tieing earnings to local cost of living

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17411117

seems to me that poorer areas will end up with lower quality staff, teachers being a prime example

Or even no staff.

why should we overpay for regional conditions?

it’s hard to fault the logic – is it fair that a teacher based in surrey, for instance should enjoy a poorer quality of life than one based in cumbria.

kimbers – Member
tieing earnings to local cost of living

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17411117

seems to me that poorer areas will end up with lower quality staff, teachers being a prime example

So using your logic rich areas currently attract poorer quality staff. Really?

Seems staggering to me, I know I’m a teacher and may be a little biased, but high quality education would seems to be an answer to closing the poverty gap around the country. Pay less get muppetts, it’ll make matters worse. I’d also like to know what they are comparing teachers to and finding they are over paid.

So using your logic rich areas currently attract poorer quality staff. Really?

yes they do find recruitment much harder. My school is just outside the London Fringe payment area and its much harder to recruit staff.

– is it fair that a teacher based in surrey, for instance should enjoy a poorer quality of life than one based in cumbria.

is it fair that a person doing the same job, often in more challenging areas gets paid less? What if they want to retire nearer to family in Surrey?

Britain is currently the 4th most “unequal” country in the world as regards the standard of living of the poorest and richest, with most of the latter being in the SE of England. We will soon overtake Singapore into 3rd place. This will propel us into 1st place at a stroke.

My sympathies lie with those in the less wealthy regions of England.

So, lets get this right – public sector employers will be able to pay more to attract people to come and work in area’s that are currently difficult to recruit in due to the high cost of living, like the South East of England?

Its not as simple as that though Zulu because in poorer areas the job is significantly harder, its currently hard to attract people to work in Hull even though houses are 50p or something.

It is clear to me this is another case of tories looking after their own.

For me it boils down to folk in the south of England will get paid more than folk in other areas..
Does that mean they’ll be getting rid of London allowances too? No wait- just means that’ll get higher still.
Shirley folk accept that if you want to live in a nicer/better/more expensive part of the country its gonna cost you? If you can’t afford it you live and work somewhere else- or are we all supposed to be getting on our bikes to go/find work?
And don’t start me with your “it’ll encourage private enterprise cos its a level playing field” claptrap. Just means less folk will want to work in the public sector and the wage bill will be lower. Never mind the fact it’ll put more financial stress on the poor bastards who live in a “cheaper” part of the uk who already have wage freezes/higher pension contributions/rising costs to contend with. Aye right it’ll help level the playing field- utter bollocks.
When did we vote for all of this?

aye it’s a tricky one – there are so many what ifs that there are always going to be winners and loser whatever decision is made.

is it fair that a person doing the same job, often in more challenging areas gets paid less? What if they want to retire nearer to family in Surrey?

No, it’s not, but unfortunately that’s life – employers have long been linking cost of living to wages – plenty of industries where people working harder for less because of where they live.

I fear it’ll mean more strikes, though it’ll be hard for the unions to get a unified voice among it’s members when some could stand to do better than others out of pay reforms. it’s not a “we’re all in it togetehr” issue like pensions.

not an easy situation for anyone.

Jim teaching is not a job and education is not an industry, this is the point the tories are missing. Improving education in poorer areas should be a priority. This will make education in those areas worse.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/gerry-hassan-the-fourth-most-unequal-country-in-the-world-1-2178654

Zulu, think you’ll find folk in less expensive areas will be getting paid less rather than folk in more expensive areas getting a wage rise..

How badly do the Tories want to damage the country? Just reinforces the haves and have nots. Madness.

Tory policy, by default its squarly aimed at reducing the pay of hard working lower paid living in poorer areas and boosting the pay or their cronie mates.

You’re all getting what you voted for.

Hopefully we only have to put up with this for another few years then we can ignore everthing from westminster.

I would say it certainly is a job – it’s a noble one don’t get me wrong and I know how hard teachers work. My [point is that if you live in the south east, and are a teacher, your wages don’t really reflect the skill set/training/investment.

I know I’m i the south, but I grew up in in the north. I can promise you, plenty of shitty places to teach in the south as well as the north – maybe Dave should pay more for people to teach in failing schools (does this happen already?).

Shouldn’t renumeration be linked to how well you do your job?

Will we see regional inflation measures and different interest rates on offer in different parts of the country?

It’s just another way to freeze pay in the public sector.

not taking sides but that quote is “fourth most unequal county in the rich world..”

One more reason for Scotland to become independent I guess.

Speaking as an ardent unionist 😥

EDIT: part of the price you pay for being a united kingdom of disparate peoples is transfers of wealth from richer parts to poorer parts.

Its not as simple as that though Zulu because in poorer areas the job is significantly harder, its currently hard to attract people to work in Hull even though houses are 50p or something.

So, they’ll now be able to pay more to people to attract them to work in Hull, than they pay in, say Beverley or Hornsea, where the job is easier as the area is more affluent, with less social problems and less problematic students.

Whereas at the moment, you get paid the same in both, so why would you choose the job in Hull over one anywhere else in the country.

I suspect this is another case of the Tories pursuing their ideological agenda, while devolving the blame for it. This is eff all to do with fairness

They’ve devolved the blame for cuts to library services etc by slashing budgets to local councils, while shrugging and saying “it wasn’t us that closed them down. It was the local council”

Is it pure coincidence that they’re proposing to ‘bring private providers into education’ at the same time as proposing locally-negotiated pay deals?

They’ll be trying to water down collective bargaining agreements. More autonomous Academy schools will negotiate pay deals individually. Divide and conquer. Same old, same old

All the headlines I’m hearing say “Nurses, Teachers, Civil Servants”.

How about making sure it hits Doctors, ensure regional adjustment to fees paid to professionals like Dentists and lawyers, and apply it to wages for MPs from poorer parts of the UK. Then see how far it gets.

Will this apply to mp’s too?

Zulu-Eleven – Member
So, they’ll now be able to pay more to people to attract them to work in Hull, than they pay in, say Beverley or Hornsea, where the job is easier as the area is more affluent, with less social problems and less problematic students.

Whereas at the moment, you get paid the same in both, so why would you choose the job in Hull over one anywhere else in the country.

That isn’t how i understood the policy (which actually isn’t a policy at the moment) as explained on Today. It isn’t about using pay to attract people to parts of the country which might face difficulty attracting talent (or suffer from brain drain), it is about changing public sector pay based on private sector pay in different parts of the country. That’s it.

We need to hear more detail, but it is unlikely regional bodies will be established to set pay rates for their area. They’ll be decided by people in London.

Given the diversity of the public sector it is going to be really hard to account for the different types of jobs, lack os comparable jobs, and different labour markets within regions.

Its nothing to do with paying people more to work in areas with a higher cost of living, its paying people less.

Instead of perpetuating the differential in living cost between areas when not try and level this out. The way to do this is pay MORE to staff working in poorer areas not less, but i guess that my twisted socilist Scottish way of thinking, not the Tory greedy selfish barsteward way.

This should help to free up some funds to subsidise the higher rate tax cuts.

CaptJon – Member
it is about changing public sector pay based on private sector pay in different parts of the country.

How is the private sector ever going to compete and earn a profit for its shareholders if the public sector is attracting all the talent?

It’s a race to the bottom.

druidh – Member
How is the private sector ever going to compete and earn a profit for its shareholders if the public sector is attracting all the talent?
It’s a race to the bottom.

We should have a campaign for those poor shareholders. I really don’t know how they cope. Maybe we could start an organisation who could campaign for their interests. Oh wait, we’ve already got one, and their HQ is Downing Street.

re. talent moving to public sector not private sector, isn’t the general consensus public sector workers are lazy, inefficient, drains on the public purse? The private sector want these layabouts to help growth..!?!

The UK is increasing its competitive advantage in racing to the bottom. It won’t be long until third world countries outsource their production to us.

it’s a simplistic way to reduce the public sector pay bill – freezing pay will save a massive amount of money.
regional pay bargaining is not a new idea and Labour propsed the same thing in the last government. the Tories just have the balls to do it and don’t give a crap about the consequences. they will suggest that artificially high wages in the public sector in poorer areas reduces the ability of private sector companies to compete for employees and therefore will hamper economic growth. BUT surely the market will be flooded with public sector workers with the cuts.
oh, and I don’t think that good quality teachers are well paid teachers – you’ll just get poor teachers who are well paid.

Oh wait, we’ve already got one, and their HQ is Downing Street.

Like it. 😆

Wait a minute. Are you telling me a teacher or fireman in Cumbria gets the same salary as one in Hampshire? I know there is a London weighting right? Everyone else is on a flat scale?

Its just putting in place the conditions for contracting out the entire public sector.

Note: at the same time they’re proposing private companies taking on front-line policing roles, they’re also proposing that the starting salaries for coppers be reduced by 4 grand

They’re just removing inconvenient stumbling blocks, like paying employees a decent salary and conditions, to make these ‘services’ more attractive to the private sector. Then wholesale privatisation follows, so running public services becomes very profitable for their friends

THe level of service to the end user, ie: you, isn’t really a consideration. They don’t give a ****! As long as they’re making shedloads of cash

See a4E as the perfect example

it’s a simplistic way to reduce the public sector pay bill – freezing pay will save a massive amount of money.

many in public sector – local authorities already have had pay frozen

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17141621

one difference public sector / private sector is that there is no catch up in boom periods unlike in many area’s of private sector – a pay freeze is a long term pay cut

lot about teachers above – think academies program will eventually remove any national pay bargaining

free marketeers and that is what the tories are will tell you that any agreements are a “constraint” – this is simply that rhetoric being applied

My job doesnt have an equivalent in the private sector, if it did you would have a collosal conflict of interest.

mcboo – Member
Wait a minute. Are you telling me a teacher or fireman in Cumbria gets the same salary as one in Hampshire? I know there is a London weighting right? Everyone else is on a flat scale?

Wait, for doing the same job?

Commie scum!

It has been unfair for a long time that somebody living in a low cost area on a national pay scale will have more disposable income than somebody in a high cost area.

As for teachers as stated above the Academies are currently outside the national payscale as are management payscales.

Having said that I work for a private nationwide company which has localy set wages which is going to national payscales ?

So, they’ll now be able to pay more to people to attract them to work in Hull, than they pay in, say Beverley or Hornsea, where the job is easier as the area is more affluent, with less social problems and less problematic students.

no they’ll have their pay frozen in hull until its reduced to the same rate as some equivalent private sector worker. What that equivalent worker is i dont know. Re my arguement above the difficultirs in recruiting teachers in my school is that working five miles down the road you get paid more due to london fringe weighting. It’ll be like this on a massaive scale. I will be quids in but it will make it hsrder for me to move north as i’ll have to swallow a pay cut.
As for academies, i’ve never seen one that pays anything other than very much the same as the nstional scale

It has been unfair for a long time that somebody living in a low cost area on a national pay scale will have more disposable income than somebody in a high cost area.

Appart from better public services, less crime, longer life expectancy………..

Appart from better public services, less crime, longer life expectancy.

?