i cant ignore all those public servants who allegedly want to strike at the end of the month on pensions issues. It appears that one of the main arguments is that public sector employees accepted poorly paid jobs to take advantage of excellent pension provision.
so do private teachers get more than public sector teachers? do public sector janitors get less than private sector.
the only area I can speak with authority is service providers. I have a heating business, my Gas Reg guys get circa 30k a year 4 weeks hols 3 months sick ( no sick for the first week) no pension . I mostly work in ‘community housing’ the local authoritys gas reg staff get 36k PA 6 weeks hols 36 hr week 2 days a month off for been on time all tools bought for them, unlimited sick pay and most retire at 55 so in the area i know the public sector worker is on a good deal.

2 days a month off for been on time

WTF ?

I get less than 80% of what the consultants that work along side me get.

is ‘on time’ same as on-call?

it very much depends on the job you do, the seniority of it, the scarcity of talent, location, industry sector, etc.
you have to take into account the concept of ‘total reward’ too – salary, bonus and other monetary incentives, perquisites, benefits, leave, flexible working
.
the public/ private sector divide is just a simple concept that was easy for politicians to ‘reduce’ 5 or so years ago – to look at any real gaps you have to look at roles in isolation and compare like with like

Ok I’m a Paramedic Team Leader which means I work as a Paramedic and also as a first line Manager. For that I get about £34200, I have 13 staff to look after, one 24 hour vehicle and a station. I oversee the stores for the station, clinical issues, infection control, Health & Safety, Fire Precautions, Monitoring Training, I often have a Student to Mentor, list goes on really but you get the idea.

Because I’ve worked for them for over 20 years I get around 9 weeks holiday per year, NHS Pension of course the one they’ve just told me I have to work 66 for, Sick Pay but it’s now monitored tightly and will become more so as sickness costs a significant amount it’s not as straight forward as getting 6 months full and 6 months half. I could be finished if the problem was likely to keep me off for any length of time. I get a shift bonus for working nights, days, weekends and bank holidays this is averaged at 25% per month which gives me a nice boost. Officially 37.5 Hours per week but it’s rarely that but I do get overtime at time and half for the first hour per day and then can come in late at 15 minute blocks after that hour or claim.

It took me in total 5 years of training and experience to reach the level of Paramedic, although it’s very different now.

I’m in no disillusion I’m on a good wage and conditions now, I say now as about 7 years ago before we were reviewed I’d been on about £25k flat, no overtime, no shift allowance and working 42 hours per week.

The point is that the incentive to join the NHS as well as it’s what I wanted to do was I got a good pension. This is under threat, although I’m young if/when this goes ahead my plans for retirement need to be looked at. I will not able to continue to do this job when I’m in my 60s never mind much past mid 50s. There is little options of going elsewhere within the service to run my time out. So this is a right kick in the nuts.

Edit: I’m also at the top of my pay scale because of the number of years service I have.

Finally I’m not a Public Servant.

is there a private sector comparison Drac?

is there a private sector comparison Drac?

Manager in charge of similar amount of staff working shifts. There’s no identical match of course, well there sort of is but not generally.

totalshell – a question for you. How much do you charge the local authorities for providing your Gas Reg guys? I’ll wager that it’s less cost effective for you to supply them than it is for the local authority to do so. Maybe they know this and they need to pay more and give better conditions to attract the right people, so that they can save themselves some cash.

Ooops I was giving an out dated wage sorry, now edited.

I went from h&s manager in private sector to more senior role in public sector.

Less money, more red tape, more holiday, lower standards and less understanding & acceptance.

I’m not going on strike.

as a mechanic I get the usual{I’m not in the UK by the way}working for a City
better hols, hours,flexibility, pension and sick
worse wages{but not by a country mile}and no overtime

We probably pay people well under half as much for programming type work as they could get in the private sector. however it is on interesting research stuff with quite flexible working, I wouldn’t go back the other way even though i was paid way more.

I read a report by KPMG around 2006 that focused on exactly this subject. The conclusion was that once you equalise for all the variables, such as typical working hours, benefits especially pension etc, that the average public sector worker was, at that time, earning about 20% more than a peer in the private sector. There was a method used to find equivalent roles based on managerial responsibility, technical difficulty of the role, years training to proficiency etc, so the comparisons were pretty robust. I doubt I could fink the link to that report, but have a search and you’ll find something.

when you factor out lots of variables you are about 6-10% better off wage wise in the public sector – the higher figures tend to ignor ethat public sector workers tend to be older, have been ther elonger and are more qualified
Whatever it is you cannot deny that there is an overall premium for publci sector work. I suspect this has come about due to private sector wages reducing [ or not increasing as much] rather than public sector wages having become higher. Care is a good example 20 years ago there was no difference, these days public pays much higher. I suspect the manager /owner in private gets a hell of a lot more though /profit.
Whatever the reason the public sector generally gets a premium though historically this was not true.
I doubt it is true for specific areas like HR, finance, IT legal assume where they get much less than they could in private so for some areas something favourable is required

do private teachers get more than public sector teachers

Dont know, longer holidays but often have to work saturdays, whats bizare is I’m sure I read somewhere that they can buy into the teachers pension scheme.
As far as pay goes I have been teaching 5 years (one of those unqualified and training) and I currently get 27 000 which should go up to 29 200 next year plus an extra £3000 for three years for being great (or because I agreed not to leave when offered another job). This year I’ve been responsible for training and assessing a newly qualified teacher, next year I’ll be doing some sort of thing to justify my extra pay just not sure what yet.

clarify a couple of points.. the two days a month off is for them arriving on time all the other days of the month..
we now charge per job rather by the hour but my labour content is just under £30ph inc. vat. all parts consumables etc are supplied by the LA. i have my vehicles and insurances and tools and staff wages and NI to pay from that. in addition my lads have to pay for there own qualifications every three years the LA lads get a week off paid to study and all exams paid for.

As a comparison with the paramedic my mrs is a Pharmacist manages 8 staff works 46 hrs per week 6 weeks hols LOADS of grief from upstairs for 40k in the private sector all qualifications study time paid for final salary pension scheme at 66 yrs

in addition my lads have to pay for there own qualifications every three years the LA lads get a week off paid to study and all exams paid for.

I pay for mine every 2 year, I’ve just sorted it to be renewed next month.

As a comparison with the paramedic my mrs is a Pharmacist manages 8 staff works 46 hrs per week 6 weeks hols LOADS of grief from upstairs for 40k in the private sector all qualifications study time paid for final salary pension scheme at 66 yrs

Paramedics earn around £26k p.a. and get a lot of grief from patients, other professions and from upstairs for meeting targets.

http://www.rcn.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/372992/004106.pdf

Edit: Ok so you can see I’ve attached this. Paramedics start in band 5 and Paramedic Team Leaders/Supervisors the title varies start at 6. IF you’ve moved from 5 you go up one position in 6. So you can say the quotes I give are based on pretty much Max.

Shift enhancement varies from trust to trust and depends on the shift pattern. Some might get the minimum some the max. Like I said we’re not too badly paid but it involves having to work shifts to give a good boost and comes with a lot of responsbility which is gaining all the time.

Private sector, usually produce, manufacture,service or sell something, even just advice, think management training consultancies, if they fail to achieve the above, they go bust.

Publicly funded sector,usually just offer advice,and fulfill their statutory duties, roads, education and social services amongst others,dont need to make a profit, and put up the council tax to raise funds.

Paramedics deserve every penny they get, but probably will be one of the easy bits of the NHS to be privatised, if the condems get in agian.

I suspect it’s very hard to find like for like to make a really fair comparison.
But I do know a union rep (PCS) I used to live with had been convinced by the union that he was being done over and victimised by the politicians and any evidence to the contrary was wrong or he ‘didn’t have time to read that stuff’.
The main conclusion I came to was that even if the facts were that he was better off for being public sector, he would remain angry that he was getting the worse deal. He certainly didn’t work as hard as I did.

Now I wouldn’t for a minute suggest all public sector workers are like this (none of my friends who work in the NHS are like that) but it did strike me that the union were just as political as the politicians…
I think we should see the current strike threat as a political action rather than having any basis in fact, especially when comparing terms and conditions with the private sector.

Which IMO is doing their members and the general public a great disservice. maybe they could accept the fact that the population is getting older and living longer and what they used to get in terms of pensions can no longer be provided and get on with fairly and openly negotiating a decent settlement… private sector isn’t in a great place either…

you ok project that was almost neutral from you there
I work in advice and have worked for both the public and private sector.
You get much better advice from the public sector as I have no targets to achieve ,no agenda to serve and nothing to sell you.

I think we should see the current strike threat as a political action rather than having any basis in fact, especially when comparing terms and conditions with the private sector.

Which IMO is doing their members and the general public a great disservice.
you are confused a union exists to look after its memebers best interest. Are you really suggesting a union is not doing this by campaigning to save their members pension and reduce the payments they make to it?
Quite clearly the current deal is worse for the members the union represents and whose interest they serve
I think you give away your own politics there tbh.

Thing is, when I started in my public sector job I was told that the wages were rubbish but the pension was reasonable. Over time, the wages have gradually got better and the pension stayed reasonable.

Now, all of a sudden over the last couple of years, I’m being told that my pension is a national disgrace and I should basically live in a cave and eat grass when I retire.

I’ve been a nurse for 25 years.

I work bloody hard, doing 3 weekends out of four.

I do 5 weeks of nights out of every 14.

I get a salary of £32,000.

It’s really poor that all of a sudden the work I have put in for 25, that’s twenty five years is considered to be worth so little that I shouldn’t get the pension that I signed up for all those years ago.

The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.

Junkyard reducing pensions is all about reducing costs so parts of the council and governmnet, nhs can be either sold off or just handed over to the private sector.

La,s have privatised school transport, school meals, some schools by making them academies,refuse and recycling collection, bus services, parks and gardens, home care, and lots more.

The Nhs, is planning to do the same with, Audiology, opthalmology, EMI, mental illness, patient transport, and paramedics emergency medicine on the road, all are easily split from the main hospital mother ship, then we have the fragmentation of the dental service and the Gp out of hours service, soon to be followed by the Gp service, ever noticed all the new signs going up, making all these standalone units look as if they really are stand alone units, while still for now part of the Nhs.

Sadly for the nhs split up they will all have to make a return for the shareholder, and possibly the sevice may be better, or worse as peoples health is means tested.

big unions such as GMB and Unison happily gave away all the early retirement rights within my companies scheme

so no sympathy for their other members. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If we had to accept reality it’s only right they do rather than me funding the benefits their union gave away for me.

I should basically live in a cave and eat grass when I retire

lots of people in the private sector would love to be offered an average career earnings defined benefit pension scheme and retirement at the same age as everyone else

So you bitter_n_daft then?

totalshell – I calculate that as your services costing more than the councils own services. That’s the thing with slagging off the public sector workers – it often comes from people who work for companies who charge the public sector more than the public sector could do the job for itself.

I calculate that as your services costing more than the councils own services.

how, have you done a FOIA request to get the stats?

So you bitter_n_daft then

dofs cap in your general direction very clever now go deal with some fight damaged piss head save some lifes shirker

The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.
The real problem is not public sector pensions, it’s crap private sector pensions.

…and the other thing is, of course, that anyone of you could have decided to be a nurse, anytime you wanted to.

You too could be looking forward to a gold plated retirement, you just had to join up and do it. Instead we had to recruit from the Phillipines, from India, from Pakistan, because not enough of you hard working citizens would even consider it.

Typing on my iPhone on way to jobs and on way back from JY.

For me, roughly 50ukp per hour gross for the NHS, including allowances for on call and out of hours, and the going rate privately is at least twice that, in some cases significantly more.

From what I know, accountants and lawyers of equivalent seniority expertise etc. are collecting somewhat more and probably have more in their pension pot as well. Doesn’t particularly worry me either way. As a profession the possibility of going freelance en mass was under serious discussion a few years back. We would have gone for the barristers chambers model in all likelihood. ? more money but almost certainly a lot more hassle and a lot less time to spend on behalf of patients.

What does nark me is that there are 3000+ people in my hospital supporting the 80 consultants and giving us the best possible chance to do our job properly. Many are not well paid, their pensions account for the low overall average and they appear to be in danger of getting the shitty end of the stick, not helped by stories like this.. A couple of years ago the nice people then in charge of our local hospital “agreed” to cut the workforce by a third and then came back to us and asked if we had any ideas as to how this could be done whilst “maintaining services”. I could cry sometimes.

Currently a Crew Manager in FS for 20yrs for £31,263 42hr wk NO shift allowance for working weekends/nights. 3yr pay freeze and 11% of my salary is paid into my gold plated pension, which will give me enough money to buy a small Caribbean Island to retire to at 55.

I’m a work shy, pool playing, layabout with 3 partime jobs who gets to sleep all night in my bed whilst at work.

what’s to not to hate about me?

It all part of the government spin to get the private sector to despise the public sector as if we are the root of all evil. One thing I have learnt in my 20yrs in the FS is that the public really dont care about cuts to FS all they want is a fire engine to turn up quick when they dial 999, however the guarantee of that happening is diminishing very soon.

When I joined 20yrs ago I had to join the fire service pension scheme, there was no opt out option then. I now believe that I have now been mis sold this pension from my employer.

Its now to late for me to make realistic alternative arrangements to my pension scheme other than dying.

I would accept the proposed pensin changes if the MP’s pension scheme was changed 1st however its very convenient that their review was postponed.

B

One thing I have learnt in my 20yrs in the FS is that the public really dont care about cuts to FS all they want is a fire engine to turn up quick when they dial 999

😕 I’m not sure where you get that from……..in my experience most people are highly sympathetic with the FS concerning cuts, and most are capable of joined-up thinking and figuring out that cuts in the FS are likely to reduce how quickly a fire engine to turns up.

This is backed up an opinion poll carried out less than a year ago :

Fire service cuts opposed in poll

…..more than nine out of 10 wanted the number of frontline firefighters to stay the same, or be increased.

in my experience most people are highly sympathetic with the FS concerning cuts, and most are capable of joined-up thinking ….

If you can write that honestly then you quite clearly live in lala land. Do you really think that most people in the UK are capable of joined up thinking?

Do you really think that most people in the UK are capable of joined up thinking?

I said “in my experience” ……… maybe I don’t hang about with idiots ? Maybe that’s why I find this place so fascinating ? Maybe you should come to lala land too ? Maybe you should read the link and see how the poll commissioned by the FBU backs up my claim ?

Or maybe you should stop drinking so much coffee and relax a wee bit.

Maybe you’re a bit more uptight than me, and that’s why you come out with stuff like “you quite clearly live in lala land” ?

I’m not sure where you get that from.

being in the job for 20yrs?

This is backed up an opinion poll carried out less than a year ago :

A You gov poll of 1000 people commissioned by FBU 🙄 probably filled by the FBU executive.