What should be done about Public Sector pay?

I am hoping some of the money we won't have to pay to EU coffers can be used/shared to ease up on austerity in UK for all of us. I hope Hammond reads this thread!

Hope away!

We've already 'spent' £60 billion of it (roughly 6 year's net EU contributions) on Quantitative Easing when sterling fell after the Brexit vote; then there will be the contribution (around another £60 billion) to pay on exit to cover ongoing commitments we made as members; so there's another 6 year's contributions already accounted for. Then there will be the costs of replicating all the regulatory Agencies of which we were part (and will still need if we wish to continue to trade with the EU). Then the costs of setting up new customs arrangements (haven't even started on that yet) when we leave the Customs Union; then the 'inducements' to vital industries such as the motor manufacturing industry to persuade them to stay in the UK when it would make far more sense for them to move their operations to the EU. Plus a load more..

So, we're not going to see any spare money for Education or the Health Service (which the tories want to privatise, anyway) for many years yet.

'Austerity'is a big con trick, but as you all so firmly believe in it perhaps you'll believe that these Brexit costs will cause it to continue for years to come...

www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/articles/2017/05/general-election-2017-what-manifestos-promise-for-small-businesses/

Start
Mandate the newNational
Investment Bank, and regional
development banks in every
region, to identify where other
lenders fail to meet the needs
of SMEsand prioritiselendingto
improve the funding gap.

• Reinstate the lower small-business
corporation tax rate.

• Introduce a package of reforms
to business rates – including
switching from RPI to CPI
indexation, exempting new
investment in plant and machinery
from valuations, and ensuring that
businesses have access to a proper
appeals process – while reviewing
the entire business rates system
in the longer run.

Scrap Quarterly reporting for
businesses with a turnover
of under £85,000.

• Declare war on late payments by:

• Using government procurement
to ensure that anyone bidding
for a government contract pays
its own suppliers within 30 days.

• Developing a version of the
Australian system of binding
arbitration andfines for
persistent late-payers for the
private and public sectors.

End

Is none of that of any use to you GB?

I am genuinely curious

Also curious as to what the tories offered you. (though perhaps this should be on another thread)

I understand why we had to have austerity and I do believe that there was a lot of waste in system that needed to be cut away but we have had austerity for a long time now and I think many are hoping it will be eased up a little. I am hoping some of the money we won't have to pay to EU coffers can be used/shared to ease up on austerity in UK for all of us. I hope Hammond reads this thread!

newnanny I think that's true. There are a few more responsibilities in the private sector at that level, such as revenue generation, the profitability of your team/unit. I think generally there's a different culture too, but I'm sure at an individual level there are people in the civil service who do a very comparable job for less pay & pension.

My DH civil servant accountant. He grumbles that skilled workers such as accountants are paid significantly less than in private sector but low skilled workers such as admin are paid 50% higher than they would be doing exactly same job in private sector where you are paid for the skills you have. In public sector they have pay bands but they are skewed close together so a manager who manages 40 people may only be paid twice as much as a person filing and typing. In private sector the pay differential would be far bigger and base don how much skills and responsibility the worker had.

assistant

I worked in the public sector for many years and my pay was really low. My DD is a teaching assistand and her pay is appallingly low.

A country that values it's workers. Good on the Scots

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. I can tell you that over the last 10 years I have increasingly seen many people my age or younger taking early retirement. Many teachers have had enough of constant curriculum changes which means having to devise new schemes of work almost every year for one age group or another, when staff are ill teachers asked to cover other teachers lessons even if you know very little about that subject (I have been asked to cover GCSE Spanish and I don't speak Spanish) which is stressful, more and more time spent keeping meticulous records to prove you have done something, wage rises less than inflation for many years at the same time as education budget cuts meaning larger class sizes, schools can't let teachers have the resources they need so many buy them themselves out of their own salaries and the profession is demoralised with student behaviour at an all time low. It is worse for young teachers who have to pay back student loans/debt, can't afford a deposit for house and can see no improvement for foreseeable future. Some of staff at my school go without lunch as can't afford any as have to pay a lot to share a house with others and only on bottom of teaching scale as not experienced yet. For all the teachers who retire every year few are recruited to replace them. I left at Christmas but my school advertised but could not find replacement so half way through January my Head Teacher asked me to come back until end of year as easier to recruit then. I imagine many teachers will recognise this story. I am just lucky I can afford to retire early.

Annsixty, yes please thank your husband. I did pay into the Greater Manchester fund which was well managed.
My son in law followed his father in setting up a small business. They both vote Labour.

I do know some well off pensioners but they worked in the private sector

Isn't that funny Ilovecheese as I know some WOP's too and they all worked in the public sector.

^As has been said earlier, private and public rely on each other.
But I think that if someone has either only worked in the public sector or only worked in the private sector, they get a skewed view of the other^

I have to agree with that.

Sorry but the private section have to deal with their own wages. This is why you should belong to a Union to have collective bargaining for wage rises

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?

The minimum wage of £10 an hour (£20,800 per year) proposed by JC would cost a small company like mine an additional £1715 in Employers National insurance plus pension payments. How could we pay this to a trainee? or a labourer?

The Labour party is putting forward ideas to help those in the so called 'gig' economy and ideas to help small businesses.

As has been said earlier, private and public rely on each other.
But I think that if someone has either only worked in the public sector or only worked in the private sector, they get a skewed view of the other.

annsixty
Thank your husband for me.
I have worked in both the private and public sectors and have a small pension from GMP.

I do know some well off pensioners but they worked in the private sector.

I am sorry to have missed your quote at the time of the general election MazieD

I have searched LP manifesto for SME's and found nothing at all to benefit my company.

Plenty of things like increased rights for workers, increased minimum wage to £10 an hour (plus employers NI and compulsory pensions of course) increased union power, Extra bank holidays etc.

Who in their right mind would start a business under a JC Labour government?

Public sector workers should get more pay, especially the lower paid.
But this won't just apply to London it will be country wide.
And the school system should definitely be sorted out.
Children should enjoy their childhood not end up nervous wrecks, plenty of time for that as you get older.
Teachers should not have to do so much ridiculous paper work as all other trained public sector workers do. Too much bureaucracy instead of professionals being able to get on with the job.
Sorry but the private section have to deal with their own wages. This is why you should belong to a Union to have collective bargaining for wage rises.

We probably will never be able to accurately compare remuneration for one job with another but we could try harder. Money put into a pension by the employer should be included in a Remuneration figure along with all other perks eg car, housing and this is what should be used for comparison.

I would like to see an organisation eg Hospitals have their salaries publicised then used as a "Reference Point". Who in the world could claim to be worth more Remuneration than a Brain Surgeon? And a Cleaner responsible for fighting the bugs has to be better paid than the average Cleaner.

I can't speak for other "public sector" workers but DS has been a firefighter in London for 15 years. His take home pay is £1600 per month - £200 a month LESS than than 7 years ago. His mortgage (for a very unglamorous 1920s two bedroomed flat) is £1500 per month. He HAS TO do other part time work whenever he can to pay for "luxuries" such as the car to get him to work. DiL works as a self employed tutor and they both juggle childcare around their various jobs. DS has shoulder injuries (for which he has had to have surgery) caused by rescuing a very overweight person from a burning building. The brigade don't recognise this as a work related injury because he took the decision to carry this person out of the building to save a life. DS (and all firefighters) have now been told they cannot retire at 55 as per their original contracts but now have to carry on until they are 60, when their bodies will be unable to run up and down ladders let alone carry someone out of a building!

It's not just pay that is the issue, it is the terms and conditions too. Every profession should be assessed individually - there cannot just be "Private Sector" and "Public Sector". As a lifelong Tory supporter I have felt very let down and disheartened by the government over the last month or so and if there were a General Election this week my vote would have to be a "tactical" one against certain parties rather than a vote for a party to govern.

That's it - rant over with!

I don't agree at all with GillyBob. There are proposals for small businesses in the 2017 Labour manifesto which are specifically to relieve some of the burdens on them. I quoted them to GB at the time of the general election but she declined to respond to them, preferring to perpetuate the 'Labour isn't interested in small businesses' line. Nobody is ever going to be totally satisfied with any party's proposals but it would be good if they could acknowledge them, if only to offer a critique.

where is he getting the money...Corporate Taxes!

Well, he isn't; he's getting it from the same Magic Money Tree that Theresa May found when she needed to bung a £10billion bribe to the DUP to support her government.

Iam I thought the points in your post were well made. Jsycee you mention housing costs and I agree this is a significant proportion of peoples income. I think it would take the heat out of the private rental market if the Government actually did build a HUGE amount of affordable housing across all the country. This would drive rents down and people would have more to spend. Also capping utility costs (since it would be too expensive to bring them back into public ownership) would help. I believe our food and white goods costs are some of the cheapest in Europe. I would prefer this to help people rather than increase only a proporion of the workforce ( public sector) salaries.

I was a public sector worker for over 30 years, until redundancy because they decided my admin post could be done without. Then the && hit the fan because I was the only one with the skills to produce the data that had to feed into government figures. The ones left behind didn't have the time or skill. I was the lowest paid in the office.

It took me and my husband working full time and part time to buy a small three bedroom terraced house. I receive a pension due to redundancy. Not enough to live on. Luckily hubby worked and now gets pensions or we would be selling up and moving to a caravan.

Golden handshakes - cobblers!!! and big pensions don't exist for public sector staff who like me did the menial tasks. Makes my blood boil to see MPs getting 11% plus expenses. We had a high turnover of staff because they would come into our department, learn their job then go to private sector where the pay was higher for the same skills.

I wholeheartedly agree with Gillybob. Anti-capitalist Corbyn has fired up students with the idea of free tuition...According to experts this will initially cost £100 billion .... where is he getting the money...Corporate Taxes! We need "capitalism" to make the world go round...whether we like its idealogy or not!

Overpaid? Who are these people? I worked in the public sector for 26 years. My public sector pension and state pension added together are just under the the tax allowance of £11,500 - so who's overpaid? It certainly wasn't me or my co - workers. The out sourced staff [agency] were paid more than we were.

Hate to disagree Gillybob - but manufacturing is a very small part of UK output these days, has been for over a decade. Latest ONS figures showing it is falling even further behind.

We export precious little in manufactured products these days, and the privatisation of the likes of BREL, and its subsequent sell-off and failure was a disaster for manufacturing.

Manufacturing industry does not add much wealth to the economy these days sadly.

Do you nightowl, what other way is there rembering hospitals wards lit by candles, not being able to use your car in emergency because you couldn't buy petrol, the bereaved crying because they couldn't bury their dead , the rats running on pavements gnawing at refuge bags , the disaster of the 1983 election, do you think we won ? Even Michael Foot spoke out against some of these strikes