Public Sector workers - are you feeling as exploited as I am?

[TigerseyeMum]

This is not really an 'issue' as such but more of a whinge however I am genuinely interested in how much work other people do within the public sector given the amount of cutbacks plus increased targets we have.

I suppose at the moment I feel exploited by the fact that I get paid less than £20k per year and at the moment am blocked from moving up to a grade higher as although I have completed my training the money has been spent elsewhere so I must remain at a trainee band :(

I have also been given 2-3 projects to run on top of a workload that is already higher than recommended. In some regions this work is only carried out by people 2 bands higher. I seem to end up doing overtime every week, TOIL is strictly limited so it is hard to get it approved, and besides, I do not have time to take it!

I am technically qualified to 3-4 bands higher than I am but most of those posts have been scrapped so I had to take what I could get. I took a paycut on the understanding I would go up at least 1 band when qualified and now it looks like this is not going to happen. Meanwhile we get shorter and shorter of stafff with higher and higher targets....When we complain we are told we 'should be grateful we have jobs' and apparently the plans are to close the service next year unless we impress them all with our productiveness and give us a reprieve

I wonder if my experience of working in public sector (I work in health) is similar to others? I am seriously considering jacking it in but I doubt the grass is greener

Are all areas struggling like this? I am considering jumping to another region but it could be a case of frying pan - meet fire.

Thanks for sympathy Gaelicsheep. Reason for short notice was that private sector equivilant that work had been outsourced to finally admitted that they couldn't deliver, and therefore it was returned to me, with zero time to spare. Part of me is glad that it shows a clear example of private sector not being as good as promised, and another part thinks "maybe they are short staffed and I should look that way . . . "

Referring to another issued raised on this thread, I too am sick of media representations of the public sector being a cost to the economy rather than an asset. My not-so-DSis commented, on hearing that my DH was at risk of redundancy, but that after 20 plus years of service he would get about a year's pay to see us through, that this was a drain on the public purse and he didn't deserve it! Our pay is lower than the private sector which is compensated for by better pension, sick and redundancy pay, but somehow the lower pay never gets mentioned!

I joined too late for the wonderful pension and am now onan ok one. Get decent sick pay ( good job with the stressed staff going off sick :( )but everything else is statuatory so I get annoyed at the 'gold plated jobs' we apparently have!