Public sector faces pay cuts, says Alistair Darling

[mateykatie]

ALISTAIR DARLING, the chancellor, today warns public sector workers they need to follow the example of the private sector and accept wage cuts if they want to hang on to their jobs.

Signalling an assault on public sector pay and bonuses, starting with the highest-paid employees, Darling said it was time for a change of culture.

?What is being paid has sometimes lost the relationship it ought to have with what someone actually does. Once that happens, it?s not only unfair, it?s actually grossly inefficient,? he said in an interview with The Sunday Times.

He cited the example of private sector firms, two-thirds of which are planning wage freezes or cuts this year as an alternative to redundancies.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6999958.ece

I wish Alistair Darling was PM instead of Brown. He seems to be one of the few remaining Labour politicians who is on rare occasions honest, instead of spouting the Brown/Balls "Labour investment versus Tory cuts" lies.

very interesting..I work for the public and a lot of your/my tax goes on people doing a half arsed job in the private sector..might not have my pension but they make at least 5 grand more than me as a starting salary..contrary to popular belief public sector workers are just that..workers..no special privillages(sp)..tax breaks.etc..we pay the same tax and services as you...before everything went tits up we were being hit but suddenly they needed us..it wont last long...small government is just as bad as big imo...all shafting us

ReallyTired - I can believe it actually about the 2k thing.

I was a carer in the private sector I earned £5.50 an hour (Was the minimum wage at the time).

If I'd got a similar post in the public sector I would have earned approx 6.50 an hour.......

For a 37hr a week job that's just under 2k a year more (before tax).

our wages have been frozen for the last 2 yrs at the high end of the pay grade in the DWP...imagine everything has gone up ...but not your wages!...it sucks

dont believe the hype...most public sector workers imo are underpaid and undervalued..

I think the problem is there is such a vast difference in jobs/wage levels between different levels of both sectors.
Private - from cleaners/carers to bank bosses
Public - refuse men, cleaners etc to heads of council.

So depending on the job/position you compare you could 'prove' anything.

At the bottom of public sector you can be earning minimum wage for being assaulted daily. If these workers dont get even cost of living why wouldnt they leave and work in Tesco etc for more money, safer job and more respect from the Government

I too work in public sector. It doesn't matter who gets in at election time we're in for huge cuts - even more so if the Torys get in!

Most of us are highly educated but underpaid and undervalued. You wouldn't believe the level of education of some of my colleagues and what they get paid. Don't believe the 2k thing!

I do think that the wages and bonuses at the top should be restricted though!

I work for the public sector too, in one of the most successful areas. We are self-funded (i.e. no call on tax payers, all funded by fees), and have consistently given the treasury millions of pounds a year.

Except last year.

So now we are facing privatisation of some areas (which have been told they cannot compete so will be diretly outsourced with no comparison of actual costs), and over 2000 redundancies of well-trained, experienced professionals.

EssenceofJack is spot on, the 2k thing is not arrived at by comparing like-for-like.

btw, if i worked in the private sector, i'd earn approx 10k more than i do now (but without the job conditions etc). Yes i am looking elsewhere, as are many of my colleagues. And services will suffer as a result of this blinkered planning, any one who thinks otherwise is slightly deluded.

Interesting point MammKernow, at my local council we're having trouble as we're not bringing in as much income from planning applications, land charge searches and similar paid-for services hit by the recession. It means big cuts in those areas and in other services to balance the books, but when the economy picks up again, we'll have fewer staff to do more work. Not great.

Page 8. It coems from the Office for NAtional STatistics
Average regular pay (excluding bonuses) in the public sector was £455 per week in November
2009. In the three months to November 2009 regular pay in the public sector rose by 3.8 per cent
on a year earlier.

Average regular pay (excluding bonuses) in the private sector was £414 per week in November
2009. In the three months to November 2009 regular pay in the private sector rose by 0.2 per cent
on a year earlier.

(455-414) * 52 = £2132

yep, I'm on the public sector gravy train at £6.76 per hour

CakeyWakey sounds like a very similar situation, short-sighted and knee jerk reaction. I know exactly how you feel

catinthehat2 not sure what is classed as regular pay? And i would love to have a 3.8% pay rise, we're still waiting for any pay rise from last year, no hope for this year. Re your link, the average including bonuses shows a £12 a week diff, which still surprises me but is a lot less than the total without bonuses. Hold on, just noticed they sneakily include the bailed out banks as public sector now, so that will have quite a big impact...

Prob is, in the good times the public sector does not match the private sector and does not rake in bonuses and huge pay rises. But it is still expected to take a hit in the bad times.

Not a huge impact, no. The 'nationalised banks' are around 0.225k out of 6.093m workers at Sept 09, if you conservatively assume all 'Other' additions Sept 07 to Sept 09 are bankers. And as others have pointed out, that includes counter staff IT etc.

.225m not k

Quite some document to get through, but page 41 shows pay split by type and the figures are:

ave public sector pay (excl financial services) = £450.

ave financial services pay = £520.

So think it prob does make quite a difference. However, i'm not having a pop at the banking sector, so fwiw:

manufacturing = £489
construction = £541
distribution/hotels/restaurants = £286

So i'd think the last group would swing the average quite a bit really. Altho some of the tables are a bit confusing so i could have it wrong...

dh works in finance in the public sector. The majority of his issues in balancing his budget come from ridiculous contracts that have been signed up to at a national level which do not represent value for money. These deals have been done by civil servants way up the pay scale from him, the same people who then ask him to deliver x% savings year on year at the moment.

I work in the NHS and there is a partial vacancy freeze at the moment which I can't see changing in the foreseeable future. The public sector cuts are here already and will only get bigger I'm sure.

for this, especially: 'When I see the first attempts being made to rebalance the economy away from finance and towards industry I might be a little less fucked off at people dancing around cheering because some ordinary people are going to have their pay packet cut and have difficulty paying their mortgage.'

MillyR is right:

"Most people in both sectors are just ordinary people."

Exactly.

There is no reason for anyone to be happy to hear that ordinary people are going to lose their job or get their salary cut.

Apart from anything else, if you work in the private sector your boss will be delighted if public sector pay and conditions are eroded because it will make it far easier to cut your pay and conditions, as you will have fewer choices.

Why else do you think the CBI are so keen on public sector cuts?

catinthehat, one big problem with those staistics is that it is average pay.
Public sector includes minimum wage up to councillors but private wage includes the millions of people working for minimum wage or barely above, this is going to drag the average down.

i work for a local authority and a lot of money could be saved if it was actually run as a business and people were held accountable for the work they do. THere is an awful lot of dead wood (if these people worked in teh private sector they would have been sacked years ago), as well as a lot of really good people. The highly bureaucratic style wastes a lot of money, consultants are brought in frequently at great expense and often don't make any significant or meaningful changes and there's always a rush at the end of the financial year to spend money (so that you don't lose it ). The system needs overhauling to function properly. that isn't the fault of the average worker however.

Hmm! Well I already struggle every month with my public sector salary (take home pay £849 per month) and as a single parent it's a struggle - take out rent, council tax, electricity, phone, water and it doesn't leave me with very much.

So I can tell all you people huffing and puffing about the public sector that if "they" (whoever they be) cut my salary I will be the first person linbing up with my resignation letter. I will not struggle any harder than I already do each month - the state (and that means all you banging on about the public sector) can keep me.

Okay? Flippant