Labour. Didn't take long!

[mr wilks]

Ive got a proposal that should help balance public finances & at the same time do away with the public / private divide so create a fairness in society feeling we can all enjoy ( including the self employed )
Might sound radical but hear me out no matter what employment status you are , private sector , public sector , self employed .
You get paid & from that pay you save a portion for your retirement , you choose the amount you contribute the amount you receive the amount . Pretty simple eh ? Not exactly radical , fair yes though maybe not popular with some ?
Its rarely disclosed or discussed publicly but a decent % of every households council tax goes to pay the pensions of retired council workers ( up to 30% of the yearly payment )
H t f is that ok when many can't even afford their own pensions or council tax payment for that matter year on year rises it will become completely unaffordable for most within 10 years if not before .
No matter the party the UK needs a major overhaul very soon that requires logic & common sense principals , will it happen ? Doubtful

 

[Nanu]

Pensions, private or state should be the same. The more you put in the more you get out. The less you put in the less you get out. Simples.

 

[pvr]

Pensions, private or state should be the same. The more you put in the more you get out. The less you put in the less you get out. Simples.

And managed by a pension fund like in other countries and k not paid for via taxation

 

[Pondrew]

And managed by a pension fund like in other countries and k not paid for via taxation

Local authorities have their own separate departments who 'look after' or 'manage' Council employees' pensions aswell. No paying ongoing 'management fees' to a pension company for them.
Those employees are also paid for from the public purse, of course.

Simple fact is that because those in power are 'public servants' paid for by the public, they can't help but treat everybody else who works in the public sector as 'one of us' and need to be prioritised over the rest of us who pay the bills.
It is a very similar attitude whichever party is in power nowadays.

 

[Pondrew]

ALL public sector jobs are 'graded' too. There are pay scales associated with these (really complicated of course) grades.
To move up the 'grades' you don't need to be any good at what you do, as they are increased with time. If you are the worst, laziest, work-shy idiot in a public sector job, you will automatically move up grades every few years.
That certainly doesn't happen in any private sector industry I have come in contact with. Generally pay rises are awarded on merit.

My wife works in a school so is a 'civil servant' (sort of. She is paid by a company who run the school but the money comes from Central Government). She was on a pay 'grade'. She started looking for another job, as she was fed up with all the bullshit associated with working in a school. Her employers heard she was looking, so offered her a pay grade increase up to the maximum for her specific job to stay.
She got a 30% pay increase overnight and does the same job she did before. And, of course, along with the pay increase comes the relative increase in employer pension contributions
That (I hope) would NEVER happen in the private sector.

 

[Mr Tidy]

Well for a bit of spin on this I only ever worked in the private sector, but financial service industries generally had good pension schemes - which public service workers wanted to emulate!

Anyway I left my last proper job in 2010 and did some part-time work until that all went wrong thanks to new management in 2015, so I left.

I was 56 then with no mortgage and getting pensions from 3 different final salary schemes, and haven't worked since as I was banking on getting a bonus from my State pension next year.

With the Labour (does Sir Kier even know what labour is?) party in charge I'm not feeling so positive.

 

[MikeyH]

ALL public sector jobs are 'graded' too. There are pay scales associated with these (really complicated of course) grades.
To move up the 'grades' you don't need to be any good at what you do, as they are increased with time. If you are the worst, laziest, work-shy idiot in a public sector job, you will automatically move up grades every few years.
That certainly doesn't happen in any private sector industry I have come in contact with. Generally pay rises are awarded on merit.

My wife works in a school so is a 'civil servant' (sort of. She is paid by a company who run the school but the money comes from Central Government). She was on a pay 'grade'. She started looking for another job, as she was fed up with all the bullshit associated with working in a school. Her employers heard she was looking, so offered her a pay grade increase up to the maximum for her specific job to stay.
She got a 30% pay increase overnight and does the same job she did before. And, of course, along with the pay increase comes the relative increase in employer pension contributions
That (I hope) would NEVER happen in the private sector.

However your wife is obviously well respected by the school, does a good job and for these reasons they didn't want to loose her. I would imagine the same would happen with a valued worker in a private company.

 

[TitanTim]

ALL public sector jobs are 'graded' too. There are pay scales associated with these (really complicated of course) grades.
To move up the 'grades' you don't need to be any good at what you do, as they are increased with time. If you are the worst, laziest, work-shy idiot in a public sector job, you will automatically move up grades every few years.
That certainly doesn't happen in any private sector industry I have come in contact with. Generally pay rises are awarded on merit.

My wife works in a school so is a 'civil servant' (sort of. She is paid by a company who run the school but the money comes from Central Government). She was on a pay 'grade'. She started looking for another job, as she was fed up with all the bullshit associated with working in a school. Her employers heard she was looking, so offered her a pay grade increase up to the maximum for her specific job to stay.
She got a 30% pay increase overnight and does the same job she did before. And, of course, along with the pay increase comes the relative increase in employer pension contributions
That (I hope) would NEVER happen in the private sector.

That's not strictly true to be honest, might be where your wife worked but these days isnt the norm. I can't speak for all Local Authorities as I worked for a County Council, but would imagine most follow the same guidelines these days. Basically you have the job grade lets say 16 to 20k per year. Within that grade you might have say 3 pay scales and within each pay scale you might have 3 pay spinal column points. So when you start the job you start at the bottom of scale 1 spinal column 1. You do a year and then progress to spinal column 2 then another year to spinal column 3. Your then at the top of scale 1. To progress onto scale 2 you then need to show that you're competent enough to move up onto scale 2 from your work track record. So basically if you did no work, loafed about etc you may not progress onto the next scale in your grade and basically you will be stuck at that point. Potentially you could be reallocated to a lower grade job befitting of your work status or lack of it. So really it's simply not true once in post you can keep going up in your job if you sit around doing nothing. Just doesn't work like that anymore.

Most Local Authorities these days and have for many years adopted a type of performance related pay so you have to demonstrate competency to move up the pay grades. This is usually measured through a weekly 121 with your manager and a 6 monthly personal performance review to go over the previous 6 months agreed working targets.

I think the stigma of years ago where especially Local Authority departments were over staffed with people sitting around has always stuck but these days as where I worked staff were slowly dwindling and once people left the posts were frozen and not replaced so the staff left are generally expected to take on the extra work from unfulfilled posts. Hardly surprising stress levels have increased etc.

Tim.

 

[mr wilks]

Stress levels increase so bad @TitanTim that staff have no choice but retire early just like my sister ( a social worker ) who then went back part time :wink:
You can discuss all you like but the whole public / private sector debate should be buried , there is no longer the divide there once was so why should the private sector contribute to the public sectors pensions at the same time they have to fund their own ?

 

[Nanu]

Quote This is usually measured through a weekly 121 with your manager and a 6 monthly personal performance review to go over the previous 6 months agreed working targets.

This is true. This was the system in the Gambling Commission but it was not all that it appeared to be. Yes we had 6 monthly and annual performance targets but these were formulated by us then agreed with your line manager. However, these were often ambiguous and easy to achieve as we had a 360 degrees feedback appraisal system whereby your line managers performance was assessed by his team. If he dissed us we did likewise.

One of my targets which I was quite proud of and achieved every time was "that I would endeavour to achieve excellence in all that I do". Looks great on an appraisal form but If you think about it, its almost impossible not to achieve it. In 13 years nobody ever challenged it as a target

 

[TitanTim]

Stress levels increase so bad @TitanTim that staff have no choice but retire early just like my sister ( a social worker ) who then went back part time :wink:
You can discuss all you like but the whole public / private sector debate should be buried , there is no longer the divide there once was so why should the private sector contribute to the public sectors pensions at the same time they have to fund their own ?

Yeah, instances of staff comitting suicide at some Local Authorities so I guess its an issue

Tim.