Public sector pensions

shouldbeinbed

Its also worth pointing out how the private sector benefits (rips off?) the public sector.

think jamie Olivers school dinners campaign. kids fed for 30p a meal cost to private contractor paying £1.20 for it.

competitive tendering for e.g. offce supplies goes to the lowest bidder but its still a big expense. once the contract is signed, we're hogtied into it for 2-3 years. We have envelopes than HAVE to be selotaped shut because they are so cheap and nasty they will not stick, we supply our own pens/pads etc because the supplied ones are beyond useless. A laptop that you can purchase retail in the shops for £200 costs us £800+ ex vat. and this is the cheapest supplier.

Where is the accountability the other way? the public sector is seen as a cash cow by private suppliers and we can/do nothing about it. Savings there could be massive simply by holding people to a quality product but aren't enforced and are less easy to enforce than sticking it to the staff and painting us as the villains of the piece in the press.

Any piece of my work is randomly and publically accountable by an independent private practitioner. paid out of legal aid to these private consultants (usually retired practitioners or small companies having trained overseas or jumped ship immediately having received the benefit of a costly apprenticeship in the public sector that is then only of benefit to private enterprise)

my salary for an 8 hour day (usually work 10+ and dont get that back/paid for BTW) is £70-80. not bad in the grand scheme of things. The consultant rate for reviewing a piece of work that may have taken me 4 hours to complete (£35-40 quid in my wages) ranges from £400 to £1700 depending on what scientific qualification the practitioner lays (unverified) claim to.

This is the example that is just around me and my immediate area.

The private sector takes an awful lot of money back out of public services for a disproportionately low return compared to the VFM you get paying my wages.

sheffsimon

NapoleonD wrote:

daviesee wrote:

Wage levels and contributions are up for debate. Two things that shouldn't be up for debate in my opinion are these:-

1. Public sector workers should not be able to retire at 55 on a full pension when for the rest of us it will be 67+.

2. The Government is partly at fault but banking is the primary cause of the financial malaise and should therefore pay the burden. Que - bankers will leave etc but if they were that good we wouldn't be in this mess.

I hardly think a 67 year old police officer or firefighter would be fit for purpose...

Why would a 67 year old police officer not be fit for purpose? I doubt all police work involves chasing people down streets??

Is it not the case that after retring some officers return to the police in different roles?

Is a 67 year old bricklayer fit for purpose, or many other manual jobs? My dad retired at 67 as a joiner, having stayed on in a physically demanding job, because his pension provision was insufficient.

bompington

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'm almost 23 and I already hate every hour I spend sitting with cretins who think they make a difference to the world because they earn a bit of cash, and as such, think the world owes them something

Sorry you're having a bad day / week / career. Of course it would only be inflammatory to suggest that some public sector careers do genuinely make a difference to the world, even if only on a minute level - I teach (actually in the private / charitable sector) bad boys and girls, and believe me, it's frustrating and grinds you down, but we can actually see and measure the difference it makes when you can upgrade someone's life from "no hope, no future" even to "some hope, potential future".
I suppose that, in principle at least, this is what public services are about - doing the jobs that need to be done. This applies to dustmen as much as doctors.

Rick Chasey wrote:

This recession is going to leave a big scar

Actually, there have been other recessions in living memory... maybe I'm just sitting somewhere different now, but I don't see (yet?) the pervading sense of poverty, shabbiness and hopelessness that characterised the late 70s / early 80s, for example.

TheStone

This is mostly the fault of the last p*ss poor govt.

They employed so many more people in the public sector and increased wages, despite the fact they couldn't afford it. The elephant in the room was the pensions (as people have said - deferred pay), which is really more govt debt .... much more!

If I was promised a pension as part of my contract, I'd be well annoyed if they then changed that, but is that what's being suggested here? or just for ongoing contributions, or even just for new people?

andyrm

shouldbeinbed wrote:

Its also worth pointing out how the private sector benefits (rips off?) the public sector.

think jamie Olivers school dinners campaign. kids fed for 30p a meal cost to private contractor paying £1.20 for it.

competitive tendering for e.g. offce supplies goes to the lowest bidder but its still a big expense. once the contract is signed, we're hogtied into it for 2-3 years. We have envelopes than HAVE to be selotaped shut because they are so cheap and nasty they will not stick, we supply our own pens/pads etc because the supplied ones are beyond useless. A laptop that you can purchase retail in the shops for £200 costs us £800+ ex vat. and this is the cheapest supplier.

Where is the accountability the other way? the public sector is seen as a cash cow by private suppliers and we can/do nothing about it. Savings there could be massive simply by holding people to a quality product but aren't enforced and are less easy to enforce than sticking it to the staff and painting us as the villains of the piece in the press.

Any piece of my work is randomly and publically accountable by an independent private practitioner. paid out of legal aid to these private consultants (usually retired practitioners or small companies having trained overseas or jumped ship immediately having received the benefit of a costly apprenticeship in the public sector that is then only of benefit to private enterprise)

my salary for an 8 hour day (usually work 10+ and dont get that back/paid for BTW) is £70-80. not bad in the grand scheme of things. The consultant rate for reviewing a piece of work that may have taken me 4 hours to complete (£35-40 quid in my wages) ranges from £400 to £1700 depending on what scientific qualification the practitioner lays (unverified) claim to.

This is the example that is just around me and my immediate area.

The private sector takes an awful lot of money back out of public services for a disproportionately low return compared to the VFM you get paying my wages.

You make a very interesting point here. I have been involved with numerous projects where we have tried to work WITH Public Sector organisations to cut costs (both internal costs where they were spending 8 times over the odds to produce something they could outsource and get in a third of the time at an eighth of the cost), and to work managing external supplier relationships exactly like what you talk about. We would then make a profit on a sliding scale cost saving performance basis.

Sadly, the bosses of the 2 local authorities we tried to do this for were hugely resistant, despite the fact we could demonstrate clear projected savings of 30-70% across the relevant areas. We came to the conclusion that they were scared that if our plan went ahead, it would highlight the utter incompetence and laissez faire approach they had taken with regards spending taxpayers' money in the past.

I reckon that with 1 week and an "open book" approach to all suppliers/staffing details, I could slash just about any Public Sector organisation's operating costs, without any loss of quality of end product/service. Granted there would almost certainly be some heads rolling, but the only people with anything to fear would be those who aren't working efficiently and giving their 100%, so they deserve to go anyways. That is what is needed, rather than just allowing the waste to continue. Cut the institutional waste and the odds of reinstating final salary pensions and other perks becomes more likely........

GeorgeShaw

andyrm wrote:

I reckon that with 1 week and an "open book" approach to all suppliers/staffing details, I could slash just about any Public Sector organisation's operating costs, without any loss of quality of end product/service.

Every government mounts a campaign against "waste" in the public services. It rarely amounts to much. That can't always be down to entrenched positions. Maybe it's because it's not so easy - without slashing services or wages?

guinea

andyrm wrote:

I reckon that with 1 week and an "open book" approach to all suppliers/staffing details, I could slash just about any Public Sector organisation's operating costs, without any loss of quality of end product/service. Granted there would almost certainly be some heads rolling, but the only people with anything to fear would be those who aren't working efficiently and giving their 100%, so they deserve to go anyways. That is what is needed, rather than just allowing the waste to continue. Cut the institutional waste and the odds of reinstating final salary pensions and other perks becomes more likely........

I think you'll find it's far easier to do the opposite where the big money is wasted.

Large outsourced technology contracts in my experience are hugely overpriced, slow and unreactive. In my last job I renegotiated one, saving £1.5m p/a and started the insourcing of another saving yet more £100ks.

Employing, empowering and paying for top talent is the best way to get things done. The entrpreurial spirit needs to be developed and enforced. You're right, there is a lot of dead wood and bad desicion making but it's a culture that can be improved by accountability and the right people.

fungus_the_muffin_man

rhext wrote:

shouldbeinbed wrote:

rhext wrote:

GeorgeShaw wrote:

rhext wrote:

Because the output of the private sector pays the public sector's wages!

Of course the public sector also pays the private sector's wages ...

The public sector pays some of the private sector's wages.[/i]

How much would it cost you for absolute healthcare, will you be buying your own ambulance with a few neighbours, antisocial behaviour or burglary worrying you - how many police officers will you buy - found fingerprints or DNA - how much will you pay ti find out whos they are, want justice, CPS lawyers cost money too you know Next door but 1 dead in their armchair- are you going to go in and find them, room in your freezer whilst the funeral directors are sorted, when will you be purchasing a wheelie bin and how much will you pay to a private contract to dispose of and house your refuse, potholes a problem round your way, how much will you be paying mcalpines tco come and fill them in..... the public sector takes massive financial burdens off the private sector businesses and private individuals often doing the the work at the gruesom end or working with people at the worst moments in their lives 365/24/7 however they are treated by these people. Public Sector is something of a misnomer - you're paying us for a necessary service package as you pay to 'private' companies for other necessities like food and home fuel etc. You're paying to their pension too as am I and in case of Asda e.g. we've been subsidising an extremely generous pension plan till rexently AND subsidising their weekly shopping bill with ours. Quid pro quo

Oh and all those people that want government to mend their houses and replace their furniture after a natural disaster because they have made a choice not to have home insurance...... how would they cope not paying medicare or copsure when it goes belly up on em? Somethings need to be paid for and that needs dedicated professionals ti be paid for and looked after whether it is perceived as private or public sector responsibility

Edit - apologies for typos im on my phone

You assume I'm opposed to funding a public sector. I'm not!

The fact remains, however, that people are living longer, which means that funding retirement becomes more expensive. If you protect one large sector of the workforce from the obvious costs of that, the increased burden must necessarily fall on the rest, and that does not seem fair to me! If life expectancy is increasing, why is it unreasonable to expect that at least some of that increase will need to be spent working?

Can I add that as a nurse who has to work differing shift patterns. As do the police and Firemen. Due to those shift patterns we can expect to lose roughly 10 years off our life span expectancy. Which brings us back down to a 1970's life expectancy and reduces the amount of years that we will be paid out on

andyrm

GeorgeShaw wrote:

andyrm wrote:

I reckon that with 1 week and an "open book" approach to all suppliers/staffing details, I could slash just about any Public Sector organisation's operating costs, without any loss of quality of end product/service.

Every government mounts a campaign against "waste" in the public services. It rarely amounts to much. That can't always be down to entrenched positions. Maybe it's because it's not so easy - without slashing services or wages?

I'm not convinced. The real reason it doesn't happen is because nobody wants to be the big bad man who lays off the dead wood and tears up the contracts that lock Public Sector organisations into deals that are bleeding them dry. It wouldn't be popular in the short term, the unions would cry about loss of jobs, but the only people at risk are those who shouldn't be there anyway.

To give you an idea - we constantly review all spend/costs here. When people have left (natural wastage) we have redeployed their roles where possible to other existing staff to cut wage costs without any loss of quality. We have renegotiated with all suppliers and where possible bulk purchased to increase bulk discounts and so offset raw material increases and so increase profit while still retaining quality. Staff are trained to think about efficiency where possible and minimise costs/waste.

If we as an SME (and many thousands of other organisations in the private sector) can do this, there is absolutely no excuse for anyone else not being able to do so as well.

andyrm

guinea wrote:

I think you'll find it's far easier to do the opposite where the big money is wasted.

Large outsourced technology contracts in my experience are hugely overpriced, slow and unreactive. In my last job I renegotiated one, saving £1.5m p/a and started the insourcing of another saving yet more £100ks.

Employing, empowering and paying for top talent is the best way to get things done. The entrpreurial spirit needs to be developed and enforced. You're right, there is a lot of dead wood and bad desicion making but it's a culture that can be improved by accountability and the right people.

Very true and I agree with you 100% on the need for new entrepreneurial management within the Public Sector. Headhunt some good sharp people from the SME sector in particular, entice them in with a good salary and performance related bonus scheme and leave them unhindered to make the changes that are needed.

Unfortunately I think there would be a real cultural problem with resistance from existing employees/middle managers and of course the ever more militant unions (will someone please top Bob Crow and his like soon?) because the staff would have to adapt to a new way of working, and that seems to be something that time and time again they have proved unwilling to entertain......

da goose

Why would a 67 year old police officer not be fit for purpose? I doubt all police work involves chasing people down streets??

Is it not the case that after retring some officers return to the police in different roles?

Is a 67 year old bricklayer fit for purpose, or many other manual jobs? My dad retired at 67 as a joiner, having stayed on in a physically demanding job, because his pension provision was insufficient.

Try working 24/7 shifts with minimal time in between to allow for transport home/back to work food/sleep and some sort of existence.
How`s about 3 out of 5 weekends working, 75% of shifts at night/early hours finish (therefore ruining your next day/partners day off/ kids activities etc) then swapping your body clock back for a bright n early dayshift?
I am sure most of us have experienced jet lag and how rough/tired/useless one feels.
This folks is the reality of shifts...thus the reason many shiftworkers finish earlier in life.
I doubt many officers/nurses and others make it past 70 these days?
What other roles? Within the police the big push is back to frontline (I agree) the snag being there are few and will be even less roles not working full on shifts.

shouldbeinbed

andyrm wrote:

shouldbeinbed wrote:

squeeler wrote:

OK if we're equalising things please can I not be expected to work christmas day, can i get a productivity or Christmas bonus, any chance of a company car, non contributory pension when times are good, staff discount, health or gym membership a pay rise that meets the real inflation figure once in a while, the right not to have leave cancelled or redcinded after its been agreed or any of the other perks which permeate large parts of the private sector that are not and never have been part of public sector consideration.

I hate to dispel the myth that permeates the public sector that all us private sector employees are BMW driving, expense killing Gordon Gekko-alikes, but it simply isn't true.

Most companies, from SME through to major multinational, have made cutbacks - in the form of wage freezes (or even pay cuts to ensure survival), cutbacks on bonuses, perks, expenses claims, gym memberships and just about anything else. We haven't seen strike threats or militant unionism, because unlike many (note I did not say all) Public Sector employees and their union generals, we actually grasp the concept that you can only spend what is coming in. If incomes are down, then it is simply irresponsible to continue spending. My contract includes provision for a number of bonuses, perks etc and annual pay review but they are on hold at the moment. I'm grown up enough to understand that it has to wait until it can be afforded again. Not nice but that's how it has to be.

yes but they have existed and undoutedly will be back again - Northern Rock e.g in this thread of £3k staff bonuses. I know its not all encompassing in the private sector - (I didn't say it was to be fair) but the equation of private v public sector on wages alone to draw the conclusion public sector pensions are extreme is grossly simplistic and does miss an awful lot of the perks that still do exist in private and admittedly were more prevalant at one time. (pal in RBS regularly got 2 x 4 figure bonuses a year) that have never ever been a factor in the public sphere and aren't ever going to be.

You at least have the facility for work over and above the norm to be recognised in your contract. Whatever I do, however good I may be I simply will never have the perks you enjoy. whether they are currently on hold or not. I too have a grip on the realities, do you see me shouting for a strike or objecting to what is happening to my frozen pay, reduced pension the halving of my allowance for 24/7 callout, the sub real inflation pay settlements that have been imposed onto me for the last 8 years until they froze completely. No you don't and you won't because I haven't done so and won't be doing so. I'm simply standing up to the grossly distorted and simplistic savaging that me any my colleagues across many vital services are getting simply for where we have chosen to earn our living.

you can bet your house on the fact that market forces will slowly allow the private sector a return closer to prior levels but the public sector will never again enjoy the same bounce back to a similar pre-slump equivalency.


To rhe bloke that said his wifes employer was putting 23% into her final salary pension. Bloody hell where is that????? My 'gold plated rip off pension' is paid at 6% by me and (currently) 7% by my employer and the forecasts have always been comfortably ok - given I signed up early and transferred my prior private pension into it too. Either she's was on for a Bono style retirement or that company has seriously screwed up its figures. she is a gross exception not the norm I would suggest

andyrm

To be fair I think the Northern Rock thing is utterly scandalous and should be bordering on illegal.

Imagine if my employer had to be bailed out by anyone, be it private equity finance, a rescue package or public money. If we then paid bonuses before servicing the DEBT, we would be acting in a grossly negligent and financially irresponsible way. Sadly, the normal rules of sensible business practices seem to have been thrown out the window in the FS sector, hence the sh*t they ended up in.

Northern Rock was right to be bailed out, as the risk of collapse and the ramifications for secured finance, share values (which in turn support further growth in the markets) and employment were very serious. However, the previous government made a grave set of errors in not putting in a new management team as part of the bailout and a firm set of caveats as to how the funds and operation were to be managed.

TheStone

shouldbeinbed wrote:

To rhe bloke that said his wifes employer was putting 23% into her final salary pension. Bloody hell where is that????? My 'gold plated rip off pension' is paid at 6% by me and (currently) 7% by my employer and the forecasts have always been comfortably ok - given I signed up early and transferred my prior private pension into it too. Either she's was on for a Bono style retirement or that company has seriously screwed up its figures. she is a gross exception not the norm I would suggest

It's somewhere close to 25% for 40 years to get 2/3 final salary pension.

GeorgeShaw

andyrm wrote:

I'm not convinced. The real reason it doesn't happen is because nobody wants to be the big bad man who lays off the dead wood and tears up the contracts that lock Public Sector organisations into deals that are bleeding them dry. It wouldn't be popular in the short term, the unions would cry about loss of jobs, but the only people at risk are those who shouldn't be there anyway.

To give you an idea - we constantly review all spend/costs here. When people have left (natural wastage) we have redeployed their roles where possible to other existing staff to cut wage costs without any loss of quality. We have renegotiated with all suppliers and where possible bulk purchased to increase bulk discounts and so offset raw material increases and so increase profit while still retaining quality. Staff are trained to think about efficiency where possible and minimise costs/waste.

I take the point about bulk purchasing. Of course the last few governments have been in the process of fragmenting public services in the name of localism, etc. - which somewhat diminishes their ability to make costs savings in this area.

It's also true that many public services are labour intensive. If you lose a nurse, teacher or policeman, you can't just cut the workforce - unless you want class sizes to rise into the 40s, for example.

andyrm

GeorgeShaw wrote:

I take the point about bulk purchasing. Of course the last few governments have been in the process of fragmenting public services in the name of localism, etc. - which somewhat diminishes their ability to make costs savings in this area.

It's also true that many public services are labour intensive. If you lose a nurse, teacher or policeman, you can't just cut the workforce - unless you want class sizes to rise into the 40s, for example.

To be honest, I'm thinking more about management tiers rather than front line that can be slashed.

piquet

GeorgeShaw wrote:

andyrm wrote:

I reckon that with 1 week and an "open book" approach to all suppliers/staffing details, I could slash just about any Public Sector organisation's operating costs, without any loss of quality of end product/service.

Every government mounts a campaign against "waste" in the public services. It rarely amounts to much. That can't always be down to entrenched positions. Maybe it's because it's not so easy - without slashing services or wages?

My wife spent 36 hours in a flagship NHS hospital recently.

in that 36 hour stay they lost her twice had staff were wandering round the hospital looking for her. She was eventually discharged with an undiagnosed fractured shoulder because one of the people who failed to find her was supposed to take her to x-ray.

That is the sort of waste that is simply unacceptable and in total contrast to the efficiency of the French hospital where she was following the ski accident and to the efficiency of the BUPA hospital which did take an x ray a few days later.

No need to slash wages or services - just get the basic work and information flows sorted!

markos1963

Public or private, sh*t pensions do us all no good. If we all end up on reduced pensions what's going to happen? We'll all end up relying on benefits to suvive old age. Who is going to pay for that? The good old tax payer of course. All the savings made by moving to average salary scemes or even worse ones will be lost. In fact it will be even worse, why would anyone bother to take out any sort of pension proviso with the knowledge that any government that comes along might change the terms of it. We will have a whole generation of workers with no pensions at all relying on state handouts.

TheStone

markos1963 wrote:

Public or private, sh*t pensions do us all no good. If we all end up on reduced pensions what's going to happen? We'll all end up relying on benefits to suvive old age. Who is going to pay for that? The good old tax payer of course. All the savings made by moving to average salary scemes or even worse ones will be lost. In fact it will be even worse, why would anyone bother to take out any sort of pension proviso with the knowledge that any government that comes along might change the terms of it. We will have a whole generation of workers with no pensions at all relying on state handouts.

.... but it's exactly the same thing. These public sector pensions haven't been paid for. The future tax payer will have to fund them or benefits, plus the debt that's been racked up by the pure greed of our generation.

We seem to think we deserve all this public spending, all the bail outs of anyone that ever made a mistake and massive pensions, even though we can't afford them.

... What's gonna happen when our kids realise what they're paying for, despite having none of the same luxuries

StillGoing

NapoleonD wrote:

I pay 11% into my pension and the pension is pretty much the only reason I stick with the job I do. If the pension goes, my motivation for doing my job does too.
Furthermore, do people in private sector think public sector workers don't pay tax or something? We get taxed exactly the same...

Spot on. I can just imagine the uniformed services stagging on at 65. The early retirement for some public sector workers is in recognition of the burnout they suffer from doing their job. It's also in recognition of the fact you have to be fit and healthy to do it. When there are regulations stating you can be made to retire by the employer after 30 years pensionable service, which for most eople in my job will mean between the age of 50 and 55, how the hell are you supposed to work until you are 60 - 65 and how are you supposed to accumulate your full pension contribution?

Public sector workers don't get share dividends and bonus payments like private sector workers, but we don't moan about it.

blackpoolkev

Wow,I seem to have started a bit of a bunfight.

I am all in favour of lucrative pensions,but the recipients should pay their fair share.

random man

Just going off at a slight tangent - some posters who make a distinction between private sector and public sector seem to assume that 'private' = efficient and 'public' = inefficient. Are all multinational corporations efficient? I wouldn't have thought so, simply because they are so big. Likewise, individual public services can be very efficient.

If the Tories stay in power for more than one term they will privatise more public services. These services will still be paid for with taxpayers money but at a profit which will go to shareholders rather than back into the service.

The efficiency of the service should be the important factor in determining how a service is run IMO, not privatising for the sake of it.

socrates

Lets not forget that Hutton who prepared this report has a gold plated protected pension of approx £30,000 per annum and a one off bonus of £192,500.
His report did not mention judges whose pensions are 50% of their final years salary and they do not contribute anything towards it. MP's have protected pensions, again nothing on them. Public sector workers are not all on huge salaries or pensions and they have seen their salaries fall behind everyone else over the past few years.

StillGoing

Those that have retirement at an early age pay higher contributions in recognition of the fact that they will be burnt out earlier and unfot to do the job any longer. I don't include the MPs in this.

The fairest system for public sector workers is to leave alone what everyone currently in employment signed up to as a contract of employment and introduce new guidelines for new employees. I've spent 26 years paying in to my pension at 11% safe in the knowledge that despite all the hardships I've endured, I could look forward to my retirement and settle my mortgage with my commutation. Now, this government wants to move the goalposts and place my family at risk of losing our home because the pension won't be as good as has been forcast all these years and I will be forced to retire having completed 30 years pensionable service with no option to stay on to carry on earning. Thankfully I retire in 2015 and will hopefully miss the imbicile Hutton's measures if they are implimented, but my wife who is also in the public sector doesn't retire until 2021. She will definitely get hit by having her pension reduced for increased contributions and working longer.

rhext

philthy3 wrote:

Public sector workers don't get share dividends and bonus payments like private sector workers, but we don't moan about it.

I too have a problem with the bonus culture, but not quite the same problem as you appear to have. Which would you rather have: a salary of £25K and a re-earnable component (AKA bonus) of £5K which is paid (or not) entirely at the whim of your employer depending on 'results' which you may or may not be able to influence; or a salary of £30K? That's the 'bonus' reality for many in the private sector, and its just one mechanism by which worker compensation has been reduced considerably over the last 2-3 years. There's a few at the top still doing OK, but that's not the reality for most.

sheffsimon

philthy3 wrote:

NapoleonD wrote:

I pay 11% into my pension and the pension is pretty much the only reason I stick with the job I do. If the pension goes, my motivation for doing my job does too.
Furthermore, do people in private sector think public sector workers don't pay tax or something? We get taxed exactly the same...

Spot on. I can just imagine the uniformed services stagging on at 65. The early retirement for some public sector workers is in recognition of the burnout they suffer from doing their job. It's also in recognition of the fact you have to be fit and healthy to do it. When there are regulations stating you can be made to retire by the employer after 30 years pensionable service, which for most eople in my job will mean between the age of 50 and 55, how the hell are you supposed to work until you are 60 - 65 and how are you supposed to accumulate your full pension contribution?

Public sector workers don't get share dividends and bonus payments like private sector workers, but we don't moan about it.

There are many jobs in both private and public sector which are stressful, and which require physical health to be able to carry out effectively. No difference.

If the regulations state you have to retire after 30 years, change the regulations so that you retire at 65 and can therefore make your full pension contribution. Simple.

Do you really think all private sector companies hand out share dividends and bonus payments?? A few press examples relating to the bonus payments not received in the public sector.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/poli ... -1.1016641

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... r-pay.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/ho ... 83399.html

StillGoing

I'm just refering to local business here where all the staff have been goven £3k and shares because a new contract was won.

The other issue that some public sector workers have to contend with is that we can't belong or vote for certain political parties irrespective of them being recognised parties, some of us can't strike or work to rule, some of us don't have employee rights as we are servants of the crown and not employees, we don't get as good a deal with maternity leave and in some cases have to be careful where we choose to live. Police wages were raised in recognition of the need to be able to buy a house in areas where they wouldn't face intimidation from the other residents once the government decided to get rid of police housing.

This government has to be careful with the police because if they push them into poverty, you will end up with a return to coruption and apathy that was the downfall of policing during the 70s..

StillGoing

Police bonus payments as the government have called them were actually pay awards. Rather than give the pay award to everyone, they decided to save money so that only the best officers were able to receive the additional pay. Now that times are hard, they've decided to call them bonus payments so all the Daily Mail readers can get on their high horses.

rhext

philthy3 wrote:

Those that have retirement at an early age pay higher contributions in recognition of the fact that they will be burnt out earlier and unfot to do the job any longer. I don't include the MPs in this.

The fairest system for public sector workers is to leave alone what everyone currently in employment signed up to as a contract of employment and introduce new guidelines for new employees. I've spent 26 years paying in to my pension at 11% safe in the knowledge that despite all the hardships I've endured, I could look forward to my retirement and settle my mortgage with my commutation. Now, this government wants to move the goalposts and place my family at risk of losing our home because the pension won't be as good as has been forcast all these years and I will be forced to retire having completed 30 years pensionable service with no option to stay on to carry on earning. Thankfully I retire in 2015 and will hopefully miss the imbicile Hutton's measures if they are implimented, but my wife who is also in the public sector doesn't retire until 2021. She will definitely get hit by having her pension reduced for increased contributions and working longer.

So the youngsters and everyone else should pay to protect your retirement plans, because you've worked hard? If I understand the report properly, benefits you've earned to date are protected anyway, but future benefits will either be slightly more difficult to earn and/or slightly reduced. I still don't understand why public sector workers should be protected by right from a demographic issue which everyone else is expected to just deal with.

rhext

philthy3 wrote:

Police bonus payments as the government have called them were actually pay awards. Rather than give the pay award to everyone, they decided to save money so that only the best officers were able to receive the additional pay. Now that times are hard, they've decided to call them bonus payments so all the Daily Mail readers can get on their high horses.

Ah so you do understand the way that bonus payments 'benefit' most private sector employees!!