To ask how much you would willingly pay for your work's Christmas Party?

[Hohohonooo]

I'm not going because of the cost.

Ours is £70 per person, which is for a 3 course meal and all inclusive beer and wine. AIBU to think that's way too much?! For context, I earn £25000 per year, which is fairly typical for my workplace.

How much would you be willing to spend?

[Cutesbabasmummy]

I work in the public sector too. We are going to a local gastro pub which is £25 per head for three courses. Drinks are extra. I've never worked anywhere that have these all paid for parties in hotels with casino!

[Sugarformyhoney]

Never go on them- spend enough time with my colleagues as it is! £70 is ridiculous though

[Pinkprincess1978]

I've always paid for works Xmas do's. Norm is £30/£35 which sometimes includes a half bottle of wine. I wouldn't want to pay more than that.

[FunkyKingston]

In my case a tenner for a meal in a chain type restaurant. Actual cost is 30 quid but work (university) offers £20 per person attending.

I felt obliged to go as I was newish, however it only appears to be management and their acolytes going. It will be tortuous.

[SparkleTheTinselKitten]

£50 if it was somewhere I actually wanted to go. About £30 otherwise.

[Idiot1]

Company I work for pays for our meal and a few (if you're lucky) drink's which is all well and good but they take us to the most expensive restaurants hotels in the city. Last year's a glass of wine was £9! Didn't go down too well with me or my colleagues who are barely making minimum wage 😝

[mollysmammy]

£0 - Im not sure if it's different for different sectors as I've always worked in the private sector...I have worked for several different companies over the years, and never had to pay (plus we got a few bottles of wine on the table and at one we also got drinks tokens in addition to the wine. I always thought the Christmas party was the company's way of saying thank you for all the hard work its employees had put in over the year...

[YeOldeTrout]

Good to hear someone wants their tax ££ spent on Xmas parties! Sadly this is not widespread belief.

NHS policy is can't have alcohol on any premises & will never pay for it, either. I worked in a NHS-funded building & we were never supposed to have alcohol on the premises, even if it was unopened gift brought by a visitor.

[Holidayshopping]

I always thought the Christmas party was the company's way of saying thank you for all the hard work its employees had put in over the year... hmm

What do you think should happen in the NHS, schools, local councils etc? Surely you can understand that things might be different there?

[Iused2BanOptimist]

No way would I go if it was £70
I work in NHS and departments / wards organise their own things. Some departments quite big, go to the sort of pub that can do big parties. My last ward it irritated me people didn't want to pay more than £25 and we always went somewhere disappointing, when there were some really good offers for just a bit more, around £28, less than £30. People won't spend more.
My new dept quite small, 8 of us went to Giggling Squid, had about 1/2 bottle wine each and a drink before. It was really nice, just under £30 with drinks.

[IWouldPreferNotTo]

@Holidayshopping

I think that the public sector should also have a party where the staff don't contribute. Yes, it is tax payers money but realistically £50/head is going to have no real impact on what I pay in tax and as that £50 is going to be spent on taxable services straight away it seems a reasonable thing to do.

If we keep treating the public sector as if they need to be on a bread and water diet to prevent them going wild then we're going to create a situation where anyone with a choice will go for the private sector.

[Hohohonooo]

@IWouldPreferNotTo

£50 a head for the 1.5 million odd NHS employees would be about 75 million quid in total. I wouldn't feel comfortable going to that party!

[IWouldPreferNotTo]

@Hohohonooo

There's about 5.4m public sector employees so a £50 budget per person would be about £270m. Now I can't deny that is a lot of money.

However, the ~£100m the Royal Family costs is equated to about £0.69 per head so even this £270m to treat public sector workers as if we value their contribution is unlikely to be more than £2 for a taxpayer.

But what about the poor beleaguered worker living month to month, surely they can't afford to donate to the bloated bank accounts of our nurses, swanning about drinking champagne between shifts. Well, they wouldn't because they don't pay much tax.

Treating public sector workers with a bit of gratitude is completely affordable.

[Iaintdonenothing]

I nearly didn't go to this year's Xmas party out of the principal of not wanting to pay £25 for a three-course-meal in a shoddy sports bar (usually can get burger, chips and a pint for £6).

I did decide to go as I got swept into the Xmas fever last minute but it was sad as 50% of the admin staff wasn't there as they're all part-time and work on barely over minimum wage on essentially zero hour contracts. When the bill was coming out the boss stood up and told us that it was on the company - only that there was quite a few staff decided to skip the meal because they weren't 'hungry'. I actually felt guilty afterwards.

[Timtims]

£30, £40 absolute max! Public sector so always have to pay. Often Managers (incl me) subsidise drinks out of their own pockets (wine on tables).

Tbh, I think its a pretty shitty situation if you can't spend one social occasion a year with colleagues. Caring commitments aside, I'm always shocked at the staff members who would rather book annual leave than spend 4 hours with colleagues (whilst we have to pay for our 'do', we do get time off work).