"Public sector - so no"

[OhpoorMe]

Anyone else get quite frustrated seeing this on threads about Christmas parties/ bonuses / staff perks etc

The public sector isn't one homogenous organisation. I've only ever worked in PS organisations and have always had a paid for staff party, sometimes bonuses, sometimes perks etc.

It's not a given that public sector = badly treated!

PS here 🙋🏼‍♀️

No paid for do's or a bonuses.

Sometimes a nice Manager will buy us a Christmas present but it's out their own pocket.

My DH is the director of a research centre in a uni business school. He pays for lunch out for the 8-12 people who work there at Christmas

Yep! My team had a paid for Christmas event where I paid £250 of my own money to fund the event to reward my team for a really amazing year of work.
We absolutely cannot use any PS money for this kind of thing absolutely no no!

Public sector workers are famous for feeling sorry for themselves and like to see themselves as the worst off workers EVER though.
Even though many others do more for less with no pay rises / bonuses and the most basic pension companies can get away with

Ours included PhD students, which may have been the required loophole. I agree you couldn't claim back a lunch for internal staff only, but could if a certain percentage were external, and you had to name them and their institutions.

NHS here and we have to “declare” if we’re sent a box of chocolates and hand them to the charity so its not seen as a bribe.

Also paid for my works Christmas party and don’t get a bonus. Dh, local authority, is the same. Sounds like you’re an outlier and not actually public sector.

I've worked in the PS for almost my whole career (I'm mid 40s) and I think have been to one funded Christmas party in all that time. Where I am now, we don't even have water coolers, let alone a party!

Depends if you want to recruit and retain staff at the shit wages you are offering or not. You need to think of these things as part of the "package" that is offered to staff rather than just as things that are frittered away unnecessarily. Of course there will always be self-haters like you and even people who complain about spend on training or similar using the same arguments.

I think flexibility and job security are far from universal things in the public sector, don't assume others who get tea and coffee are getting what you get in terms of those things.

I've worked in Universities for 20 years. Never once had anything paid for as a staff party, or anything. The only times have been when a good boss has bought a round of drinks.
It used to be reasonable money in salary, which was kind of a pay off; and good holidays. Now it's not great money at all- my salary has totally stagnated, so can't even afford to go anywhere in our time off!!

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/liz-truss-hit-12000-bill-29850562.amp

Ahem

Performance related bonuses were introduced in the civil service as part of one of the pay agreement reviews. The central government policy was that a minimal inflation rise was placed on the pay scale and a ‘performance related bonus’ for a percentage of staff. This ‘bonus’ was part of the pay budget, and this scheme has since ended

Currently (in the MoD at least) there are two ‘bonuses’ available:

In year reward scheme - this is a ‘bonus’ for which nominations are put to boards for consideration and pay from the reward scheme budget. Nominations are to show high achievement against an individuals work objectives - it’s a performance related bonus, provided through pay, taxed and capped to a maximum per year

Thank you scheme - this is a minor award, paid as a voucher.
These don’t have to be against a work objective but are for rewarding high performance of a task.
As they are paid via a voucher the employee doesn’t have tax deducted, but the department pays the tax contributions
The funding comes from the departments pay budget

Why are you being so mocking and judgemental about people who aren't as lucky as you?

Wow, you’ve just described the last few years experience for me and my senior colleagues. Definitely the lack of investment in modern processes and then blame the staff. We have a new senior who is from the private sector and she really has no idea of the years of problems and how difficult it is doing anything with red tape. She’s slowly learning, but when she suggests it’s the fault of the staff or we should just sack people, shows she has zero clue. Hope you don’t mind I screenshot your post and it really resonates with me and I might throw some of that back the next time this new senior throws some crap at us

What a ridiculous sweeping generalisation.

I'm a lecturer and our Christmas party is £20 per head to stay in the staff canteen on a Friday night. Prior to that I worked in local council and we did department meals out but everyone paid for their own - our manager used to get a few bottles of wine in but that came from his pocket.

We've had no payrise since 2021 and I would take that over a Christmas do!

The only time I've had a bonus and a paid Christmas do was when I worked for a bank. Even then towards the end it wasn't the whole thing that was paid for, just a certain amount per head and we had to pay the rest ourselves.

I've never had a Christmas party that I haven't had to pay for
So it's not even as if all private companies do and all public sector don't
We tend to have quizzes and secret santa type things though that someone else previously mentioned.

@roarrfeckingroar didn't give my opinion on Tufton St, just laughing at your use of the word "independent" which implies a lack of agenda.

Yes I remember lavish parties when I was in the private sector and a bonus to go with it. The public sector is nothing like that, though the work is a lot more challenging.

Many private companies have contracts with NHS, council and other public sector organisations. The contract may stipulate that the company has to justify spending relating to the contract but that doesn't mean it is not a private company.

I’ve always worked in the NHS and haven’t had a fully paid for Christmas do for years - decades!
The GP Partners have often put a couple of hundred quid behind the bar but that was out of their own pockets.

I'm not sure you know what a non profit is

30+ years service here, 25 of them emergency services…in the kindest possible way, OP please piss off!

I know there’s a door to leave, and I would but I do actually value the work I do, but nope, not one thing handed to us, no tea, coffee, or milk even…we don’t even get provided with a biro pen now…hope you enjoy your Xmas…I’ll be working nightshift on Xmas Eve and NY Eve…with not an extra penny for the busiest/worst nights of the year as the shift begins on a non holiday day, and yeah we’ll probably be lucky to be able to get up from our desks to have a pee, never mind an actual break, thanks to staff shortages due to chronic underfunding for years

What I should have said is 'how they like without the taxpayer, the DM or anyone else moaning about taxpayers money paying for Christmas dinner.

The fact that you're one step removed from government gives your organisation the ability to decide how to use the money to best effect (which might mean goodwill gestures like Christmas events, or bonuses to encourage staff retention) without having to worry about the optics.

Good to know public monies are being misused wherever you work. I worked in the public sector for years and if we were to use public budgets to fund Christmas meals and parties we would probably end up being charged with misconduct in public office.