To think public sector pensions should be slashed?

I'm in the emergency services, and pay 13.5% of my salary into my pension. The pension is literally the only good thing left in this job. If they reduce my pension to give a pay rise, I will leave.

Yep. Way too much of the conversation around public sector productivity focuses on very simple financial inputs/efficiency and inputs/outputs rather than inputs/outcomes.

There is a huge challenge in measuring the benefits of preventative activities - such as in social work, fire service, health care, environmental regulation - in a way that measures the benefits rather than "activities" which might drive counterproductive outcomes. Eg more, lower quality visits might look more "efficient" because there's more outputs, but might actually result in lower benefits.

Yes, but the report came out this week & was on the local news this morning. Basically the decision makers cocked up by not doing boring little things like risk management, and borrowing every penny possible.

And of course Medway's latest budgetary ills are in the news again this week. Previous bunch (voted out recently) saying how they would be doing things differently from the current new bunch. Only £22 million & counting though, so better than some of the nearby county councils.

Oh sorry I forgot - it's nothing to do with bad decisions by the seniors, it's all because the lower grades are a bunch of lazy wankers because we only give blood, sweat and tears, and not our first born child for our crap salary!🙄

Woking was last year I thought?

Woking I think

Oh which council?

In the news today, another Borough council in Surrey has declared the LG equivalent of bankruptcy. OK in this case the report makes it clear that much of the losses in this case are down to very poor decision making by senior management and the council itself, but in many authorities services have been cut to the bone and staff are going off sick, retiring early due to ill health or just quitting due to overwork and the pressures of the job. Recruitment is almost impossible due to the low salaries on offer, and vacancy rates are at an all time high.

Please tell me how to measure and improve the productivity of the social worker who's case load has doubled in the last 2 years and each case is more complex than the last.

Would be interesting to know how to measure "productivity" in some parts of the public sector, as they aren't about making profits but spending money in the best way to achieve the desired outcomes. Of course many of these outcomes are very rigidly defined, and at the same time the inputs can vary drastically.

Lets take social care for example. The required services from a local authority are strictly defined as to what they need to do for certain types of people e.g. for people on very low incomes with care needs, these needs must be funded by the LA. With the increase in lifespan in general there are more and more very elderly people in need of care, so these costs go up - and while central government may increase the budget for the direct costs of care they don't increase the budget for staff to assess and administrate getting the right care in place. Then Covid struck, leaving many more people with long term or permanent care needs, thus increasing the administrative overhead.

Another change in recent years has been an increase in the number of children needing to be taken into care for various reason, with the LA having to fund much of the costs associated with this. It doesn't stop when they reach 18 either, as 18-25 care leavers have to be supported (by central government edict) which costs a fair bit in both direct costs and staff.

Then add in something that affects the South East more than other areas - refugees. A number of these will be children who need to be taken in to care, many of who are then given the same rights as UK born care leavers. There's been little ort no increase in funds for this, despite the massive increase in illegal immigration in react years.

Tell me how to measure "productivity" in those scenarios?

Maybe we can look at a few other areas that local government deals with, like environmental health. Currently environmental health officers are working flat out, often with unpaid overtime. Recent years have seen an increase in things they have to deal with e.g. fly tipping, stricter laws around licensing for events etc. Budget has gone up by less than inflation. Please define productivity measures for that area.

Yeah but they pay our wages dontcha know 😂

it sounds like you expect to do more work if you're in the public sector than you currently do. Also, you realise that you aren't suddenly going to get a good pension if you switch to the public sector? You have to pay in for many years and given pensions are being cut all the time there are certainly no guarantee.

I don't disagree at all that there is the need for massive productivity improvements in the public sector. But the idea that can be achieved solely by individual workers achieving tougher targets is pretty naive about the drivers of productivity in any sector. Productivity across the UK as a whole is pretty woeful and the drivers are complex.

Given your expertise, I assume you have a view on the ONS work improving the way public sector productivity is measured.

Yes. Anyone would think they haven't paid into their pensions as well and that the money can just be taken away.

Every time I see one of these threads about tax payers funding things for the public sector, I remember that I really must contact HMRC about a refund of all the tax I paid over 40 odd years. Somehow the memo about public servants not contributing got missed.

No, I am saying that if I worked in the private sector doing the exact same job I would earn 3x the salary (minimum).

I like public sector work because it fits my values, and just about accept the drop in salary because of the pension benefits and greater flexibility (eg. I took leave last minute today to help a relative). Take away the pension without tripling my salary and it would be a no brainer to move to the private sector.

I actually SHOULD move to the public sector really. I'd get a similar salary but better pension (by far!!) there is no private sector equivalent to what I do as far as I know (charity) the only thing that puts me off is the ridiculous level of box ticking and red tape in the public sector.

No she’s saying she would earn 3x her current salary if she moved to the private sector. Same is true for me.

You'd expect 3x the salary of the private sector to get the same type of pension the rest of us get??

@JassyRadlett Yes indeed. The ONS report and the Treasury figures are indeed biased.

https://www.charles-stanley.co.uk/insights/commentary/the-public-sector-productivity-problem

"If the public sector had matched the private sector and grown productivity by 2% up to the banking crash and then by, say, 0.5% thereafter the overall productivity figures would look a lot better and public services would be more affordable. If the productivity rate had been a sustained 1% a year we would get 31% more service for the same money, after 27 years. Even at 0.5% per annum we would get 14%. In practice governments would have shared those gains between providing more service and spending less. ....

The Treasury estimate the cost of the lost productivity since 2019 at £20bn a year. If you apply the latest ONS figure of 6.5% loss on one fifth of the economy, you come out with a larger figure of around £30bn. This is extra cost that must be raised as borrowings or recouped by higher taxes as the government seeks to get to a balanced position for revenue compared to current public spending".

Most people don’t live 30 years after retirement. It's only 15 years on average at the moment so that would be 300,000. I have saved that much in my private sector pension. I am not highly paid but after paying quite high amounts for 40 years it adds up.

Oh dear, your biases are showing - along with your reading comprehension and understanding of productivity - a lot of productivity isn't down to the individual. Funny how investment affects productivity. There are definitely systems in the public sector that desperately need reform to improve productivity but the trope of "public sector workers are lazy/useless" is a bit silly.

Like I said, I'm currently in the private sector, so I'm not "you in the public sector". I get paid a lot better for easier, less stressful work, easier targets to meet (I've worked across public, private and third sectors and have always been judged on my productivity) and fewer hours. It's a delight from a work/life balance and financial point of view but a lot less interesting and fulfilling. I'd quite like to return to the public sector at some point for the right role but the sums don't really work for the family at the moment.

We'll have to agree to disagree that state schools "aren't great" at turning out rounded individuals - despite being privately educated myself, I've been pleasantly surprised and impressed by the breadth and quality of what my son's big standard comp are able to deliver on a shoestring and with a very mixed intake.

Exactly. Attempts to cut it retrospectively always fail.

They can cut it going forward, but they have to balance that against how much extra salary they would have to pay to retain /attract people.

I'm quite happy to go to a more private sector pension model -but would want the triple salary I could get in the private sector.

It simply isn't all tax payers money though.

Some of the money is employee contributions

Chunks of the public sector are cost neutral or income generating - I bring in far more income than my salary and pension contributions cost.

And the pension funds themselves invest to generate money

@JassyRadlett Not really cos life isn’t just about academics. It’s about life skills. You will be gutted to know you can have unsuccessful geniuses. So I pay for much, much more than academics. But that’s the thing isn’t it I am ensuring my kids can look beyond the blinkers. Worth every penny.

And as for pensions, the LGs is not fully funded. My DP worked in LG almost 2 decades ago for a short time and the pension he will get from that is a proper sum of money. And then if he dies before me I still get a good chunk of money. It’s stupid. And if I look at the amount I have to put in to my pensions as someone who runs my own business it is incomparable.

I would be happy for you in the public sector to be paid what someone does in the private sector. Then you might have to be judged by productivity, which is still going down in the state sector by all accounts, just like you do in the private sector. Again if my business doesn’t make money by adding value we don’t get paid. That’s the risk you take in the private sector. That’s why the rewards tend to be bigger.

The Canadian model is right. Let the pension plan be run by professionals who can actually make money to fund it. Of course, there is always then the uproar that pension plans like that invest in infrastructure but it works. They make the pension plan work. Bring it on and something I hope the Labour Party really do fully embrace. They have started by combining the local council pensions to work towards it. Good on them. And then then let those who achieve those targets feast on the profits of their labour too as they been productive members of society guaranteeing a good future for those within the plan. Much better than the nonsense pyramid scheme we have now.

People can't seem to grasp that it's the equivalent of making them pay back part of their salary for every year they'be been earning.

You'll have been gutted to read the UCL research on the relative GCSE performance of state and private students.

Don't want to hijack the thread into yet another private school VAT one but the conflation of a contractual benefit - often in lieu of higher pay - with whether a certain product/service should be taxed is beyond tenuous.

For starters, your argument is based on the idea that public sector pensions are all taxpayers' money - and in a sense they are, in the same way that public sector salaries are taxpayers' money, because that's how we fund public services. Schemes like the LGPS are fully funded, others are not and are going to be very bumpy in terms of overall costs as reforms feed through, pension ages rise etc. We won't see the real impacts of the reforms of the 2010s for many years.

But you also seem to miss the point that to get a pension, public sector workers also have to contribute. Now for most those contributions don't go into their own pension pot but go into general revenue and help pay for those already paying pensions. But as others have pointed out, those contributions are often not insignificant and while the employer contribution is excellent and better than anything I've had in the private sector, it is generally compensating for a lower salary. Comparing my public and private sector roles, I've been able to pay the equivalent into my pension and still come out ahead financially, the salary was that much higher.

If you feel public sector pensions should be closer to private sector levels, I assume you're also of the view that salaries should do likewise? Would be fiscally crippling while the current pension liabilities work their way through the system and you're paying much higher salaries for the current workforce, but in 40 or 50 years you'd start to see... a return to where we are now in overall spending terms.