To ask Public or Private Sector - which to choose?

[needabreak5]

DH and I have always worked in the Private Sector (for a number of organisations).

Generally the roles we have had have been long hours, limited holiday, unpaid overtime, minimum pension, risk or redundancy, being available out of hours. But individual pay increases based on performance, good ‘perks’ - gifts, parties, for example my organisation this year is giving everyone £1500 Xmas bonus, plus a hamper and a party. DH not as generous but does still get nice things ‘on the company’.

DH has applied and been offered a public sector role in the same industry he is in at the moment. his industry is quite volatile and he feels the civil service role may be more secure in a recession. It’s less pay, better pension, more holiday - we have 2 young DC and I’m thinking this might suit us better.

If you have worked a similar role in both private and public sectors which do you prefer. Do you think job security is the main advantage of public sector?

@ComtesseDeSpair my employer's contribution to my pension is paid at 27.1%. I pay in 5.45%.

That's a damn good pension by any standards, even if its now career average rather than final salary.

I trained in the private sector, currently public sector and returning to private sector.

Its a lack of finances an a fixed term that’s forcing my return. I’d have preferred to stay in the public sector whilst my children are young because the flexibility I have cannot be matched privately. Even though the private firm I’m joining could not be more accommodating. Not having targets etc means my job really isn’t stressful and as long as I’m getting on and I’m left to my own devices.

That does have draw backs, no progression, no personal development. But that might be unique to my team because my boss just doesn’t seem engaged with her team at all. My salary is well below market rate but because I use less childcare it doesn’t bother me. Although once the kids are both hatched Im sure I’ll feel differently. My organisation will start redundancies soon so I wouldn’t be so sure it’s more secure. The work is still there but because we’re reliant on funding they can’t sustain the staff/service levels.

Fair enough. My Civil Service pension in 2020 wasn’t anything like as generous as that, so I’d assumed they were more level with many private pensions.

Or if it should have been, I need to call their pension administrator! I just got a statement showing my balance at around £10k, which is in no way 30% of my salary over two years!

10k per year once you retire presumably?

Have another look at your pension statement @ComtesseDeSpair - I've just checked mine and it's deliberately opaque. In 2021-2022 it's added £942/year to the max annual pension I'll be paid on retirement. I've used 11% of my max allowance (the one that's about £1million) apparently. It doesn't state what has been paid in for this period, I'll have to get that from my P60.

Are you sure you understand how defined benefit pensions work? It’s very unlikely you’d have been on a different scheme to the one pp mentioned but equally you probably wouldn’t have anything you’d describe as a ‘balance’. The employer/employee contributions are more or less irrelevant to a DB pension, they can’t meaningfully be compared in that way to the pension arrangements it sounds like you now have.

Plus public sector workplace cultures are utterly toxic

That’s also just a subjective generalisation. The workplace culture in the bit of the CS I work in is really wonderful.

I did think I’d written that some are, apologies. The bullying in my department was off the scale, backed up by the annual survey. I didn’t experience it particularly badly, but it was uncomfortable to witness colleagues whispering about other colleagues behind their backs and colleagues being shut out of projects when they weren’t in favour with their lead. I’m sure some departments are much better, but I can’t recommend mine.

I did one brief stint in the public sector and found the culture completely alien and incredibly depressing. Any excuse to get out of work by doing fringe HR type shit was seized and made the most of, but they were still all joyless fuckers. Nobody cared whether or not a job was done well, or even at all. I’d never do it again, and I know others who say the same.

Depends on the sector.

My public sector role...
Third ‘restructure’ ( redundancy process) in 5 years.
Poor redundancy package (5 years ago, £12,500 for capped 20 years service some part-time but my service was 26 years)

Stretched - each time central government bring in an initiative the existing staff have this added to their existing full time role so we end up with ‘existing fulltime role 2 days per week, new ‘initiative’ role 3 days per week.
Key team's have gone, key gaps in services, poor performance and many complaints. .
No administrative support.
No set office base - a hot desk as offices have had to be closed down permanently and additionally temporarily due to energy costs.
Low travel expenses, no rise to reflect fuel increases, travel only paid from the allocated office meaning paying much of the work miles ourselves.
No financial support to work at home.
Stretched line management, meaning poor communication, lack of advice, support, CPD and performance management.
Hierarchy means slow decision making.
Team days without even a hot drink.

Demoralised and exhausted staff.

🙁

Thanks for all the replies, sorry I'm not able to mention the department/agency.

I do think it will give us more flexibility which would be a huge advantage and an easier life, its a struggle at the moment with us both working full time in demanding roles. And the job security.

Our concerns are more based on job satisfaction etc too, e.g. comments from a few posters and we do get this impression talking to people across the board IRL who are civil servants / public sector:

"Personally I've found that much more is expected of you in the private sector, longer hours etc. However I HATED working in the public sector. I found it very disorganised and nowhere near as "driven" as the private sector!"

"I did one brief stint in the public sector and found the culture completely alien and incredibly depressing. Any excuse to get out of work by doing fringe HR type shit was seized and made the most of, but they were still all joyless fuckers. Nobody cared whether or not a job was done well, or even at all. I’d never do it again, and I know others who say the same."

The 27.1% doesn't represent a gold plated pension pot at all.

It is based on the employer's liabilities under the scheme - so paying for the aged gold plated pensions that the CS used to provide as well as the defined benefit scheme that they now provide. % usually re-stated triennially based on the scheme valuation and forecast at that time.

@MyTreeIsFake Not one person has brought out the "gold plated pension" trope until now. I simply stated, and accurately, that its a damn good pension. Not many employers will be paying in anything like that % for a pension scheme. How it's paid back out matters of course, but nevertheless my pension is worth about £9k a year more than I receive as a salary, so it's a decent part of the job when you are paid less and don't get any monetary perks that you might in the private sector like health insurance, gyms etc.

The gap in remuneration is quite sector dependent. I have a few colleagues who left public sector jobs to triple their overall package in the private sector but from niche areas, others who have gone the other way in much more common roles and overall reckon they are a good bit better off in the public sector.

In short I suspect it’s quite case dependent.