im so anxious about threats to cut ctc...

I had a huge sulk this weekend and simply refused to do any work - so I am having to work late to make up for it tonight.

My husband logged my hours the week before last, apparantly I did 85.

yes maybe the press, and envy! It just gets to you though. This weekend I was working through my 57th hour of doing work in that week, beginning to resent it for possible cuts, freezes for years etc. Yes, daysoftheweek, just making it even more impossible to buy my own home or even move into a rented property that will have enough bedrooms in a few years time.

I find the seemingly easy swallowing of the drive to shrink the role of the state by disinvetsing from the public sector bizarre.

Who exactly do people mean when they say the public sector is bloated and overpaid? Teachers? Nurses? Bin-men? Social workers? The police? Firefighters? Most people emplyed in teh public sector aren't highly paid or highly pensioned. They might have a guaranteed pension but wasn't that partly the promise that offset the low pay?

I heard Theresa May justifying the potential cuts to tax creidts by saying that workers should put greater pressure on employers to pay more which is laughable in relation to the public sector.

I'd love to be paid more and have lobbied for it (on all kinds of grounds including having professional qualifications, that I'm paid less than colleagues in a similar role etc etc) but I always get the same refrain from them - no payrises in the current climate.

Working in London (and for a national organisation) means that I did get a London weighting but it doesn't represent the additional costs of living here. I'd move but my work wouldn't be possible.

elvis P= public or private?!

I think my point is london weighting in no way makes up the difference house prices are the classic example you would really struggle to get 3 bed for 500k round here (I'm talking flat of course) whereas 500k would buy you a 5 bed house in a lot of places you've seen it on here some saying they manage a house 3 kids car holiday on 17k that wouldn't rent you a 2 bed place here

it's a whipped up media frenzy i think horn/lego

There is no point being sorry, as I said earlier we all have to live within the limits of our income. If the above cuts happen then we have to limit our family.

I don't think it is envy, if people were envious they could train as doctors, nurses etc. I think the right wing press has been printing front page lies deliberately and then retracting them a few days later in a tiny box on page 32. I don't know why.

hornofplenty, I am sorry about your plans not going to plan.
I don't get it either, which led to my earlier post of being about, maybe 'envy'? Or is it because we are a predominantly female workforce?

lego It is me, I am lucky my husband earns more than me but we have elderly parents/ grandparents to care for which swallows up a fair chuck of money.

It is a debate but people are gunning for the public sector, I think making harsh cuts would be popular. I don't get why people are so full of hate towards those who have chosen to be public servants in the true sense of the word.

lego It is me, I am lucky my husband earns more than me but we have elderly parents/ grandparents to care for which swallows up a fair chuck of money.

It is a debate but people are gunning for the public sector, I think making harsh cuts would be popular. I don't get why people are so full of hate towards those who have chosen to be public servants in the true sense of the word.

days an awful lot of PS workers in London get London weighting.

I have got really fed up on this thread and all others on the subject of cuts of this constant quoting that the public sector needs to "feel the pain like the private sector". What nobody seems to understand (or want to know) is that the cuts in the civil service started back in 2006 while the private sector was still riding high.

Just one example is that the tax office has reduced staff by over 25% since 2006 (26808 jobs- HMRC Annual Report 2009). Instead of looking at which tasks can be discontinued and which jobs they can afford to lose they just cut across the board. So you end up with the situation where you don't have enough staff to do the work.

They closed 130 offices in January, with hardly a murmur from Joe Public. Everyone says great, lets get rid of the pen-pushers.. then in the next breath my tax code is wrong/ I can't get through to anyone on the phone etc etc. I wonder why? Because the staff who were doing that job have all been made redundant.

It can only get worse. The jobs they are cutting are not "back room" made-up jobs but things that are done for the public. For you. Which will no longer be done.

Hornofplenty, oh bugger it is worse than I thought then. I think that person you described at the end of your post is me.
Assure me, it was just a debate, right?

daysoftheweek - I think your suggestion re. pay in relation to area is sound. I work for a company that pays 'London Weighting', depending on your distance from London you recieve a supplement to your basic wage.

Those that live up north, for example, recieve nothing, I live about an hour from London and recieve less than those who actually live in London.

I think its a good idea

yeh but for a lot of jobs london weighting is a tiny sum compared to teh difference in costs.

no i think if you are going to freeze the wages of public sector workers you would just freeze those in cheeper areas longer and when you did increase them increase wages in the S by more.....

the point has been maed on here and the papers that in some towns there is a huge divide between those with public sector jobs and those without a lot of recently created jobs (and Im not talking about cleaners/nurses etc but about all the facilitators and the managers etc etc) do have well paid secure cushy numbers of little value to the state

sorry to those in these jobs but it needs saying....

there is also a huge layer of reduplication some nurseries have heads and deputies etc etc for 50 kids some schools have heads of over 1,000 we need to recognise this and think whether we are getting value for money from all of this the vogue here is for federated schools I know teachers hate the idea but how much of that is vested interest rather than logical?

We recorded it earlier from channel 4, How to save £100 billion.

I am trying to remain calm. We have already accepted that we can't afford another child. I am considering sending the one we have up a chimney.

Not just London teacherse and key workers, but large swathes of the South East -

horn, what channel? what debate?

the thing with taxing rentals is that the cost will simply be put onto the rentor and then housing bens will go up [to cost the tax payer] or more homeless?
unless you are talking about just holiday rentals?

I think London teachers need more money, many London schools are chaos as teachers have to leave when they want a family.

I am just watching the debate and wincing at what will happen to me wage.

They are suggesting I will lose
£4K in pay
I need to pay £1200 more in pension contributions ( which I am happyish to do)
I don't claim child benefit but if I did I will lose another £1k
I don't claim tax credits as we are over the threshold.

So that is for someone on a middle income of £38K £6200

That is about 16% pay cut, not even taking into account tax rises, VAT rises and inflation.

If I was the main wage earner or claimed tax credits it would be an even bigger drop.

daysoftheweek, teachers in london get london wieghting [a bit more for being n london]. A few years ago, it was changed so they now get less than they did, but they still get more.

is your point to pay londoners more ?

of course another rich vein for the tapping is to tax rental income properly, i think holiday let taxation was recently changed so I'm hoping rental income isn't far behind....

tonights evening standard tells me child bbenefit is going from high earners how's that then is it a lie about means testing it costing more than they will save
personally i think that's sad it was important for preserving peoples NI contributions and as someone said it was usually paid direct to the Mother.

the other thing that always made me a bit was all this talk about waiting for the recovery, the recovery of what exactly? manufacturing?

or consumerism, cashpoint houses, unfettered spending of borrowed cash.......

this is a good thread but please can people stop thinking that every comment people make is addressed to them personally!!

here's one for the cuts a lot of public sector workers are on national pay scales ie teacher earning 30k in london earns 30k in scunthorpe and skegness (I'm guessing they're cheaper places to live)
so why not use the cuts in jobs to rationalise this a bit/

here in london 30k will never see you in a house/flat i think you'd struggle for ex lA especially round here but 30k elsewhere is a good salary

threads about the cost of childcre really bring this home

so everyone what do you think? please point out the flaw in my suggestion

Yes I do, I am an utter bastard who has bought the country to its knees.

you don't happen to have apublic sector guaranteed pension do you hornofplenty? - Now that would mean that you're well within the gunsights of the condems!

I would imagine the threshold will be different for single parents.

Try being a public sector worker, a woman and on a higher tex band - that is hated.

I can't sleep and have never felt so hated: I'm a woman, I'm a single parent and I'm not loaded.

I work full-time, 40 hours a week at least and not always regular hours. I earn just over 25k and rely on the childcare element of working tax credit to help me pay my childcare costs. My net income barely covers my rent (I live in a tiny, shabby house in London) and childcare costss. I cycle to work to sav money. I don't have financial support from my ex (who is an alcoholic) and can't rely on him, for obvious reasons, to help put with childcare.

I can't see how we're going to survive and really don't see what I can do to manage the coming doom. It really looks as though I will be better off out of work but I'm desperate to work (I love my job). I would have hoped to eventually get out of reliance on tax credits (increasing my income, reducing my childcare as the kids get older).

The whole approach seems designed to keep women out of the workplace and in the home, but I can't imagine even George Osbourne would think it would be a good idea to make it so that I am much much better off signing on.

There's going to be a huge knock on effect to the childcare industry (again, mostly women), that army of nursery workers, self-employed childminders and nannies will surely find their jobs threatened as a vast swathe of people find that childcare is no longer affordable.