What should be done about Public Sector pay?

durhamgen Is that profit before tax? I don't think gillybob has posted her business accounts here for our scrutiny and comment, however, as a small business owner, I'm interested in her opinions.

Your business has a profit of more than £300,000 a year, does it, gillybob?
I thought you couldn't afford to pay yourselves.

gillybob I was working in LG pre-DC (not BC!) and was there when there was a re-organisation. The top bods all seemed to 're-organise' their job titles and managed to double or triple their salaries. Everyone else seemed to remain the same.
That was in the 1970s and it is much worse now.

Our labour council have some if the highest paid executives in the country together with one if the highest council taxes .

sorry interesting

telly it would be interested to know what % of LC jobs are occupied by the people you mention, that is high- and middle-level managers.

I can only say I wish my H was still working at the job he did when working in LG if those figures are correct. Telly.

Good luck to you newnanny but please spare a tiny thought for those of us who will probably have to work until we are carried out in our coffins . All our savings, pensions are long gone . My DH only have ourselves to blame for starting a business and employing people in the first place .

Gillybob I won't be claiming any pension for 4 years as I have said I can't claim my teacher's pension for 4 years yet. However I have saved all of my life and paid into a private pension scheme for over 20 years as well as my teachers pension for over 30 years. I have also inherited money form my parents and invested in several BTL properties which I rent out and will manage on the income they generate and my DH is still working full time.

No gillybob I won't be doing supply work although I could if I wanted too. I could have afforded to retire far sooner but as I enjoyed my job and my friends were all still working I thought not much point being early retired all alone. Now I am hoping to travel more.
I do agree with you that I can't make myself trust JC to control the economy. The amount of money he wants to spend is just too much and worried he would it spiral out of control as Gordon Brown did.

If I think of our much reduced in size local council, there are people who work in HR, Finance, Environmental Services, Corporate Services etc. etc. There are about 400 staff and salaries of the senior people are very high say 120K+. Middle managers are on 40 - 50K. These people have security, excellent pension prospects although they are having to work beyond the age of 55. Employees will contribute 6% of earnings towards their pension. Going back 20 years this council employed double the amount of people with most being outsourced now. However the outsourced did retain terms and conditions of service.

I suspect at the heart of the concern re. public sector is that employees have no control over their t&c except through unions; wheas gilly you k=may feel hard up and am not denying you that, but at least you have more autonomy than a public sector worker.

I read somewhere that average public sector pension is £7,000 p.a. Not exactly largesse.

....and here lies the problem suzied JC seems to think anyone in business is working as a fat cat BP executive!
and people think that those in the public sector have gold-plated pensions. I suppose it did go up by 1% this year.

There must be some who are on very high pensions, just as there are in the private sector.

....and here lies the problem suzied JC seems to think anyone in business is working as a fat cat BP executive!

When most of us are just scraping along the bottom of the barrel with very little (if any) pension to speak of. I am forced to pay into a pension for my employees and those in the public sector too and yet cannot pay into one for myself. How is that fair?

Thanks for your comments, gillybob

I agree IIlovecheese but my fear is that a government under JC would only to make it so much worse.

I know people in the private sector who have taken early retirement aka redundancy packages, paid off their mortgage and have enough pension not to work again, although most of them do lucrative consultancy work. Obviously, these are people on managerial level, not lower down the pecking order, but just to say that its not all one sided. We have a friend who was an accountant for BP, got made redundant at 50, and gets well over £50k pension index linked. So there are good deals to be had for the well off. There is inequality in every sector. the private sector feeds of nth public sector in many cases, pharmaceutical companies selling expensive drugs to the NHS, cleaning and catering companies getting paid by schools and hospitals etc. I could go on. Its not an either/or battle.

See this is what happens, people are being pitted against each other, each thinking the other has a better deal than they do!

We are all part of the same economy.

PUBLIC, not pubic !

Ha ha devongirl I like it

I (honestly) don't know anyone at all in the Private S who has been able to retire at 56. It seems quite common in certain areas of the Pubic S though.

They complain how terrible it is to teach, how overworked they are as nurses. Then they take "early retirement" and can't wait to get back as a bank/supply.

I any my Daughter are in the "Private Sector" my husband and son are in the "Public Sector" the wages, pensions and conditions in both are atrocious. My husband is non teaching staff at a school - he never having uplifted as a teacher is now taking 5 lessons a week as they don't have enough teaching staff- not something I as a parent would approve of. He has no pension to speak of. My daughters career is almost entirely based on the fact the public sector has outsourced loads she's a new fangled service level manager supposedly ensuring that the private sector doesn't get shafted by its public sector customers. My son is one of those customers in a public sector school - they're both on minimum wage despite their degrees and neither has more than the state and stakeholder pension to loon forward to. Me I was keeping them all with a good Private Sector job and a reasonable pension but I've been put out to grass and being well over 50 my outplacement advisor tells me I'm unlikely to work again and should take a reduced early pension. If I do DH will have to quit his job and get something that pays. So from where I am there is no great difference between the sectors - might have been briefly but now in U.K. Plc everyone has to be as cheap, young and flexible as possible (exploited). I have no answer except to know that it's now down to how we show people's remunierations - package up to has long been a term, and frankly if it wasn't money in my pocket and included values of pensions, possible but never achieved bonuses, benefits I wouldn't have paid for etc. I wasn't interested just tell me what it pays - or are you covering up a rubbish wage?? Yes they are package up to 30k for my daughter was £18k wage the rest was stuff she didn't want child vouchers, dental care etc that cost the employer buttons once they have a scheme and a pension that the employer matched your contributions up to a ceiling - not much of a package where over half the figures quoted are not actual pay!!!

Maybe it's because they can't mange easily on public sector pensions, gilly

Not one single thing of any use to me (or most other real small businesses either) MazieD

Just as I thought.

1) I don't know of any small businesses with a turn over of less than £85,000 so that's rather safe isn't it? Self Employed maybe but very few companies with employees.

2) Prioritise lending to SME's ? I think GB tried that. It failed. Lending at what exorbitant rate?

3) Declare war on late payments? Ha ha ha bonk (I have just laughed my head off) Big businesses hold small businesses to ransom (as do local government) and typically dictate their payment rates of 90-120 days. How could any government change the take it or leave it terms? You do work on their terms not vice versa.

4) My rates for this year are already zero.

I voted Labour my entire life. Sadly I could not vote for JC and his public sector party.

I am a teacher and at taking early retirement at 56 and will start claiming teacher's pension at 60 and state pension at 67

My heart bleeds for you having to be 56 before you can take early retirement newnanny. Just wondering are you going to do a bit of supply work after "retirement" ? It seems to be the way forward with nurses, teachers etc.