Public sector pay

[I1L2T3]

The irony of all this.

 

The same people who are complaining about poor conditions in the private sector are the ones who are arguing against unions.

 

Public sector staff aren't overpaid. It's daft to argue they are. The problem is that many private sector workers are exploited, sold short on pensions and benefits and actually seem to believe that should be the norm. They want everybody else dragged down to that level.

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It also beats me how a Policeman or say a hospital Sister and a Firefighter on £35,000 or more, gets to use a special supermarket where prices are way less than half of Tesco prices.

In a fair country it should be the people on min. wage or less that get that benefit ?

 

 

Likewise when a teacher is basically job-hopping through 5+ schools within a year. For a professional-level position, in the private sector, that sort of job-hopping would earmark him or her as unreliable and a severe hiring risk, not worth bothering with.

 

hang on, is it national make-stuff-up-and-pretend-it's-true day, again?

[Berberis]

"public sector was between 3.3% and 4.3% lower than the private sector"

 

Council employees are part of the 'public sector'.

 

Im sorry, you single out Council staff. Then ask me why I referred to them then bundle them up with ALL public sector staff, assuming if the overall pay for the sector is 3.3% and 4.3% lower (I have no idea how you have come to these exact figures) then Council staff must receive that exact amount of pay.

 

You do understand what averages are don't you? And you do understand that the public sector have better pensions and additional perks the private sector has not see for near on 40 years, right? You really are not making much sense.

 

Reality Check: Is public sector pay higher than private sector?

 

The claim: Average public sector pay is higher than private sector, even adjusted for qualifications

 

Reality Check verdict: It is a difficult comparison to make, but IFS calculations suggest that Lord Lamont is probably right. However, in recent years private sector pay has been growing faster than public sector pay and the gap between public and private pay is expected to continue to narrow in the coming years if current government policies are implemented.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40480766

 

Public sector workers have higher wages than their private sector counterparts despite a decade of austerity, IFS finds

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/13/public-sector-workers-have-higher-wages-private-sector-counterparts/

 

Public sector hourly pay outstrips private sector pay

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26512643

 

Public vs private sector pay gap is £5,000 (or a fifth of earnings)

Workers in the state sector received a fifth more than counterparts at private firms when pensions were factored in, according research published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/11152840/Public-vs-private-sector-pay-gap-is-5000-or-a-fifth-of-earnings.html

 

Public sector pay rising faster than in private sector despite Government pledges to rein in spending

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3324665/Public-sector-pay-rising-faster-private-sector-despite-Government-pledges-rein-spending.html

 

The economic reasons why lifting the freeze on public sector pay isn’t so easy

Public sector salaries are usually higher than private sector salaries. The Office for National Statistics says seasonally adjusted average weekly earnings for regular pay in the public sector were £506 a week in April, compared with £464 in the private sector.

https://inews.co.uk/essentials/news/uk/why-the-government-is-under-pressure-to-lift-the-public-sector-pay-cap/

 

This is not a new discussion and the figures have been published before. The ONS and the IFS agree, public sector pay is higher than the private sector.

Edited July 18, 2017 by Berberis

[sgtkate]

I don't mind public sector pay levels as much as I used to.

 

However, I now mind much more about the 'deserving' character of those pay levels, in a performance-related aspect: e.g. no problem with how much teachers are getting paid according to scales, but when a school gets through so many teachers in a year (and foists supply teachers -different ones every other week- on the kids), with a clear detriment to the academic progress of the kids, then that should be reflected in the pay of the school management.

 

Likewise when a teacher is basically job-hopping through 5+ schools within a year. For a professional-level position, in the private sector, that sort of job-hopping would earmark him or her as unreliable and a severe hiring risk, not worth bothering with.

 

Doesn't seem to make any difference in practice as, from where I'm sitting and looking, all schools I'm aware of -directly and indirectly through hearsay- seem to have a severe staff turnover problem, with teachers all playing musical chairs between them to grapple this or that extra little perk or tidbit, and sod the syllabus and the kids.

 

Seems teachers are all paid regardless of how the (different every other month) kids under their (highly varying levels of-) care do, likewise headmasters and other school managers regardless of how well the school is managed or not. That's not right.

 

I half agree, but we have to be very careful with performance based pay linked to how well the kids do, as this means that actually the incentive would be for the teachers to only teach at the best schools as it would be easier to get the better results. I always thought that the value-add measure was a useful one for secondary schools as you had a marker set and then could base teacher performance related pay on whether they managed to exceed this benchmark for each individual student or not.

 

For the school managers it's far easier to assess performance as it's not down to individual students by this point. Financial performance, OFSTED reports, staff turnover and morale, value-add scores etc can all be used to fairly assess each school based on it's individual circumstances. What we must NOT do is start comparing between schools with fixed measures.

[ez8004]

Agree 100%

Most comparisons between Public/Private only look at salary or hourly pay. The benefits you outline (and many more) in the public sector are what puts those workers leagues above Private sector workers.

The pensions alone are as good as a lottery win for even the lower earners.

 

It also beats me how a Policeman or say a hospital Sister and a Firefighter on £35,000 or more, gets to use a special supermarket where prices are way less than half of Tesco prices.

In a fair country it should be the people on min. wage or less that get that benefit ?

 

The pensions argument is pretty poor to start with. First of all it depends on the worker reaching the pension age and then living long enough to claim a decent amount. In the meantime during their 40 years of working life they are paid significantly below the going rate for their work.

 

As for the supermarket argument. That's an idiot viewpoint you have as well. Is the company in question state owned? Can they not target a specific customer group?

[silentP]

Agree 100%

Most comparisons between Public/Private only look at salary or hourly pay. The benefits you outline (and many more) in the public sector are what puts those workers leagues above Private sector workers.

The pensions alone are as good as a lottery win for even the lower earners.

 

It also beats me how a Policeman or say a hospital Sister and a Firefighter on £35,000 or more, gets to use a special supermarket where prices are way less than half of Tesco prices.

In a fair country it should be the people on min. wage or less that get that benefit ?

 

Because the special supermarket gets to make its own rules on its clientele, that's what membership is.

[Berberis]

Public sector staff aren't overpaid. It's daft to argue they are. The problem is that many private sector workers are exploited, sold short on pensions and benefits and actually seem to believe that should be the norm. They want everybody else dragged down to that level.

 

I don't see anyone claiming they are overpaid here, just that there is a myth that the public sector is paid less than the private, perpetrated in the vast majority by the unions.

 

---------- Post added 18-07-2017 at 10:17 ----------

 

Agree 100%

Most comparisons between Public/Private only look at salary or hourly pay. The benefits you outline (and many more) in the public sector are what puts those workers leagues above Private sector workers.

The pensions alone are as good as a lottery win for even the lower earners.

 

It also beats me how a Policeman or say a hospital Sister and a Firefighter on £35,000 or more, gets to use a special supermarket where prices are way less than half of Tesco prices.

In a fair country it should be the people on min. wage or less that get that benefit ?

 

Don't forget the early retirement privileges of many public sector workers. Something only a tiny minority of the private sector can achieve.

[L00b]

I half agree, but we have to be very careful with performance based pay linked to how well the kids do, as this means that actually the incentive would be for the teachers to only teach at the best schools as it would be easier to get the better results. I always thought that the value-add measure was a useful one for secondary schools as you had a marker set and then could base teacher performance related pay on whether they managed to exceed this benchmark for each individual student or not.

Just to be clear, here: I did not state, nor suggest, to index teacher performance on "how well the kids do".

 

Rather, I suggested to index pay on provable factors strongly impacting/associated with the kids' education (irrespective of kids' individual performance).

 

For instance: time in job (actual aggregated, as trainee then fully qual'd: I know personally several teacher trainees that have been doing a fully qual'd teacher's job for over a year - and the pay debate swings both ways in that respect: they should get the proper pay level for the job, not the pay that 'only goes with' the bit of paper), time in job at <school>, absenteeism (just like kids themselves), <etc.>.

 

Them's plenty objective enough, and school- and kids-unspecific, for starters.

 

That might also go to address the number of public sector employees pulling at the long-term sicky. Again, I know personally NHS employees (nurse, IT manager, receptionist - some from extended family) who have been on fully paid 6+ months leave through 'stress' and long term illness (IBS or somesuch). In the private sector, they'd have long been turfed out. I'm not particularly out to "get them"...but that's my tax money paying for their fully-funded stay-at-home lifestyle: I'd sooner be paying for a working type. No issue with statutory sick pay, nor about any measures safeguarding their positions and 'right to return' when they're better and return to work (no different in principle to maternity leave).

Edited July 18, 2017 by L00b

[sgtkate]

Just to be clear, here: I did not state, nor suggest, to index teacher performance on "how well the kids do".

 

Rather, I suggested to index pay on provable factors strongly impacting/associated with the kids' education (irrespective of kids' individual performance).

 

For instance: time in job (actual aggregated, as trainee then fully qual'd: I know personally several teacher trainees that have been doing a fully qual'd teacher's job for over a year - and the pay debate swings both ways in that respect: they should get the proper pay level for the job, not the pay that 'only goes with' the bit of paper), time in job at <school>, absenteeism (just like kids themselves), <etc.>.

 

Them's plenty objective enough, and school- and kids-unspecific, for starters.

 

That might also go to address the number of public sector employees pulling at the long-term sicky. Again, I know personally NHS employees (nurse, IT manager, receptionist - some from extended family) who have been on fully paid 6+ months leave through 'stress' and long term illness (IBS or somesuch). In the private sector, they'd have long been turfed out. I'm not particularly out to "get them"...but that's my tax money paying for their fully-funded stay-at-home lifestyle: I'd sooner be paying for a working type. No issue with statutory sick pay, nor about any measures safeguarding their positions and 'right to return' when they're better and return to work (no different in principle to maternity leave).

 

I agree entirely with that and I wasn't implying you were asking for performance pay to be linked to the children's results, just offering my own opinion on how these things tend to be done.

[andrejuan]

The pensions argument is pretty poor to start with. First of all it depends on the worker reaching the pension age and then living long enough to claim a decent amount. In the meantime during their 40 years of working life they are paid significantly below the going rate for their work.

 

As for the supermarket argument. That's an idiot viewpoint you have as well. Is the company in question state owned? Can they not target a specific customer group?

 

There is no need to get abusive.

 

Pensions is a major argument. And beware of stating incorrect facts about lower pay in the public sector. Please don't assume I don't know a thing or two about it.

What are you calling pension age? For me and many others it will be 67 and then state pension (pittance) I have friends who have voluntarily "retired" from public sector jobs at age 55, 51, 57, 58. All but one without loss of pension rights, and the odd one out had to take a slightly reduced pension, not state pension obviously, that will come later in addition to the public sector pension. In the mean time, all of these friends are doing a few hours part time work to top up their pension to the amount they used to earn.

 

 

What do you mean regarding the supermarket? (I understand the abusive comments obviously, but not why you used them on me)

I simply don't think there should be a supermarket only open to people in the NHS/Fire/Police/Ambulance service. These jobs are generally well paid. Why not have one open only to those on the min. wage?

 

---------- Post added 18-07-2017 at 11:21 ----------

 

hang on, is it national make-stuff-up-and-pretend-it's-true day, again?

 

 

Sorry, I don't know what you mean by "make stuff up and pretend it's true"

 

If you mean me, at least tell me what I have "made up"