PhilO - that's far too sensible and realistic.
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Public servant pay freeze....
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Posted 2 years ago #
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That should be the last word...
Posted 2 years ago # -
That is a fantastic post PhilO, it does sum it up really.
many others including myself have taken pay cuts
And you are pissed off about it, yes? Who wouldn't be. My pay was frozen this year and I'm not too chuffed either, exactly like the OP in fact.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Pissed of yes, but my point is that no Public Sector workers should expect immunity from the financial burden which we all now share
Posted 2 years ago # -
This is the first time in 3 years I am getting a pay rise, public sector workers are NOT all the same.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Why not though enfit? I think his point was really "I've done nothing wrong, worked my ass off and you want ME to pay for the fuckups? Get bent!"
Seems a fair point to me, and perhaps similar to what you and I feel. I don't expect to be immune from the recession fallout, despite personally not being involved. Doesn't stop me being pissed off that people are losing jobs and having their salaries cut. Ironically my company is doing really well, just being cautious so I hope to hear more positive news next month.
Posted 2 years ago # -
no Public Sector workers should expect immunity from the financial burden which we all now share
I know that I just think that we should make the people who got us into this mess be the ones we target first. I fail to seewhy we should be targetting Dr, nurses, teachers , refuse collectors, social workers pay as a result of the the banking sectors gree, incompetence and unregulated pursuit of money....is it really the fault of the public sector?
Banks incompetenet - Yes
Bankers incompotent - YES
Banks bailed out with our money- Yes
Incompotent Bankers paid out WITH huge pensions as they are no longer fit to run said bank- Yes
Bankers keep their bonuses - yes *
Country now skint due to above - YES
Those responsible for mess to pay -- erm no lets pick on someone else instead.* how the **** can they have earned a bonus THIS year?
Posted 2 years ago # -
I didn't expect immunity from pay cuts and it gets my goat for anyone to expect it themselves simply because they work for the government. Nothing to do with people being upset just about people thinking they are somehow above being affected by the fallout like everyone else.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Welcome to the real world.
Think yourself lucky you don't actually do anything productive which would mean being threatened with a real drop in earnings or redundancy.
Posted 2 years ago # -
yes we are lucky and we do nothing productive. I mean what is the point in saving lives, helping the sick, delivering babies, educating your children, rescuing you from fires, arresting criminals etc... I wonder why we bother doing this unproductive sh1t sometimes. I mean, i could work in banking totally f@ck up an entire economy, be bailed out by a government, keep my bonus and then make the public sector pay for it as we are all in it together.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Being a public sector worker myself, yes, we do get a good pension, but we 'pay' for it throughout our careers by shit wages all the way along.
Posted 2 years ago # -
99% of people who have either lost their jobs or has pay freezes/cuts in the private sector have also "spent the last 20 years working away quietly as a public servant, noticeably not involving myself in any global financial crisis shenanigans, not paying myself silly bonuses, not lending money to folk who can't repay, not suckling at the teat of the great goddess of finance, just paying my debts on time"
It's unfortunate, but being public sector doesn't mean you have any more rights than private sector. It's just ingrained in the mentality of public sector that they get special treatment.
Posted 2 years ago # -
no Public Sector workers should expect immunity from the financial burden which we all now share
Yes we should, because we got bugger all share in the profits in the good times.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Doesn't matter if you got a share of the profits or not. The simple fact is that the country is near bankrupt so whether it seems fair or not is irrelevant.
Posted 2 years ago # -
As I said much earlier in this thread I, as a Nurse, accept that I'm going to have to contribute to this ****-up.
It does gall that those responsible seem to still be getting their bonuses - my mates just got £1400 bonus and reckons on a larger one at the end of the tax year.
He works in finance for an organisation that's not done too well, has laid off tons of folk but is now re-entering profitability.
So he's on big rises and I'm on a pay freeze - seems a bit wrong to me.
Posted 2 years ago # -
I don't think anyone on this thread has been arguing that public servants deserve hige pay rises - just arguing against the series of lies and misconceptions that the press and the tory party are using to attack the public sector and that labour aree so weak that they are running scared from
some folk on here have swallowed this propaganda as truth
Lie 1) - the public sector is inefficient
It simply is not - every time the private sector gets involved in the NHS it raises costs and decreases quality - well proven over much research. The NHS delivers more for less money than any comparable system, the NHS spends a smaller % of its total costs on admin / managemant than any comparable system
lie 2) - the public sector is overstaffed and bloated.
There are constant complaints about the service delivered from the same people. You need the staff to provide the service. Child protection, NHS, bins etc.
Lie 3 ) the public sector workers are overpaid with fantastic pensions that the rest of the country pay for.
Actually the public sector are paid less than the private sector for most posts, much of the pensions are self funding and contributory. The true situation is that most private sector workers have rotton pensions - thats the scandal. Companies taking pension contribution holidays when the stock market rode high - now closing the pension funds.
This one simply is the politics of envy.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Tj you talk utter rubbish
That's right it's really efficient and there's no wastage at all. Read the following from the Tax Payers Alliance site:SENIOR executives – some earning more than £100,000 – have been kept on, even though their jobs have been made redundant under the latest NHS reorganisation.
The Western Mail understands that chief executives and finance directors displaced by new arrangements that came in last week have a guarantee that their existing salaries will be protected for 10 years.
Under changes introduced by Health Minister Edwina Hart, the number of Local Health Boards (LHBs) has been reduced from 22 to seven. Amalgamations involving some NHS Trusts have also occurred. Yet the policy of no compulsory redundancies, repeated publicly by Mrs Hart, means that despite the reduction in senior posts, those who wish to stay are being accommodated.
Last night Mark Wallace, campaign director of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “It’s completely unacceptable that the savings derived from NHS restructuring are being eroded by such overly generous deals.
“Any taxpayer in the private sector will be staggered to learn that the normal rules of redundancy simply don’t apply to highly-paid NHS bureaucrats.
“It’s already clear that there is going to be a reduction in the number of staff employed by the NHS, particularly at managerial levels. There can be no question of allowing people to go on gardening leave or hobnob with colleagues for a decade.”
Posted 2 years ago # -
Tax Payers Alliance
..that name tickled me.
Posted 2 years ago # -
The tax payers alliance for your sources? A front for neo cons and fascists
Thats your argument lost all credibility
Ha ha ha ha ha
Posted 2 years ago # -
Well Jeremy as we've already seen, if you say, then it must be so!
As usual you resort to name calling and insults - you are clearly an intellectual pygmy so I'll stoop to your level
... you're looney lefty and your mum dresses you funny too, there thats all your credability lost I'll see your "Ha ha's" and raise
....................... Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha HA!!Posted 2 years ago # -
Sorry TandemJeremy but we have not just "swallowed this propaganda as truth..Lie 1) - the public sector is inefficient".
There's plenty of evidence that parts of the public sector is inefficient, and even the NHS come to that:
Watchdog calls for greater NHS productivity
or
The above graph shows that productivity has consistently fallen in recent years, despite substantial increases in funding. Whilst some of the funding has undoubtedly been well used, the rate at which the NHS has been able to absorb the increases hasn't kept pace, with the result that some (not all) of it hasn't been put to good use. To put the graph below into context, it's worth noting that in the same period, the economy has a whole increased in productivity.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Bankers keep huge pensions and bonuses. Do you know exactly how many people who work in banks actually make GOOD money? Its only the very top.
What do public workers do to justify final salary schemes? **** if I know. Just seems to be alot of 'give me the extra money, not because I deserve it but because we will strike if you dont'.
Holding your own country to ransom to fill your pockets. Nice. I still think the OP was trolling by posting the obvious inflamotory initial post. He obviously cant beleive what he actually wrote can he?
Posted 2 years ago # -
We within the service already have a good idea of where hard earned tax payers money goes SirJon, and yes Farmer John, much of the money that comes into the service goes on crap and management we don't need.
However, productivity from the point of view of front line services does seem to be improving.
And you've got to understand some of the measures that can cause failure. To meet some performance indicators staff must provide a poor service to patients. If we choose to put patients first then we will show as failing.
Posted 2 years ago # -
2 points then I give up.
That graph may be right - but these things are difficult to assess and there are many well researched explanations for this. However it does nothing to disprove the point that the NHS as a state monopoly is more efficient than private healthcare. Compare the independent treatment centres - the cost per op is higher and the outcomes worse in the independent treatment centres than in the NHS - fact.
Pensions - Hora - you ask the wrong question. Why should private business get away with such poor pension provision for its employees?
so poor that the pensions have to be subsidised by the taxpayer.
Many of the big companies had plenty of money in the funds to pay final salary schemes but took payment holidays leaving the funds in deficit when the stock market turned down.
For every pound that the taxpayer subsidises public sector pensions the taxpayer subsidises directly thru tax breaks private pensions by £2.50 and then further thru pension tax credits and other benefits as the pensions are so low.
Posted 2 years ago # -
hora,
it's the feckers at the top taking most of the money in the Public Sector same as in the banks.
And why should I lose my nice pension just cos you've lost yours.
Surely we should be trying to improve your lot not make mine worse.
If you got your bike nicked would you want it found and the perpertrators caught and punished, or would you want the people who still had bikes to have theirs taken too to make you all equal?
Posted 2 years ago # -
I wonder how much of the funding increases from 1997 onwards only served to mitigate some of the damage done in the previous decade? As mentioned earlier in this thread, healthcare suffers from the law of diminishing returns: you spend more and more money eliciting narrower treatment outcomes from the illest of patients who you would have just lost 20 years ago. Bit like spending £500 to lose a couple of pounds from your 22lb hardtail.
Also they forgot to start the vertical axis at 0: this graph looks to the casual observer like despite huge increases in funding, productivity has dropped by half in 11 years.
Bit harsh, that.
Posted 2 years ago # -
We are really seeing the perfect exposition of the politics of envy here! After all the traditional ill considered insult offered towards lefties, now we see who is most productive at crying when they don't get what they want . Perhaps they should get a new job, in crying. They are best at it after all.
Posted 2 years ago # -
eh? I'm not quite sure who you say is crying there BBF.
Posted 2 years ago # -
eh? I'm not quite sure who you say is crying there BBF.
Well go back and read all the posts crying tears of pure envy over the public sector not suffering duly for the private sector's mistakes.
Posted 2 years ago # -
Fun Facts about the Tax Payers Alliance:
1. Director Alexander Heath Lives in the Loire, and hasn't paid British Tax in years.
2. Funded by donors such as David Alberto, Malcolm MacAlpine and Anthony Bamford, major tory party donors who all have a vested interest in the dismantling of public services.
3. They claim they are not a Conservative Party front organisation on the basis the Lord Ashcroft isn't a donor.
4. Their fundamental strategy is to destroy public confidence in public services, paving the way for cuts. According to the Fabian Society (an admittedly left leaning think tank) which has investigated it.
Not exactly the most impartial of sources
Posted 2 years ago # -
Well go back and read all the posts crying tears of pure envy over the public sector not suffering duly for the private sector's mistakes.
Glad someone else also thinks they are not our (I say our as in the public sector I work in) mistakes.
Is it just me, or does anyone else wonder if the Taxpayers Alliance is full of people with very creative acccountants who really should be paying more tax?
Posted 2 years ago # -
The Tax Payers Alliance follows in a very old traditional Conservative Party strategy of attempting to sound more plausible to sceptical Labour/Liberal voters.
During most of the last century when local council revenue was raised through local rates, the Conservative Party would often stand candidates in local council elections under the name of "the ratepayers candidate".
Whilst these candidates were nominally "independents", as councillors they invariably voted with the Conservative Party. They usually stood in Labour or Liberal wards where standing as an "official" Conservative Party candidate would otherwise be a disadvantage, ie wards which the Conservative Party stood no chance and wouldn't normally bother standing.
It's a strategy that worked well in a neighbouring council to me, Sutton, during the 1970s. There the "Ratepayers" were able to capture seats which might otherwise have gone to the Liberal Party. In the solid Tory seats official Conservative candidates were elected.
Yep, the Tax Payers Alliance follows in this tradition of misleading the gullible.
Posted 2 years ago # -
"They're fascists, they're neo-conservatives" - funny how the PS supporters concentrate on spinning and smearing anyone who dares to criticise the goose that's laying their golden eggs, rather than dealing with the reality - but then our government is not above similar tactics so no surprise.
In the new Euro Health Consumer Index 2009 (PDF), the UK comes a middling 14th despite having a relatively high income. All of the countries that score below us are significantly poorer. The best performing country is the Netherlands, which has become the first country to top the list for two years in a row.
The reasons for that Dutch success given (via ConHome) by the authors of the report are revealing:
"The research director, Dr Arne Bjornberg, said, "As the Netherlands is expanding its lead among the best performing countries, the index indicates that the Dutch might have found a successful approach."
She said the secret of its success is that is "combines competition for funding and provision within a regulated framework".
"There are information tools to support active choice among consumers. The Netherlands have started working on patient empowerment early, which now clearly pays off in many areas. And politicians and bureaucrats are comparatively far removed from operative decisions on delivery of Dutch healthcare services."
When we wrote Wasting Lives: A statistical analysis of NHS performance in a European context since 1981 (PDF), we set out the following priorities for reforming British healthcare:
"In order for British healthcare to match the performance seen in other European countries several key differences will need to be addressed:
Centralisation. Local NHS organisations have very little room for independent decision making. In other European countries, in particular Switzerland and Spain, healthcare policy is highly decentralised.
Political management. Healthcare provision in the UK is managed by politicians. Secretaries of State responsible for healthcare have rarely had management experience and none have had specific subject knowledge in healthcare. European healthcare systems, in Germany, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands, have genuinely independent providers of hospital care and social health insurance that are not managed by politicians.
Monopolistic. The NHS is a monopoly. It not only has unique access to taxpayers’ money but does not allow patients to receive part of their treatment for a certain condition for free while purchasing the rest from the private sector. In the Netherlands, in particular, insurance companies compete to offer the best value. In almost all of the European healthcare systems a diversity of hospitals competes to offer value to insurance funds."
Our recommendations for reform of the NHS are pretty strikingly similar to the reasons given by Dr. Bjornberg for the Dutch healthcare system's success. That isn't some astonishing feat of prescience on our part. It's just that the basic principles that lead to good healthcare aren't that complicated. Unfortunately, our politicians are more interested in a competition to see who can spend more of our money than trying to make sure that money is well spent. Anyone who was really serious about investing in Britain's healthcare, rather than posing at the public's expense, would be interested in creating the kind of NHS that can really deliver value for money and compete with the best in the world, our European peers."[i]
Posted 2 years ago # -
SirJonLordofBike1 - Member
They're fascists, they're neo-conservatives"
Taxpaers alliance are unfortunatly - you only have to look at who funds them to see this.
In the new Euro Health Consumer Index 2009 (PDF), the UK comes a middling 14th despite
There is a simple reason for that - we don't spend enough. The netherlands that you compare to is not free at the point of use - It cost my sister £3000 to have each of her children and £500 when her son broke his arm.
We pay less as a % of gdp on healthcare than virtually any other country in Europe and aa fair bit less than the Netherlands.
The netherlands admin cost is higher as well as a result of the multiple competing funding streams
Posted 2 years ago # -
Sure they forgot to allow for that, and so the NHS is really efficient afterall - they're great
Absolute spend per head rather than %of Gdp is probably more informative (UK GDp v's Dutch ???!)but really its results and the delivery of services not just £'s spending thats the true measure of success - a concept that many seem to struggle with. Admin cost is just a fairly arbitary categorisation of total cost, its likely that being properly organised will cost more than not, but done properly that the overall total cost should be lower.Actually I think you and the dinasaurs within the PS should examine their concience.
There is an increasing appetite even within the PS for modernisation, however the elements within the public sector who continue to refuse to accept what is patently the case and engage in modernisation are at best misguided at worst selfish hypochrits who are driven by the self interests of fear and greed - not the altrusim that they so piously profess.
The real price of their reluctance to co-operate, their eagerness to obstruct through any means and to metaphorically "put a gun to the head" of the British public is costing the suffering and lives of the people they profess to care so deeply for ( well so long as it doesn't affect their pension, their income, working practices, or mean they could in anyway be judged for not delivering value).A statistical analysis of World Health Organisation data reveals that the poor performance of the NHS is causing 17,157 deaths per year
£34 billion of extra spending under Brown has made no difference to UK mortality
Using data from the World Health Organisation and statistical techniques pioneered in the British Medical Journal, the TaxPayers’ Alliance has produced a major report on NHS performance since the 1980s.Wasting Lives: A statistical analysis of NHS performance in a European context since 1981, analyses data from the WHO to estimate the number of deaths that could plausibly have been averted by the NHS since the 1980s. The measure used is known as “mortality amenable to healthcare”. The calculations compare the UK performance to that of Germany, France, the Netherlands and Spain.
If the UK were to achieve the same level of “mortality amenable to healthcare” as the average of the other European countries studied, there would have been 17,157 fewer deaths in 2004, the most recent year for which data is available.
This is equivalent to over five times the total number of deaths in road accidents and over two and a half times the number of deaths related to alcohol in 2004.
Steady improvements in mortality rates, relative to European peers, have been made at almost exactly the same rate throughout the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments despite huge increases in spending from 1999 to date. There can no longer be any doubt that the Government’s extra NHS spending has completely failed to deliver results.
If NHS spending had continued to increase relative to European peers at its pre-1999 rate £34.3 billion – £1,350 per household – less would have been spent between 1999 and 2004. In 2004 alone, £9.8 billion less would have been spent, 9.7 per cent of total spending in that year. This extra money has largely been wasted.
Matthew Sinclair, author of the report and a Policy Analyst at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:“Thousands are dying every year thanks to Britain’s health service not delivering the standards people expect and receive in other European countries. Billions of pounds have been thrown at the NHS but the additional spending has made no discernable difference to the long-term pattern of falling mortality. This is a colossal waste of lives and money. We need to learn lessons from European countries with healthcare systems that don’t suffer from political management, monopolistic provision and centralisation.”
Professor Karol Sikora, Medical Director of CancerPartnersUK, steering group member of Doctors for Reform and author of the foreword to the report, said:
“The NHS should not be a religion, with its structure set in tablets of stone. We face a choice between a modern, consumer driven service for all or a decaying, bureaucratic system which only those with their own resources manage to escape. Politicians need to read this report carefully and determine the optimal strategy they can put to a well informed public. Those that capture the best way forward will carry the British voter with them.”
Posted 2 years ago #
Topic Closed
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