To say - public sector workers pay tax

[woundedplacerias]

Sorry, that's it. It's a taat and I'm tired and have had but ffs - public sector workers and tax payers are not two discrete groups.

Your public sector pension may well be contributory. That is missing the point. To get equivalent pension income from a private pension would mean paying MASSIVELY more than £260 a month.

Agree with Adnerb95. To get the same Final salary pension I would have to contribute 80-90% of my salary.

Also my job would pay approx 20-30k more a year in the public sector than banking. The only reason I haven't gone for it yet is because I'm waiting for redundancy

Technically the public pay my wages in the private sector too - its only because people buy the products my company offers that I have a salary.

why did this thread become an argument about pensions?

The point is that public schemes whether gold, silver or bronze plated, Db or Dc schemes, contributory or non contributory, open or closed, do pay out vastly more than you would get in a private scheme.
The public schemes don't have some special investment wheeze that the private schemes aren't aware of, there is no investment in the world that gives you ten fold returns on your monthly payment.
The taxpayer picks up the shortfall.

Yes, as a public sector worker I can confirm I feel just as over-taxed as the sort of people who come out with this crap.

Check out the breakdown of your Council tax bill, in many areas 30 to 40% of the total goes not on services or even wages, it funds currently retired ex Council employees pensions, it is quite astounding.

No one seems to complain about the military getting decent pension, and they pay no contributions at all (my DP is Navy)

Sorry to take the thread waaay back, but the military do pay contributions to their pensions. Their pensions have just been changed yet again, and personel, like DS1 have had thousands stripped off the value of them. DH is ok because he's done 30 years and is out in 2.

The military don't get a bed of roses. They don't get any overtime pay, they are exempt from the minimum wage, they aren't allowed to strike, they spend years away from families over a career and step up to the plate when other public sector workers do go on strike.

Plus they literally put their lives on the line.

Exactly English

Yanbu

As an aside, working in the public sector is becoming more more and more of a fool's game.

YANBU, of course.

However, because the wages are coming out of tax money, of course they can't possibly put back what is coming out, because otherwise they would be paying tax at 100%! Which is necessary for necessary roles - but sometimes there do seem to be pointless middlemen public sector roles that could be cut.

There is also a perception in the private sector that the public sector has it easy in terms of things like shorter hours, more flexible working, virtually impossible to get sacked etc. I've never worked in the public sector, so have no idea if this is fair in any way!

I personally think specific key public sector roles - doctors, police, nurses, bin men, shouldn't pay any tax and have gold plated pensions. I also think the other non-key public sector roles should either have salaries capped and pensions gold plated (as per the old days), or have fully contributory private sector style pensions with private sector comparable wages. At the moment non-key public sector workers have it too good.

I personally think specific key public sector roles - doctors, police, nurses, bin men, shouldn't pay any tax and have gold plated pensions.

Bin men

However on earth is being a bin person any different to thousands of other jobs?

I am happy with the gold plated pensions, but not paying tax would not be fair. Especially for those doctors who also have private practices!!

I'd much rather keep the 30 - 40% council tax pension component, works out at £580 per month, i could invest it personally, for my own actual pension.
Im sure tens of millions of council tax payers would agree.

SIck pay is another public sector benefit that has me a bit .... if I'm sick for more than 5 days I'm on statutory pay. There is no incentive for me to be sick. 6 months full pay, followed by 6 months half pay (sometimes with an ability to "top up" so the 2nd 6 months are full pay too) seems to me to have far too much scope for abuse. And frankly I've read about people on here who are "on the sick" rather than actually too sick to work... it can't be right at all. That's the kind of waste and inefficiency that the public sector facilitates and the private sector avoids. Unfortunately in every walk of life there are slackers and piss takers. It's hard to sack people who are not that good at their jobs in the private sector but at least they turn up to work and don't have the option to go "on the sick"!

Who gets 6 months full sick pay? I certainly don't!

"No incentive to be sick" is said by someone not suffering any real health issues or with empathy for those who do.
I only have experience of my own part of the public sector, but despite the ability to take 6 months off on full pay my teacher colleagues struggle in to work during illnesses that really should have them in their beds, out of duty and responsibility to the pupils and colleagues.

icy in practice the only people who use their full sick pat allowance are people with serious long term health conditions - and even as they use that allowance, they will be scrutinised and followed every step of the way. It isn't the case that you just breeze in with a note from your doctor and then buzz off for 6 months. With that level of illness, a capability procedure is pretty much inevitable. The aim is to retain the employee because the NHS will have invested a lot of time and money in training them, but it isn't the case that you just get this as a perk.

NHS scrutiny of sickness absence is pretty damn draconian.

Oh, and also what Mistressiggi said - I cannot think of a single NHS worker who just stays in bed when they have mild sniffles - because they know the work is still there to be done and they will leave their team short-handed, so they struggle in.

Sad to say yours is a typical view of public sector life. It's completely inaccurate. Now if you want to talk to me about cleaning up NHS procurement - oh yes, I'm there.

dailymailcrap bin men? How about prison officers. Firefighters. Everyone always forgets prison officers. Starting salary 16k in Scotland and 20k in England. They don't know how good they've got it looking after violent offenders, putting up with abuse and dirty protests and people off their face on spice, suicide risks. Sounds great.

Socks Rocks I work . for a town council and get the same! Also because I live where I work I am effectively paying some of my own wages!!

BTW the pay in public sector isn't great fir the hours we put in. I'm the lowest earner out of everyone I know and I have a reasonable job.

Your public sector pension may well be contributory. That is missing the point. To get equivalent pension income from a private pension would mean paying MASSIVELY more than £260 a month.

I'd love to see the figures / worked example for this. Not being argumentative - just I read and hear this a lot, but also hear it's not actually the case a reasonable amount but have no clue about the actuality.

I also hear the 'paid more in the civil/public sector for equivalent role' but know people in the civil service who are most definitely paid less. Way less. Does this statement apply to roles high up in either service rather than the lesser roles?

I remember once when I worked overseas as a holiday rep, we had this customer who was just awful. He sneered at us constantly, complained it was too hot, the food was foreign (he was in Goa), the place was full of Indians and he couldn't get a decent steak anywhere. Every evening without fail he'd pitch up with a huge glass of beer and proceed to whinge. He then said "oh and I pay your wages". My male colleague got out his calculator.

"Right Mr Timms, I get paid £425 a month. I've had 943 arrivals in resort thus month", he then tapped away at his calculator, looked at me and asked for the current exchange rate, opened his wallet and gave Mr Timms some dirty rupee notes with the words "here you go Sir, I worked out how much of my wages you pay based on my wages and the number of customers I've had. I don't work for you anymore but will happily still help you free of charge if need be, hope that's ok".

Dodo Don't know if this helps, but a DB pension scheme I deal with has recently worked out that the total contribution rate needed to provide the benefits is 65% of salaries. Employees pay 7% in this scheme, leaving the employer paying 58% of salaries. That's fairly typical in the schemes I'm aware of.

That's career average by the way, not final salary. As earnings inflation is so low at present, career average isn't the saving so far that employers hoped for. Earnings effectively get increased by price inflation under career average which is often more than salaries are increasing.