The perils of outsourcing

nighowl having "whistle blowing" protection is enshrined in public sector - your authority will have written policy that explicitly protects whistleblowers from victimisation, and unions, which is an added layer of protection that very few private sector office workers have. Talk to your union nightowl - that can surely do no harm.
Many people working in call centres have degrees these days nightowl - in fact many of this year's crop of graduates would consider themselves lucky to get such a job.
Such a job would likely be outsourced with no security and very few benefits. So not such an unfair comparison really.
I have to say my DH has been involved in "bidding for work" throughout his career and no whiff of corruption has ever raised its head. I think it is very rare in the UK.

There are whistle-blowing policies you can read online. Having worked in an organisation where we were constantly using the policy to protect ourselves when we were complaining about private companies' appalling work ethics in dealing with us (think G4S and Morrisons facility management) we knew our policy page by page. There are many civil servants working at state department level who have good reason to get effective whiste-blowing policies in place, for their own benefit, which has worked in favour of public sector employees, especially in the NHS and Social Services.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/hung-out-to-dry-scandal-of-the-abandoned-nhs-whistleblowers-2306262.html

Forgive my cynicism - there may well be policies in place but that does not mean they are being followed.

I do apologise for not responding to all the helpful suggestions; unfortunately I lost my internet connection just after posting my last comment on this thread and have only just been able to catch up. I know that in theory there are whistleblowing procedures intended to protect employees, but unfortunately Greatnan is quite correct in saying that they are not followed. I could write a book about my own experiences and observations over the last few years in local government. I have known individuals in a neighbouring authority who whistle blew and were forced to leave their jobs; in one case with a large pay out and a gagging clause, and in another case where two employees' position was made untenable by the very managers they reported so that they ended up seeking employment elsewhere. The managers are still in post.

I have been openly challenging a number of issues for the last few years. I am involved in no fewer than four group grievances at the moment. I am not a confrontational person and have not been involved in anything like this before throughout a 30+ year career. The issues we are challenging include poor practice, as well as fraud on the part of colleagues. I repeat that we have done this openly and have provided evidence. The union is involved but appears to have no teeth. Senior management block all our complaints and lie in response. We have written to the Director who simply passes the complaint down to the managers below him to investigate. They are part of the problem we are trying to highlight! It really is like banging your head against a wall.

The icing on the cake is that my job is now at risk. We have been invited to apply for voluntary redundancy (though no guarantee that anyone will get it). My manager has told me that I am number one favourite to get it because they want to get rid of me (his words). As there has never been a complaint or an issue raised about my practice in over 20 years of working for this authority I can only draw my own conclusions about the reasons for that

Sorry to go on and to stray from the original topic but I needed to offload!

Governments sufferer from the illusion that because commmercial companies make profits they are run efficiently and well. A working lifetime in industry proved to me quite conclusively that a company can be profitable and run inefficiently, usually because most of its competitors are equally inefficient or its customers, like the civil servants who have been responsible for developing over complicated IT systems have been unable to read and understand either the computer specification or the tenders dso have easily been taken for a ride. Good management is not the monopoly of either the private or public sector. Mix incompetent civbil servants with incompetent but glib outsourcing companies like G4S and you get projects that run over time and over budget and fail to meet requirements

JessM, the reason Outsourced staff take so few sickies is because they are generally contract staff who get little or no sick pay and know if they take too much sick leave they will lose their jobs. What effect this has on their long term health, or the health of work colleagues is not known. While in the example you quoted staff took all the sick leave they were 'entitled' to. This is not common and is a sign of ineffective management. I worked for a company that gave staff six months sick leave on full pay with the next six months on half pay. Nobody assumed they were 'entitled' to take that time of each year and I am not aware that either I or my colleagues took more than a few days (genuine) sick leave a year.

My daughter gets two months fully paid sick leave. In her first five years in her job she took less than five days sick leave in total. However last year when she was seriously injured in a road accident it took the full two months for her to recover sufficiently to return to work and she only got back then because the company enabled her to work from home.

Taking a lot of sick leave is not necessarily a sign of skiving, many people have serious illnesses and accidents that require prolonged sick leave. Employers want to recruit and keep good staff that is why they offer good sick pay.

Who was supposed to supply the security to the Olympics if the government had not 'outsourced'? If they had gone straight in using the police and troops there would have been a right old hue and cry about 'waste of tax payers' money'. Seems to me this company hasn't done that badly at a task no one could probably have fully achieved. It's not that bad.

And I think it's ridiculous to expect them to forego the whole of their fee.

And it seems to me that the MP's sitting in judgement are nothing more than a load of bullyboys who want to get their names in the press, and themselves on the telly. (And we all know how holy MPs are, don't we)

Why is everyone out to knock successful entrepreneurs? Green eyed monster?

Would you call Gs4 successful?

As a business it certainly has been! And he came from nothing to build it up.

Ok, the task has been too hard this time, much to the delight of the bullies who can't wait to pounce.

Who would the bullies be, Jingle?
Do you think they have done a good job of running prisons and guarding prisoners?

Nightowl You really are having a rough time of it. It seems you now have nothing to lose in pursueing your complaints as they clearly want to get rid of you anyway. I think you should keep a record of such comments by your manager to reinforce your claim and perhaps so you can go to a tribunal and calim wrongful dismissal.

I understand it has been claimed that those in the public sector take a lot more sick leave than in the private and then claim it is because their jobs are so stressful. This is a difficult one because no two jobs can be compared for the amount of stress involved and it is so easy to assume things are harder for you than for others. A case in point is teachers. They say their job is stressful but it has always seemed to me that they do have one very great advantage in that they can take their children to after school activities and spend time with them and then do their marking and lesson planning later on. Those who have other jobs have to find someone else to do the after school runs/care.

I think it used to be like that Alison. It is very unusual for teachers to leave before 5-6pm these days. There are likely to be after school meetings at least three days a week. Most teachers are in by 8am at the latest.

a. The MPs and suchlike on the Select Committee. I think it's disgraceful the way they behave. Probably because they are on the telly.

b. Haven't a clue. I know whats-his-features has made a pile of money out of it. Can't be bad.

That's right, mamie, and very few teachers' children go to the same school as their parent teaches in.

Somebody commented that you had to have been in the police to understand the stress they are under. I feel the same about teachers - many parents seem to think they work the same hours as the children, but my daughter's teaching friends work most days from 8 a.m. to 6 pm. Apart from the discipline problems, especially with older pupils, there is a mountain of paperwork - reports, assessments, appraisals, marking, etc.
Things were tough when I was teaching bottom streams in inner-city comprhensives in the 1970's - I ended up several times a week with a migraine. I know they are much harder now. The problem is that because everybody went to school many people think they know all about teaching.

I thought the MPs on the various select committees let the bankers/newspaper people off far too lightly.
Making a lot of money does not equate in my book with running a good business. Robert Maxwell was quite rich!

It is always easier to think you know about someone else's job, be it private or public sector. Obviously I can only talk about my friends and family's expereinces but I know teachers who do work short hours although I'm sure some also work long hours. 2 of my son's work extremely long hours and one is working today in his what is supposed to be his holiday. The other has put career on hold to work set hours 4 days a week while his boys are young. DH and I never had 9-5 jobs and usually worked more than a 45 hour week as well as bringing work home. We don't think we are particularly unusual.

I agree Alison about thinking other people's jobs look easy. There are different levels and types of stress involved in all jobs. Some stress is good and can result in improved performance, but constant stress is very unhealthy. I can cope with the stress involved in my actual work; what I can't cope with is the feeling of powerlessness at seeing poor practice rewarded and corrupt people thriving - and those things happen in both the public and private sector.

I hope I will be out of there soon; and you're right Alison I have nothing to lose so at least I could go down with all guns blazing (though I do need a reference )....

I can only say from my experience of working in hundreds of schools (as a teacher, adviser and inspector) that working short hours has not been an option in state schools during the last twenty years. There are lots of after school meetings, inset sessions and preparation that take a huge amount of time before and after school. When I was a young teacher there were certainly people who were out of the door when the bell rang, but it just isn't like that now. I don't know about independent schools, but I would guess that the picture would be similar.

Mamie I can assure you that I really do know teachers who work short hours and the only inset days they do are the days when the children are not there. Yes, they do have occassional after school meetings but not that often and they are finished by 1800.

I am sure that teachers do do lesson preparation but my point was that they could do it at a time to suit them and fit around their child's after school activities.

It might be of course that we have a different understanding of 'a huge amount of time' but I think it is probably that we know different teachers.

I am sure we do Alison; as I said I can only speak from my experience of working in schools, as you can speak from the experience of your friends. Shall we leave it at that? The weather is much too nice for arguing and I hope all the hard-working teachers I know are having a nice rest!

Oh mamie I wasn't arguing, please don't think that. I was just telling it from the point of view of my own experience. I didn't think you were arguing, just doing the same as me.

nightowl They are legally obliged to give you a reference so don't let that get in the way. Many companies now have a policy of just stating the bare facts of when you worked there and what you did as they are also liable if they say you are the greatest thing sinced sliced bread and you turn out not to be for your new employer!

If you do have to look for another job please bear in mind that there is no requirement to put your age on your CV. If you want any help with it please PM me and I will be happy to help.

I agree that there's no requirement to put your age on your CV, but a lot of employers want your academic record so they can quite easily work it out!

Yes Anagram I'm afraid the dates on my CV would make it very easy to work out my age

Alison Thank you for your kind offer to help me with my CV; I have applied for a couple of jobs already so am hoping not to need it but will keep it in mind

I think it is possible to put your acadmeic achievements without the date. If you did O levels there is no need to record them as employers are not interested in much more than the last few years.

People put far too much in their CVs as they have just the one which they use for all job applications rather than making them job specific. Employers are generally only interested in the first page!

Yes, I suppose I'm thinking of the job application forms where they seem to require every single detail of your past!