What should be done about Public Sector pay?

....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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

sorry interesting

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

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.

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

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.

" Labour plans to increase the main rate of corporation tax, reaching 26 per cent by 2020-21, but to reintroduce the ‘small profits rate’ for small businesses. This would apply to companies with annual profits below £300k and would be set at 20%, rising to 21% in 2020-21.
Labour wouldn’t require small businesses (those with a turnover of less than £85k) to submit quarterly tax returns, which is part of the incoming Making Tax Digital plans.
They promise a “package of reforms to business rates”, including raising the tax in line with CPI (consumer price index) rather than RPI (retail price index), exempting new investment in plant and machinery from valuations, and providing access to “a proper appeals process.” "

Gillybob often complains about corporation tax.
Corporation tax is now 19%. It would go up to 21% if they had profit of less than £300,000, under Labour. However, if it was more than £300,000 it would go up to 26%.
I think that is quite an advantage.

By the way, that's from the link that you put on.

£300,000 profit ? Yeah right DJ ?

I don't do links btw.

Big salaries in education started with the academisation programme where "executive" heads run chains of schools and pay themselves huge salaries. I think we've had this discussion before. This is how taxpayers money is being siphoned off via semi privatisation routes, yet still maintaining the fiction that it is public service. Many of these academy chains run their own " consultancy" services and charge huge sums to other schools for services which in the past would have been undertaken by local education authorities. It is all a huge scam. And don't start me on (non) free schools which has cost a fortune which could have been spent on many more children's education.

Wouldn't it be a good idea if all state schools were run by local authorities, accountable to the voters?

As they are in Scotland?

Yes, mcem. I may not like the SNP, but even they don't get everything wrong.

Primroses link. You can read it if you want.

If you don't have £300,000 profit, then you don't have to pay 26% corporation tax, as Labour want big businesses to do, so they do benefit you.
You really ought to read their business manifesto instead of slagging them off all the time.

There are two north east councils in the top ten highest council taxes; Hartlepool, and Redcar and Cleveland.
I thought you lived higher up than that, gillybob.

Ooh yes, Local Education Authorities ..that's a good idea.

I think it's really difficult, well impossible, to discuss 'public sector pay' in the round. People employed in the public sector cover an enormous range of professions, qualifications and experience right across to unskilled jobs which require no qualifications or experience and minimum, if any training. Some are paid very badly and others extremely well. Recruitment and/or retention for some public sector workers is a huge problem in some areas ( by areas I mean geographical and/or work specialism). There are also people who are not classed as public sector workers but who in fact have salaries paid completely from public funds. In terms of pensions, one advantage to the public purse of someone with a decent public sector pension is that they are not claiming a whole range of means toasted benefits that retired private sector workers with no pension provision may be entitled to. It's all very complicated and what is really needed is 'just' a fairer society.

How are companies like G4S running prisons counted - public or private?