500k sub is probably good value

that is if we could derive some benefit from said hot air

or ruminating further

if their calories were unsubsidised

would we actually have less hot air produced on the hill?

rock on!