What should be done about Public Sector pay?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

Um, how does the private sector pay increased staff wages if they do not have increased profits from price increases to pay the higher wages railman?

gillybob I just read this comment you made during the various conversations in this post: "Can you not see babyjane that for the private sector to increase their wages they almost always have to increase their prices. Meaning is anyone really any better off?

It is almost word for word the same line spoken by the mill owner in J.B. Priestley's play "An Inspector Calls", it was made into a film as well.

That approach didn't work in 1912, and I don't believe it works over 100 years later.

No, I don't have an answer, but working together, whether it be with the whole team in an SME, or through collective negotiation that improves both product, safety, wages, the economy, etc., must surely be better than just automatically opposing change.

A National Audit Office report in 2013 found that the cost of NHS redundancies was £435million with a fifth of those who left being rehired.

www2.cipd.co.uk/pm/peoplemanagement/b/weblog/archive/2014/10/28/government-to-tackle-revolving-door-of-redundancy-and-rehiring.aspx

At least there are partial measures in place to stop it at an executive level now.

I am talking in particular trisher about a husband and wife both working in the same "field" but for opposite authorities . These people were on 6 figure salaries ! So not really a case of " doing the best they can under the circumstances " at all . Just corruption .

Yes but it's much easier to blame individuals who are after all just doing the best they can with the circumstances and of course as always (particularly on Tyneside) there are stories which turn out when investigated properly to be largely apocryphal. But hey everyone loves a story about how badly their public services are run.

It's crackers but true that local authorities have to make senior (therefore high wages) redundant because of austerity cuts to their budgets. As the skills of those staff can't be dispensed with, some find themselves offered work via agencies, or on a brief consultancy basis for specific projects,
I don't know anyone who was able to deliberAtely infalte their salary, easily and willingly take redundancy, then return to the same job, pay and conditions. I know many who faced redundancy late in their careers, when they had mortgages and children to support and of course, had to find other paid employment. The system is crackers, not the people being corrupt.

It's always been the way Jalima there are cases here on Tyneside of people inflating their own positions and salaries in order to get the best final salary pension possible, leaving the job and then coming back to do the same/similar job again. It's rife.

Ordinary public sector staff on restricted pay increases but the bosses seem to be able to award themselves large pay rises:
A report on Avon Fire Authority:
It unearthed an "old boys club" culture where senior officers enjoyed big pay rises and enhanced pensions.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-40485853

OMG Diane Abbot has been at it again today. What an embarrassment she must be to her leader. I'm wondering what she must have on him for him not to get rid?

This is the second Labour MP who is doind a weekly update about parliament.

skwawkbox.org/2017/07/20/justin-madders-joins-the-video-update-club/

It's a brilliant idea. He talks about public sector pay.
If you are on facebook, you can see it all.

Yes gg I agree