What should be done about Public Sector pay?

We know how much our customers will pay for our services railman We do have to compete with others who will always undercut just to get the business. Our customers are already very touchy about investment etc. so increasing our prices in order to increase our employees wages would be impossible at the minute. Let's not forget the wages are not just made up of what the employee gets. There is an element of employers national insurance, pension contribution etc. too.

I think that bigger companies, such as large supermarkets could pay higher wages if they weren't so obsessed with increasing profits year on year. If one of these companies makes a bit less profit than the year before this is somehow seen as a failure. As long as they are still making a profit there should not be a panic.

I understand that small to medium sized businesses will find it harder to pay the living wage as higher overheads and less profits made but in my opinion large businesses such as supermarkets should be made to increase wages for their workers. This would help everyone as less need to top up their wages with WTC's. I personally don't think we the tax payer should have to subsidize a large company e.g supermarket by paying WTC for their staff because the greedy company refuse to pay the living wage. The government is keeping corporation tax low to encourage businesses to employ more people and not make redundancies which I think is important for the economy to grow.

The probem is, newnanny, that those large businesses would simply reduce the number of staff they employ if somehow forced to pay them more and/or they'd put their prices up. Can't have their profit margin threatened!

gillybob you have given one example of people you feel have misused public services for personal gain, but you seem to think this is widespread, I would suggest it happens occasionally but most people who work in this area do not take advantage like this and it is wrong to use it to oppose public service wage increases. All public services are not the same.
If I was to suggest that because some private employers exploit their workforce and pay low wages, you must do the same, you would highly be annoyed, and rightly so.

Actually we pay well over the living wage as we employ professional engineers.
With the exception of our apprentice who gets full living wage, begrudged if I am totally honest as he's not worth it but he's an older apprentice. Won't do it again sadly.

I appreciate that all public sector workers are not the same trisher but these cases tend to make headlines .

That's a good point trisher - public sector jobs are about 17% of the workforce and it's a wide variety of jobs across the whole country.

You may be the employer from heaven gillybob I didn't question your wages I simply said that if I were to use a case of exploitation by a private sector employer to justify condemning all private sector employers you would feel hard done by.
Headlines are not really interested in the truth gillybob and you should know that. They are not a god basis to build theories on.

I think most supermarkets have already cut back to the bone with customers having to mostly do self service checkouts. The shelves still have to be stacked up and until they gets the robots in they will have to employ people. They still have to employ someone to watch the self checkouts and customer services. My supermarket employs a lot less people than it use to. I don't think they can mange with less if they want full shelves.

I do not believe headline cases of fraud are widespread. But people do need to earn a living wage. I would prefer to raise wages than worry myself to bits over the few who take advantage of the system.

Raising public sector wages is a necessity, in my opinion, to fill jobs in needed services.

I'm bemused that there is any other reason, other than ideology, to restrict public sector pay. After all, most public sector workers will spend most of what they earn, therefore: the government directly gets back about a quarter in tax and NI contributions. Indirectly it will get back tax on purchases the employee makes through VAT and tax on retailers' profits. Increased spending by better paid public sector workers will also boost the economy. What is there not to like?

I realise that there is a case to be made for cutting waste and improving efficiency but I think that that has run its course now; there's very little waste left to cut and it could be argued that excessive cuts are actually causing inefficiency; look at the newly released crime figures.

Maisie The government doesn't have money itself, it's private sector taxpayers money. You'd have to raise taxes to cover the pay increase. That's not a vote winner.

Regardless of whether or not fraud is widespread within the public sector there is undoubtedly a miss use of funds. We have a friend who 3 years ago took a very healthy pay out for becoming voluntarily redundant; he finished work on a Friday at 4.00pm and went back the following Monday as self employed and is now being paid more by the council then when he was employed by them.

The government has reduced the amount of corporation tax but it remains a sizeable sum regardless. There's a significant amount of financial pressure on small businesses as has already been stated with NI and now pension contributions and retailers are also having to compete with the internet.

Our family retail bushiness was established in 1800's and will end with Mr. S's. retirement in a couple of years. There's no way either of us would have contemplated setting up a high street retail business today. Our business rates are increased year upon year and we get absolutely nothing for them. Every single item of rubbish has to be paid for to be taken away; we have to pay for a licence to 'dump' and then pay every time we go to the local tip.

Public sector net borrowing was £6.9bn in June 2017, this is £2bn more than June 2016.

Tell me - how much did the DUP bribe May in June 2017?

So when there aren't enough teachers to ensure children are properly educated, or enough nurses to care for hospital patients or enough firefighters to cover emergencies.... I could go through the whole lot -police, ambulance etc. But you get the picture- these professions are losing staff and failing to recruit new people. What will happen? A pay increase might help.
Smileless2012 It isn't fraud to take advantage of a system. Your friend wasn't responsible for his own redundancy, or for the fact that the authority chose to outsource work. Blame the theory that says it is better to use agency workers rather than employ staff because you don't have to pay for holidays. NI etc.

My understanding is that salary is not the unique thread running through recruitment issues across the public sector. Teachers have different issues to firemen, for example.
A pay increase might help, but Labour costed this at £9 billion a year to lift the 1% cap. That's a lot of money to throw at 'might'.

I assume good teachers, nurses, police, etc are a necessity. The public sector touches everyone, surely those workers need to feed their families and must have at least a living wage?

There are enough doctors and nurses to go round but too many of them are going for agency work instead of permanent jobs. They get to pick their hours and get a vastly improved rate of pay which undoubtedly offsets and more the lack of pension provision. They should be ashamed of themselves.

There are enough doctors and nurses to go round but too many of them are going for agency work instead of permanent jobs. They get to pick their hours and get a vastly improved rate of pay which undoubtedly offsets and more the lack of pension provision. They should be ashamed of themselves.

I thought that the reason for the rise was the rise in interest ww .

The living wage is the law. I can't imagine any public sector workers are paid the basic living wage though. I know my sister (who is ion the lowest grade) is paid more than the living wage. Plus a contribution to her traveling expenses.

Not saying it is necessarily a living wage ( a wage you could live on) in some parts of the country. But here in the NE it's quite a bit better than most equivalent jobs in the Private sector.

The government doesn't have money itself, it's private sector taxpayers money.

Where on earth do you get that strange idea from, primroses? Does the Treasury have a series of little pots into which they put: Private sector employees' tax receipts, Public sector employees' tax receipts, VAT receipts, Corporation tax receipts, Private sector NI receipts, Public sector NI receipts etc. and then dib out all the public sector payments from the Private sector pot?

Someone asked a while ago what you are studying for your Masters. Would you be willing to tell us?

The living wage is the law.

Isn't it a 'Minimum wage' rather than a 'Living wage' (the two not necessarily being the same thing)

But here in the NE it's quite a bit better than most equivalent jobs in the Private sector.

So, are you saying, gillybob that in the NE the private sector employers are illegally underpaying their staff?

I thought the private sector had to pay the living wage.
So how can the living wage be quite a bit better in the NE than most equivalent jobs in the private sector?

No Mazie the living wage is the law. We have an apprentice to whom we have to pay the living wage .

No of course I'm not saying that private sector employers break the law. I'm saying equivalent private sector jobs tend to pay the basic lawful wage, whereas the public sector tend to pay a bit more than that.