To think this job spec is asking the world for very little money?

[naughtybutniceandaspice]

I can't quite believe it.

NHS, I know. But even still. I'm shocked. £20-23k to do all of this?

What do you think?

AIBU?

I have been working in private sector and would get paid over £30k (outside of London), for that.

Couldn't agree more. It's the fact that all the salaries are far too low and not the job being "overpaid". Ive worked a PA job and it was very hard work and the reason I left was I found the pay far too low for the responsibility which was 25k.

Whereas I agree it shouldn't be a race to the bottom, the fact of the matter is, OP has been asked several times exactly what it is about this diary management that so tricky, and won't (can't ?) answer. She's been asked what the training entails, and hasn't answered.

My guess is that you could train any relatively intelligent, literate, organised person to do the role in less than a month. The other roles that have been quoted that get paid under the £30K she reckons her job is worth include nurses, social workers, teachers, police, paramedics etc. I don't think you could train any of them in under a month. Before you start comparing hours worked, etc., and the years of training they had to do to even apply for the role.
No-one has said that a PA is without skills, we're just saying you have to look around at what everyone else is able to earn for other roles and, in comparison it seems there are other roles that ought to earn considerably more than a PA.

The majority of what makes some roles more highly paid than others is the scarcity of the skills and knowledge needed to do it. Whilst an admin based role requires a lot of certain skills, those particular skills aren't particularly unusual or hard to teach or learn.

Shocking how low people's expectations are - and for people's, read women's.

I think admin in the NHS matters a lot - when having investigations for a potentially serious illness, I was repeatedly sent to appointments for no reason, wasting both my time, and, more expensively, the time of the consultants who asked why I was there as there were no results yet. That's what happens when you think admin is easy and pay people 20K to manage highly complex diaries. Clearly not anyone can do it.

Depressing how many incredibly underpaid NHS staff there are - clearly, nurses and junior doctors should be paid vastly more, but even admin assistants should be paid enough that they can afford to live on the wage and not be poached by higher wages in the private sector.

And no graduates should be working for just over 20K after their first job!

Demand more money, ladies. Because if you don't ask for it, you won't get it.

I am a general manager in the NHS, and our PAs are band 4. More than adequate pay for the responsibility I’m afraid. Band 5 PAs ar few and far between and are usually for the board/DDs.
In the NHS all jobs go through a panel called Agenda For Change who assess what duties are in the jd/ps and then assign a fair and accurate banding.
Having been a Band 4 PA in the past its more than appropriate banding for the duties outlined in the jobspec.
But thats just my oppinion, and Agenda For Change agree I suppose.

Whereas I agree it shouldn't be a race to the bottom, the fact of the matter is, OP has been asked several times exactly what it is about this diary management that so tricky, and won't (can't ?) answer.

Diary management isn't difficult but as you point out you do need to be organised and clear thinking, especially if (as in my job) you are on average juggling around 10 to 15 meetings at any one time. I think the "hard" part is that firstly you are managing diaries proactively - no-one is telling you when and where to put meetings in or when they need rearranging - you are using your knowledge and judgement. Secondly you are usually multi-tasking alongside - event management, travel, research, anything that might suddenly arise. Again it's not hard but takes a bit of practice to do it well and avoid mistakes.

It's not life and death but it can be an key role in keeping things running smoothly.

Can't compare NHS to the private sector, but as a central London PA I earn £54-£70 (bonus dependent). OP - I would go to the private sector every time.

exactly what I was trying to say all of these wages are too low. 23k for that job description is taking the piss and nurses and doctors should be on a lot more. Not comparing oh well a doctor gets a crap wage so a PA should get a pittance! 16k for a PA job is an absolute disgrace!! We should demand better ladies.

Wages are too low and cost of living (excepting food) is really high in the UK. YANBU.

Diary management - even trying to arrange a meeting between 15 very busy people who live all over the country or even in multiple countries - is time consuming and a total ball ache, but it is really not difficult. Anybody of average intelligence could work out how to do it.

As I said, I was a PA and it's a valuable role. But pretending that booking meetings is a highly skilled job is just embarrassing.

Hang on a minute stop banging on about lack of skills for a PA. The issue is a PA role is demanding and 23k is low full stop. Stop comparing it to a doctor's and Nurses wage. It's nothing to do with it. ALL of these wages are far too low. So no YANBU.

I've done a similar role on similar £ and it was OK. Managed 2 band 3s and 2 band 2s, consultants' diary etc etc. Could leave at 5 and not give it a second thought. Before that I was a teacher on a few more k but worked most evenings and every weekend (thought obvs got a lot more holiday). What prompted me to leave was systematic frustration rather than the money. I had forgotten that admin can be a bit of a dead end. I'd do it again if necessary but hope I don't have to.

exactly what I was trying to say all of these wages are too low. 23k for that job description is taking the piss and nurses and doctors should be on a lot more. Not comparing oh well a doctor gets a crap wage so a PA should get a pittance! 16k for a PA job is an absolute disgrace!! We should demand better ladies.

No, it is relevant. Saying 'all wages are too low' makes no sense. Paying everyone £20K more, or £10K more, or even £100K more just means that the £ will buy you less. If everyone earned £50K more than the current rates of national pay bands, then everybody wouldn't be 'better off', you'd just have the prices of everything rising rapidly, so the £70K you then earn will still only buy you what £20K buys you now.
This has to be about comparing with other roles, or you are just picking random numbers out of the air.

I think it's poorly paid. However in my experience PA roles and admin roles in general are few and far between in the private sector where people are increasingly becoming expected to manage their own admin tasks. My MD doesn't even have his own admin support!

Complex diary management I.e. Use built in system tools to identify time slots that work for all attendees, sometimes requiring you to negotiate the rescheduling of conflicting meetings/events for some attendees where your meeting/event takes priority and there is no mutually convenient time slot available.

Really demonstrates how low some people's standards are saying that 23k is overpaid for a PA role. 17k is far too low for a building manager too. NHS wages are poor. YANBU completely agree with op. I'm genuinely shocked that some people think 16k is reasonable for an admin position. WOW.

The people in my company who were TUPEd over from the NHS are paid more than other workers doing similar roles.

Makes me laugh though because when I had admin support I billed over million and without it considerably less ... a good PA is well worth the money spent

Admin salaries seem to have been drifting down for three decades.

At the same time everyone at higher levels is now doing more of their own admin. Which is probably a poor use of their time.

backforgood That simply is not true.

The problem is the nhs is a monopoly employer for many roles (and geographical areas) and can get away with low pay, partly on the basis of goodwill from their employees. I’m guessing junior drs have some training provided in order to progress as part of their package and will then be earning more over time.

PAs can earn £50k plus in London as it’s a demanding and high skilled role at times. Although PA can cover a range of responsibility levels, some will be much more stretching than other roles. But the NHS is competing against other PA recruiting organisation to fill the role, therefore they need to have a competitive salary to fill the post with someone experienced and skilled. If they pay lower than market rate they’ll have to make do with less experienced or less competent staff. My experience of nhs admin isn’t great so I suspect some admin staff aren’t so able as a result.

Diary management in the civil service was paid about £30k ten years ago, it was a job all on its own.

Admin work is looked down on. I work in finance but that’s essentially admin at the lower levels. They also ask a lot for very little money, often expecting years of experience for very low level roles. It’s a low pay climate unfortunately unless you get in to some key sectors.

Why not Abucacut ?

When Italy moved from using the Lira to using Euros, everyone was suddenly paid in thousands of Euros rather than Millions of Lira. It didn't mean they were poorer - either in real life or in comparison with their friends and neighbours because everyone was paid a fraction (according to numbers) of what they were the previous month.

Same as someone starting my career now will be paid about £23K I think it is rather than the £9K odd I was paid when I started. They are no richer, nor better off than I was, as everyone's now paid considerable more (in figures) than the same jobs were 30 years ago. The numbers on the payslip are different, but people starting out today are as rich / poor as I was because that is all about comparison with peers.
So, increasing everyone's salaries makes no difference.

Increasing everyone’s salary would push up retail prices, house prices etc and just lead to inflation. It would also devalue the pound. Therefore everyone would indeed remain as comparatively wealthy, or not, as they were before.

The problem is the gap between the highest and lowest paid, this has got larger in the last few decades. We live in a less equal society now than the 1970/80/90s. It’s also well known that jobs that become “women’s jobs” get lower paid compared to when they were male dominated. I recall hearing there are more women graduating from medical schools than men now.

abacucat you're going to need to explain your stance better if you disagree that wage inflation above free market rates leads to anything other than unstable/unpredictable (& generally negative) economic consequences.

The key thing here is relative wage growth, not hard numbers. To suggest paying one job type £10k more overnight because you consider it undervalued (for example) shows a massive lack of awareness of the ripple effects of such an action.

Fair enough to argue for e.g. less wage disparity between public Vs private sectors, or more transparent gratings, or capping the ratio of lower level employees Vs a company exec level... All debatable. But just arbitrarily increasing X role's wages by Y amount would be fiddling disastrously and have a big unintended impact - not help those you're aiming to better.

It's simplistic / laymen economics, some of the stuff people are suggesting here!

Gratings? Gradings...

Yanbu, it's a very low pay for the role.