So which public sector jobs are better paid in the public than the private sector?

[lesley33]

I am sure you have read in the news about the proposal to freeze or reduce public sector pay in poorer parts of the country. Part of the argument being put forward is that public sector wages are higher than in the private sector, in all but the South East. However I am struggling to think of jobs where public sector staff are paid more than the equivalent private sector staff. However, perhaps that is just in my area of work.

So if you know of jobs where the equivalent post is paid less in the private sector than in the public sector, please let me know.

oh and also, overtime is unheard of. You can only get flexi time if you are a parent or carer, though that system does work.

I think that jobs in the public sector often have better (?) titles than similar in the private sector.

For example, a friend of mine works in the civil service and to all intents and purposes is an Office Manager. But she is called "Head of Secretariat". When she described what she actually does I nodded sagely and said nothing, but thought to myself, "Bleedin' hell, that's what the boss's PA does when she's got a bit of spare time... it's not a whole job " . The civil service is stuffed full of secretaries/administrative staff when in the private sector those jobs have often been eliminated - everyone can type now and so they should.

I do think it is all a bit us and them, and don't for a seond beleive that the maojority of any workers who are not on executive board level have it easy.

...but, I agree with @gramercy. I am alsways shocked that so many consultants (drs +surgeons) have secretaries. The only people who have secretaries (in the private sector (and you sum it up by pointing out they will also be office manager) are CEOs in my experience.

Yes, if I ruled the world I would decimate hospital admin staff. Sorry, but I have witnessed so many middle aged women prodding ineffectually at computers. I was sitting waiting for an appointment once and I saw one pair do nothing except drink tea, chat, and spend a huge amount of time (my wait was long...) stringing up a "Happy Retirement" banner.

x: "Today's Evening Standard - cream of the top graduates in banking and finance - someone boasting how very little in the City of London they are now being paid - £20k which is very low for those best of their year people."

Best at what?

Self promotion?
Braying?
Ferrari driving?
A shameless exploitation of others, insane risk taking and a cavalier attitude to others Life Savings?

g: "Yes, if I ruled the world I would decimate hospital admin staff. Sorry, but I have witnessed so many middle aged women prodding ineffectually at computers."

See, I wouldn't. There is this DM belief that all hospital staff who don't wear a (now imaginary) white coat are time wasting and need to be 'decimated', but guess what? It isn't those in the white coats who collate the paperwork, make the appointments, record the outcomes, make the phone calls that 'join the dots', provided the statistics that result in Evidence Based Practice, wrangle the paperwork that attracts funding; it isn't the people in white coats who actually push the trolley or wheelchair you're sitting in.

You could walk into my department on one day and whine that once they've booked you in, placing the notes they've ordered on the right desk, recording your attendance, they just sit there, apparently, even talking to each other, ye gods!; or you could arrive on another day and whine as you find a queue to be booked in stretching out of the department.

It interests me that everyone thinks they know best about how to fix these nasty public sector time wasters, government after government weighs in with some new 'Czar' who's gonna wield that broom, then, oh dear, the devil is apparently in the detail. You sack a few receptionists and secretaries and the whole shebang grinds to a halt.

Funny that.

And incidentally, most receptionists are paid between £13,000 and 17,000 p.a., after 8 years and successful annual appraisals.

Hardly Fat Cat, is it?

springchickennugget - um, why are you surprised that so many NHS consultants have secretaries? What, exactly, is it tht you think they do?

DH has 2 clinics/week on top of his procedural stuff. That's approx 30 new patients or 12 new and 30 returns. Each patient needs a letter to the GP. Each procedural patient needs a letter to the GP. Each new in patient needs a letter to the GP. All of these patients get letter copies as well. Each and every patient that needs to return to out-patients needs to be booked in, and a letter sent to the patient. The patient's meical notes need to have the letter copied in. Plus dealing with patients and GPs on the phone.

Plus any admin associated with DH being clinical lead, or head of clinical governance, r Head of Dept.

I get the vibesthat you think NHS secretaries are sorting out consultant's dry cleaning and popping out to get birthdy pressies.......

@Highlander No, I don't think they are sorting out dry cleaning etc. It is just that the secretary to professional ratio is vv high in medicine and surgery.
Possibly the highest in any sector, though I may be wrong.

I am not saying there is not a need. There is one. But there is also one in schools etc. 1000 students plus another 1-2000 parents and only one school secretary typing up letters plus all the finance admin that an institution of that size entails.

also i think people are missing thepoint. Many of those admin jobs have been abolished in the private sector. There is a need and people are creaking under the strain. But they have got rid of secretaries. They are a fairly old fashioned thing IME.

I took a pay cut to go back to the Civil Service 14 years ago. I was in a (private) call centre and very well paid, with additional regular bonus and incentive payments. Now I just get a basic salary. That was my choice because with school-aged children I wanted flexi-time and the chance to have time off during school holidays.

Parts of the civil service now have call centres. You get all the downsides of general call centre work on much lower pay without even the chance of bonuses. No flexitime and told when you can have lunch.

As for secretaries - the CS as a whole got rid of the whole secretarial grade about 10 years ago. Some of the top brass have PAs still, but would you really expect to pay someone a lot of money then have them spend their time photocopying and printing? Not cost effective.

Rmove secretaries from consultants and they will cope.....but will see less patients.

How long do you want to be on a waiting list for?

Actually, I don't think the consultants would cope! I had a slightly irate woman last week who was as politely as possible demanding to know why her examination request had taken 3 weeks to even get to us (OK she started blaming our inefficiency til I showed her the time stamp demonstrating that we'd received the requests 5 days prior!).. problem? Her be-tweeded consultant had personally written to ours thus the referral letter had sat on his desk for 3 weeks... our secretary spotted it there and acted on it!

As an aside, I'd lose my job for that inefficiency, but that's another story....

I earn about the same if you take into account pension contributions as I did in the private sector. However in the private sector I had a company car, mobile and laptop, generally got an annual bonus and if I brought new business in would get a percentage of the first year's retainer.

The flexibility of the public sector is the only thing that keeps me there.

Getting rid of massive inefficiencies in the public sector would be a far better idea than some wholesale dumbing down of salaries - I'm an NHS speech therapist and struggle to identify a comparable private sector role but can tell you that my private sector friends with poorer A level results, poorer degrees from Mickey Mouse universities are earning twice what I earn and have large bonuses to boot.

I cannot begin to describe the dreadful waste of money in the NHS, the number of people coasting towards retirement sitting on well paid jobs at the expense of those trying to climb the ladder and furthermore at the expense of the patient who is supposed to be receiving a quality service.

'Managers' unfit for management posts but having secured them through being in the right place at the right time or through having never had kids and therefore being available to work full time when their counterparts were part-time. Stupid decisions, lack of foresight, lack of joined up thinking. Mediocrity aplenty.

I would resent my salary being frozen because I don't live in the south east. I haven't had a pay rise in years. I don;t have a company car or a bonus or private healthcare. Where is the private sector speech therapist with whom my salary is to be compared?

There was a thread on MN a while back asking people about perks of their job and what job they did.....twas very interesting to hear what perks the private sector give....given that when there is a public sector bashing thread the same people are pleading poverty and cuts in the private sector.

Gym memberships
Private health care
Lunches
Travel support.

And I am not bashing the private sector here (if you get these thing then great) but lets not forget that the public sector which Gideon is so eager to trim back provides all the basic services you need.

Can't find the thread in question now so suspect it was in "Chat" but it was interesting to hear just what "extras" SOME private sector employees get that the public sector can only ever dream of.

It is sad how us and themish this is getting.

@Cod do you knwo anyone who gets thsoe perks? I work in the private sector, DP works in the private sector, my dad does and many other relatives. The people who stack shelves in Tesco work in the private sector. Do you think they get private healthcare and gym membership?

Shop discounts would be a perk I suppose?
Dh works in a cinema and gets free tickets and discounted food/drinks.

Many places offer NHS discount. I get shop discounts in my charity job though.

Definitely not mine. Last comparable private sector job I saw paid about 7/8k more.

Receive abuse and threats from the general public almost every day for rubbish pay, terrible management and no perks except for the pension they are "reworking".

Currently looking for another job.

Am a healthcare consultant. My broad equivelent is a strategy director in the NHS. Pay is about the same but they have a much better pension, more holidays, a shorter working week and dont have hideously high billing targets to meet. Wouldnt swap though as the politics in the NHS is mind blowing

As I said in my post spring "SOME.

I am aware not all get these perks.

Q: "Getting rid of massive inefficiencies in the public sector would be a far better idea than some wholesale dumbing down of salaries - I'm an NHS speech therapist and struggle to identify a comparable private sector role but can tell you that my private sector friends with poorer A level results, poorer degrees from Mickey Mouse universities are earning twice what I earn and have large bonuses to boot.

I cannot begin to describe the dreadful waste of money in the NHS, the number of people coasting towards retirement sitting on well paid jobs at the expense of those trying to climb the ladder and furthermore at the expense of the patient who is supposed to be receiving a quality service.

'Managers' unfit for management posts but having secured them through being in the right place at the right time or through having never had kids and therefore being available to work full time when their counterparts were part-time. Stupid decisions, lack of foresight, lack of joined up thinking. Mediocrity aplenty."

bistokid- how I would love to hear your views in 20-25 years time as a Speech Therapist. Suddenly, then, you'll recognise yourself among (Q: )"...the number of people coasting towards retirement sitting on well paid jobs at the expense of those trying to climb the ladder..."... except you'll now be looking with indulgence and some exasperation upon those young upstarts who think they know it all and think they can do your job with their hands tied behind their backs, remembering your own youthful arrogance. How many 'Management posts' have you been in to date? And isn't any promotion 'right place/right time'? I can assure you that isn't exclusive to the public sector. And I can assure you you'd feel anger and offence that, if, as a manager, you were expected to 'prove' your credentials to the youngsters all the time to gain their approval. Oh, how many 'stupid decisions' you can see with your black'n'white thinking turn out to have been made with the shades of grey that are reality, shaping them!

And finally, sadly (and yes, controversially) it is my opinion that the reality is that for some managerial positions, you really do need to be full-time. The NHS has been 'good' in trying not to penalise its largely female workforce for going PT but yes, you do sometimes see the result is less than 'joined up' thinking.

You can't have it both ways.

Xenia

Don't use Cornwall as an example for your argument because the economy here is not at all 'typical' of the rest of the UK.

Historically solicitors were paid less in local government but the balance has now swung. If you compare like with like i.e compare a slicitor doing childcare in local government and a high street solicitor doing the same work, the salaries will be about the same but when you add in public sector benefits the remuneration package will be better in local government.