[Closed] how do comparable public / private sector jobs differ?

2 days a month off for been on time

WTF ?

I get less than 80% of what the consultants that work along side me get.

is 'on time' same as on-call?

it very much depends on the job you do, the seniority of it, the scarcity of talent, location, industry sector, etc.
you have to take into account the concept of 'total reward' too - salary, bonus and other monetary incentives, perquisites, benefits, leave, flexible working
.
the public/ private sector divide is just a simple concept that was easy for politicians to 'reduce' 5 or so years ago - to look at any real gaps you have to look at roles in isolation and compare like with like

Ok I'm a Paramedic Team Leader which means I work as a Paramedic and also as a first line Manager. For that I get about £34200, I have 13 staff to look after, one 24 hour vehicle and a station. I oversee the stores for the station, clinical issues, infection control, Health & Safety, Fire Precautions, Monitoring Training, I often have a Student to Mentor, list goes on really but you get the idea.

Because I've worked for them for over 20 years I get around 9 weeks holiday per year, NHS Pension of course the one they've just told me I have to work 66 for, Sick Pay but it's now monitored tightly and will become more so as sickness costs a significant amount it's not as straight forward as getting 6 months full and 6 months half. I could be finished if the problem was likely to keep me off for any length of time. I get a shift bonus for working nights, days, weekends and bank holidays this is averaged at 25% per month which gives me a nice boost. Officially 37.5 Hours per week but it's rarely that but I do get overtime at time and half for the first hour per day and then can come in late at 15 minute blocks after that hour or claim.

It took me in total 5 years of training and experience to reach the level of Paramedic, although it's very different now.

I'm in no disillusion I'm on a good wage and conditions now, I say now as about 7 years ago before we were reviewed I'd been on about £25k flat, no overtime, no shift allowance and working 42 hours per week.

The point is that the incentive to join the NHS as well as it's what I wanted to do was I got a good pension. This is under threat, although I'm young if/when this goes ahead my plans for retirement need to be looked at. I will not able to continue to do this job when I'm in my 60s never mind much past mid 50s. There is little options of going elsewhere within the service to run my time out. So this is a right kick in the nuts.

Edit: I'm also at the top of my pay scale because of the number of years service I have.

Finally I'm not a Public Servant.

is there a private sector comparison Drac?

is there a private sector comparison Drac?

Manager in charge of similar amount of staff working shifts. There's no identical match of course, well there sort of is but not generally.

totalshell - a question for you. How much do you charge the local authorities for providing your Gas Reg guys? I'll wager that it's less cost effective for you to supply them than it is for the local authority to do so. Maybe they know this and they need to pay more and give better conditions to attract the right people, so that they can save themselves some cash.

Ooops I was giving an out dated wage sorry, now edited.

I went from h&s manager in private sector to more senior role in public sector.

Less money, more red tape, more holiday, lower standards and less understanding & acceptance.

I'm not going on strike.

as a mechanic I get the usual{I'm not in the UK by the way}working for a City
better hols, hours,flexibility, pension and sick
worse wages{but not by a country mile}and no overtime

We probably pay people well under half as much for programming type work as they could get in the private sector. however it is on interesting research stuff with quite flexible working, I wouldn't go back the other way even though i was paid way more.

I read a report by KPMG around 2006 that focused on exactly this subject. The conclusion was that once you equalise for all the variables, such as typical working hours, benefits especially pension etc, that the average public sector worker was, at that time, earning about 20% more than a peer in the private sector. There was a method used to find equivalent roles based on managerial responsibility, technical difficulty of the role, years training to proficiency etc, so the comparisons were pretty robust. I doubt I could fink the link to that report, but have a search and you'll find something.

when you factor out lots of variables you are about 6-10% better off wage wise in the public sector - the higher figures tend to ignor ethat public sector workers tend to be older, have been ther elonger and are more qualified
Whatever it is you cannot deny that there is an overall premium for publci sector work. I suspect this has come about due to private sector wages reducing [ or not increasing as much] rather than public sector wages having become higher. Care is a good example 20 years ago there was no difference, these days public pays much higher. I suspect the manager /owner in private gets a hell of a lot more though /profit.
Whatever the reason the public sector generally gets a premium though historically this was not true.
I doubt it is true for specific areas like HR, finance, IT legal assume where they get much less than they could in private so for some areas something favourable is required

do private teachers get more than public sector teachers

Dont know, longer holidays but often have to work saturdays, whats bizare is I'm sure I read somewhere that they can buy into the teachers pension scheme.
As far as pay goes I have been teaching 5 years (one of those unqualified and training) and I currently get 27 000 which should go up to 29 200 next year plus an extra £3000 for three years for being great (or because I agreed not to leave when offered another job). This year I've been responsible for training and assessing a newly qualified teacher, next year I'll be doing some sort of thing to justify my extra pay just not sure what yet.

clarify a couple of points.. the two days a month off is for them arriving on time all the other days of the month..
we now charge per job rather by the hour but my labour content is just under £30ph inc. vat. all parts consumables etc are supplied by the LA. i have my vehicles and insurances and tools and staff wages and NI to pay from that. in addition my lads have to pay for there own qualifications every three years the LA lads get a week off paid to study and all exams paid for.

As a comparison with the paramedic my mrs is a Pharmacist manages 8 staff works 46 hrs per week 6 weeks hols LOADS of grief from upstairs for 40k in the private sector all qualifications study time paid for final salary pension scheme at 66 yrs

in addition my lads have to pay for there own qualifications every three years the LA lads get a week off paid to study and all exams paid for.

I pay for mine every 2 year, I've just sorted it to be renewed next month.

As a comparison with the paramedic my mrs is a Pharmacist manages 8 staff works 46 hrs per week 6 weeks hols LOADS of grief from upstairs for 40k in the private sector all qualifications study time paid for final salary pension scheme at 66 yrs

Paramedics earn around £26k p.a. and get a lot of grief from patients, other professions and from upstairs for meeting targets.

Edit: Ok so you can see I've attached this. Paramedics start in band 5 and Paramedic Team Leaders/Supervisors the title varies start at 6. IF you've moved from 5 you go up one position in 6. So you can say the quotes I give are based on pretty much Max.

Shift enhancement varies from trust to trust and depends on the shift pattern. Some might get the minimum some the max. Like I said we're not too badly paid but it involves having to work shifts to give a good boost and comes with a lot of responsbility which is gaining all the time.

Private sector, usually produce, manufacture,service or sell something, even just advice, think management training consultancies, if they fail to achieve the above, they go bust.

Publicly funded sector,usually just offer advice,and fulfill their statutory duties, roads, education and social services amongst others,dont need to make a profit, and put up the council tax to raise funds.

Paramedics deserve every penny they get, but probably will be one of the easy bits of the NHS to be privatised, if the condems get in agian.

I suspect it's very hard to find like for like to make a really fair comparison.
But I do know a union rep (PCS) I used to live with had been convinced by the union that he was being done over and victimised by the politicians and any evidence to the contrary was wrong or he 'didn't have time to read that stuff'.
The main conclusion I came to was that even if the facts were that he was better off for being public sector, he would remain angry that he was getting the worse deal. He certainly didn't work as hard as I did.

Now I wouldn't for a minute suggest all public sector workers are like this (none of my friends who work in the NHS are like that) but it did strike me that the union were just as political as the politicians...
I think we should see the current strike threat as a political action rather than having any basis in fact, especially when comparing terms and conditions with the private sector.

Which IMO is doing their members and the general public a great disservice. maybe they could accept the fact that the population is getting older and living longer and what they used to get in terms of pensions can no longer be provided and get on with fairly and openly negotiating a decent settlement... private sector isn't in a great place either...

you ok project that was almost neutral from you there
I work in advice and have worked for both the public and private sector.
You get much better advice from the public sector as I have no targets to achieve ,no agenda to serve and nothing to sell you.

I think we should see the current strike threat as a political action rather than having any basis in fact, especially when comparing terms and conditions with the private sector.

Which IMO is doing their members and the general public a great disservice.

Thing is, when I started in my public sector job I was told that the wages were rubbish but the pension was reasonable. Over time, the wages have gradually got better and the pension stayed reasonable.

Now, all of a sudden over the last couple of years, I'm being told that my pension is a national disgrace and I should basically live in a cave and eat grass when I retire.

I've been a nurse for 25 years.

I work bloody hard, doing 3 weekends out of four.

I do 5 weeks of nights out of every 14.

I get a salary of £32,000.

It's really poor that all of a sudden the work I have put in for 25, that's [b]twenty five[/b] years is considered to be worth so little that I shouldn't get the pension that I signed up for all those years ago.

The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.

Junkyard reducing pensions is all about reducing costs so parts of the council and governmnet, nhs can be either sold off or just handed over to the private sector.

La,s have privatised school transport, school meals, some schools by making them academies,refuse and recycling collection, bus services, parks and gardens, home care, and lots more.

The Nhs, is planning to do the same with, Audiology, opthalmology, EMI, mental illness, patient transport, and paramedics emergency medicine on the road, all are easily split from the main hospital mother ship, then we have the fragmentation of the dental service and the Gp out of hours service, soon to be followed by the Gp service, ever noticed all the new signs going up, making all these standalone units look as if they really are stand alone units, while still for now part of the Nhs.

Sadly for the nhs split up they will all have to make a return for the shareholder, and possibly the sevice may be better, or worse as peoples health is means tested.

big unions such as GMB and Unison happily gave away all the early retirement rights within my companies scheme

so no sympathy for their other members. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If we had to accept reality it's only right they do rather than me funding the benefits their union gave away for me.

I should basically live in a cave and eat grass when I retire

So you bitter_n_daft then?

totalshell - I calculate that as your services costing more than the councils own services. That's the thing with slagging off the public sector workers - it often comes from people who work for companies who charge the public sector more than the public sector could do the job for itself.

I calculate that as your services costing more than the councils own services.

how, have you done a FOIA request to get the stats?

So you bitter_n_daft then

[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]
[b]The real problem is not public sector pensions, it's crap private sector pensions.[/b]

...and the other thing is, of course, that anyone of you could have decided to be a nurse, anytime you wanted to.

You too could be looking forward to a gold plated retirement, you just had to join up and do it. Instead we had to recruit from the Phillipines, from India, from ****stan, because not enough of you hard working citizens would even consider it.

Typing on my iPhone on way to jobs and on way back from JY.

For me, roughly 50ukp per hour gross for the NHS, including allowances for on call and out of hours, and the going rate privately is at least twice that, in some cases significantly more.

From what I know, accountants and lawyers of equivalent seniority expertise etc. are collecting somewhat more and probably have more in their pension pot as well. Doesn't particularly worry me either way. As a profession the possibility of going freelance en mass was under serious discussion a few years back. We would have gone for the barristers chambers model in all likelihood. ? more money but almost certainly a lot more hassle and a lot less time to spend on behalf of patients.

What does nark me is that there are 3000+ people in my hospital supporting the 80 consultants and giving us the best possible chance to do our job properly. Many are not well paid, their pensions account for the low overall average and they appear to be in danger of getting the shitty end of the stick, not helped by stories [url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-13818126 ]like this.[/url]. A couple of years ago the nice people then in charge of our local hospital "agreed" to cut the workforce by a third and then came back to us and asked if we had any ideas as to how this could be done whilst "maintaining services". I could cry sometimes.

Currently a Crew Manager in FS for 20yrs for £31,263 42hr wk [b]NO shift[/b] allowance for working weekends/nights. 3yr pay freeze and 11% of my salary is paid into my gold plated pension, which will give me enough money to buy a small Caribbean Island to retire to at 55.

I'm a work shy, pool playing, layabout with 3 partime jobs who gets to sleep all night in my bed whilst at work.

what's to not to hate about me?

It all part of the government spin to get the private sector to despise the public sector as if we are the root of all evil. One thing I have learnt in my 20yrs in the FS is that the public really dont care about cuts to FS all they want is a fire engine to turn up quick when they dial 999, however the guarantee of that happening is diminishing very soon.

When I joined 20yrs ago [b]I had [/b] to join the fire service pension scheme, there was no opt out option then. I now believe that I have now been mis sold this pension from my employer.

Its now to late for me to make realistic alternative arrangements to my pension scheme other than dying.

I would accept the proposed pensin changes if the MP's pension scheme was changed 1st however its very convenient that their review was postponed.

B

One thing I have learnt in my 20yrs in the FS is that the public really dont care about cuts to FS all they want is a fire engine to turn up quick when they dial 999

😕 I'm not sure where you get that from........in my experience most people are highly sympathetic with the FS concerning cuts, and most are capable of joined-up thinking and figuring out that cuts in the FS are likely to reduce how quickly a fire engine to turns up.

This is backed up an opinion poll carried out less than a year ago :

[url= http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/2010/09/13/fire-service-cuts-opposed-in-poll-115875-22558178/ ]Fire service cuts opposed in poll[/url]

[i].....more than nine out of 10 wanted the number of frontline firefighters to stay the same, or be increased.[/i]

in my experience most people are highly sympathetic with the FS concerning cuts, and most are capable of joined-up thinking ....

If you can write that honestly then you quite clearly live in lala land. Do you really think that most people in the UK are capable of joined up thinking?

Do you really think that most people in the UK are capable of joined up thinking?

I said "in my experience" ......... maybe I don't hang about with idiots ? Maybe that's why I find this place so fascinating ? Maybe you should come to lala land too ? Maybe you should read the link and see how the poll commissioned by the FBU backs up my claim ?

Or maybe you should stop drinking so much coffee and relax a wee bit.

Maybe you're a bit more uptight than me, and that's why you come out with stuff like "you quite clearly live in lala land" ?

I'm not sure where you get that from.

being in the job for 20yrs?

This is backed up an opinion poll carried out less than a year ago :

Poor attempt at a troll.

A You gov poll of 1000 people commissioned by FBU probably filled by the FBU executive.

YouGov allow that sort of thing ?

[i]YouGov surveyed 1,020 adults between 16 –27 August 2010. All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from a YouGov Plc survey commissioned by The Fire Brigade Union. The survey was carried out online among a nationally representative sample of 1020 adults aged 18+ in the UK between 16-27 August 2010. Data is weighted to be nationally representative based on age, gender, social grade and region. [/i]

The last you gov poll I was asked to fill in via FBU, was not IP logged, nor was I require to login with anything so I could do as many times as I wanted. So I tend not to believe anything from them. A poll of 1000 people isn't really a fair representation of the UK public IMHO.

YouGov generally makes a tidy little profit out of polls which you claim are useless - £5.7 million profit in 2007. Which begs the question why.

Of course you are fully entitled to dismiss all YouGov polls as complete nonsense, I don't have any problem with that - why should I ? 8)

YouGov generally makes a tidy little profit out of polls which you claim are useless - £5.7 million profit in 2007. Which begs the question why.

I imagine it's because it manages surveys to get the answer the client wants, there is a classic "Yes Minister" scene on this re national service IIRC

I'm not sure why'd you want to ops out of the old FS pension. Isn't is 11% contribution from you and 24% from your employer I know it changed in 2006 for new starters.

it manages surveys to get the answer the client wants

In that case they will out of business very quickly, which will be a huge relief to bruneep no doubt. Pollsters rely on their reputation.

Drac has given you some figures re paramedic pay. To give you a comparison, the private sector Paramedics who have been brought in over the past few months earn approx. £6-£7 [b]per hour[/b] more than I do and are paid for the full 12 hour shift, whereas myself and colleagues are paid for 11 hours as we do not get paid for our 2, 1/2 hour meal breaks. In addition, they get their travel costs paid and are put up in a hotel with dinner and breakfast included. In terms of actual income, this effectively equates to approx. £72- £84 per 12 hour shift compared to your average NHS Paramedic.

As many are effectively self-employed they have all the negatives and positives that go with that ie. no paid holidays, sickness pay, job security etc.

To put this in very roughly calculated 'real' terms, a contract Paramedic working the same number of shifts/days (including holidays) would earn somewhere in the region of £12k a year more than I do.

Not that folk'll listen but:

I'm a teacher at a private school in Edinburgh.

Paid about £1600 more per annum, lunches free as we are on duty. Same pension as state.
As far as i can see the differences are, apart from pay, many.

Kids better behaved parents a better more media savvy type of pushy (you won't get punched in the face but the papers love a good "at a top school" story). I am at present in talks with parents whose kid didn't read the info he was sent and so cocked up the timings in an exam.
I do rugby and athletics as well as DofE so some weekends and most saturdays gone through term but i do get dive trips, overseas expeds etc.
Longer holidays but see above. I do think more is expected of us but we do have more freedom in the classroom to let lessons go where they will.

Summed up as; more work, more expected, more pay, more holidays.

(but about to be screwed by the pension change even more so than the public sector)

more work, more expected, more pay, more holidays.

less classroom stress, not sure about the more expected and more work, I'd be suprised, maybe just different things expected or done. I actually was under the impression that state school teachers get paid a little more but apparently I'm wrong. So the pension is the same, how does that work then?

More expected and more work, for example we report up to 5 times a year, "short report, parents evening then a "full report" at the end of each term. The less classroom stress is a given but you'd perhaps be surprised at the amount there still is. Teenagers are teenagers after all.

As for pay, it is because we are seen to do more hours (in the case of the school i'm at). For me the teaching day doesn't finish until 5pm Mon/Tues and Thurs as i have DofE and Rugby sessions also saturdays have reffing or training. 5 or six weekends go on DofE and i run a mountaineering club. These are all "voluntary".
We're a day school but at a boarding school you get a lot more but you will be on duty one night a week and have saturday morning classes then sport.

As for the pension, SPPA, like most other scottish teachers. A pot which is empty as far as i can see and yes something needs to be done but why hit us with three killers when, because my pay is linked to the state sector, there is no payrise against 5% inflation. (i know join the queue of people in that same boat.)

more work, more expected, more pay, more holidays.

What are the class sizes like?

What proportion of kids have SENs? What's truancy like? How many kids have social/emotional disorders?

Edit: sorry - that sounds like an attack. It's not. Apologies.

My point (if there is one...) is that there are many variables between different roles so comparing them between workplaces/companies/state+private can sometimes be very difficult.

Like in the context of being a paramedic, I'd assume that the work of a paramedic in the private sector that deals with industrial injuries (is that what private paramedics do? I'm clueless) is very different from an NHS paramedic working in Soho that deals with a lot of "difficult" (itinerant or substance-abusing or whatever) clients, even if they did the same number of treatments/incidents per shift, had same number of hours per shift etc.

What proportion of kids have SENs? What's truancy like? How many kids have social/emotional disorders?

Even within the public sector, there are these variables. I used to be a primary school teacher - my NQT year class had 50% SEN and 20% with English as second language. I lasted less than 4 terms before I left and vowed never to set foot in a classroom again.

(I should have listened to the previous post-holder, who was ex-police. He only left the police after being stabbed, but walked out of that job and advised me not to apply.)

I'm now teaching A-level ICT in a sixth form college. Same pay scale, completely different job!

i would love a career average pension

of course i have absolutely no intention of finding all of the money that ive already been paid, and spent, that would have been channelled into that pension

in fact, if im asked to, im likely to go on strike

Truancy is low although we do have some.

SEN's at the moment 30% of school population BUT there is a certain degree of parent pushiness for extra time in exams so likely true value is the approx 20% as per national average.
Most classes 20 pupils (upper limit for practical subjects in Scotland senior schools, I teach Chemistry me) My GCSE top set had 21, but all should get A/A*. My Higher set had 14 other set 18. AS set of 8 A2 set of 6 and a "Higher to A-level in a year" set of 8.
Probably have at least one kid in each set for whom English is a second language.

All kids have social and emotional disorders its how they manifest and are treated that is the issue. We have kids with drug and drink problems we take kids who have been "asked to leave" other schools with all sorts of issues but then we have the ability to enforce a two strikes and you're out rule. Although we do try to address these issues with counselling etc. Also have the parents who think we are a baby sitting service and moan when the kids are 30 minutes late back from a three day DofE trip but won't say thanks for taking them. Or my favourite a complaint that we were 36 hours late back from a dive trip (yeah boo-hoo) and hadn't phoned them every half hour to keep them appraised of the situation, then it was inconvenient for them to be picked up at 8pm on the Sunday evening so could we just look after them for an hour or so until the dinner had finished.

Yes, in the main it's an easier teaching environment but don't think that indies have no problems.

AS set of 8 A2 set of 6

22 in my biggest AS set, which I suspect will be 23 next year. Compared to the 36 7-year-olds my wife had in her last Y3 class, I'm pretty lucky 🙂

All schools, state or private, come with different pressures and problems. I think teaching is one area where there's probably quite a lot of parity between the private and public sectors.

The problem is, there aren't that many jobs where equivalent roles can be found.

Mike i agree about the parity across sectors, although many wouldn't. I do get told on many occasions how my life is so easy compared to state sector and it's good that the kids "respect" me. I reckon it's more to do with getting involved either standing on a rugby pitch or getting up a hill with them, guiding them through UCAS or sitting with an A-level paper going through each mark, than they are rich therefore good. We have many kids on full bursaries so no cost at all to the parents.

The AS sets would be huge if it weren't for the Higher course being offered (we run a mixed economy in the S6/S7 years,).

I teach Chemistry me) My GCSE top set had 21, but all should get A/A*. My Higher set had 14 other set 18. AS set of 8 A2 set of 6 and a "Higher to A-level in a year" set of 8.

poor lamb 😆

I teach triple science gcse physics to two sets of 30 all should get A*-B a triple biology who are the same size and same grades. Two science double gcse class pne of 30 another of c-d borderline kids of about 25.....then a Btec science group of 23 all with SEN, and a bottom set year 8 class with lots of sen. I also teach AS biology group of 20 and an A2 group of 8. And finally I have a sixth form tutor group. Next year I'll having triple chemistry too to make the full set

Jesus!

My school's harder than your school etc.

I know two departmental heads in edinburgh, one in an independent school and one in a state school. They work equally hard, get the same paid for trips abroad each year, have similar kids to teach and get paid the same. Both are excellent teachers and the kids respect them for that.

I have had the pleasure of watching a number of classes taken by less able teachers in those same schools and they were hopeless, the kids ran riot and had no respect for their teachers and learned nothing.

Teachers in any type of school will have a hard time with the kids behaviour if they are crap at teaching their subject.

A-A you wouldn't get those set sizes in Scotland as 20 is the max for practical subjects, in fact our new labs were built with a max of 20 factored in.

SbZ shut, it that wasn't my best lesson :evil:.

Oh and we had a stoater of a pupil drinking in the loos a couple of years ago.

Basically excused to go to the loo comes back plastered as had a couple of her mates to different lessons. Hauled out to deputy's office while search is on for the drinks container (all us state educated staff are looking for the old plastic bottle topped with spirits nicked from the drinks cabinet). So much amused when we find the empty bottle of Moet. 😯

My wife also teaches at an Edinburgh private sector school but has previously taught at comprehensives, including a couple of pretty tough ones. Undoubtedly it's better at the private school (and she much prefers it) but it can still be hard work and there is a lot of pressure for success. She also does a fair amount of extra-curriculur stuff, as do most of the teachers at her school.

Go on epic, which part of town?

I am a nurse. diploma and a degree. 25 years experience. Basic pay is £14 an hour. Now how many folk are as well qualified and experienced but work for that sort of money in the private sector?

Morningside.

phew, can't be lambasted for telling tales.

I have worked in government jobs for 20+ years and had several promotions.

I cannot afford to buy a home of my own on my pay grade. The people who work on my grade or any of the grades below me generally rent (often just rooms or bedsits) in poor areas of the city, as unless they have a partner who brings good additional income they cannot afford to buy a home either. Yes, some people get paid very well indeed in government related jobs and this pushes up the average statistics, but the larger [i]number[/i] of people are not earning much. Many are way below £20,000 a year after years of trying their best, often in caring or service roles.

When I started work joining the pension scheme was compulsory and the employer created the pension contract. I have complied with that contract for 20 years+ obeying the rules and deductions set by my employer. Now the government wants to change it and I am being told by newspapers etc that I am a greedy bad person, for complying with the contract of my job. I will have no home when I retire, I will need my pension to rent a bedsit.

I find the attitude of many people not very kind. On this topic and often in general, people say 'oh those people have decent sick pay, oh they have a weeks more holiday than me' and instead of wanting to bring everyone up to a decent level of living, to work towards as many people as possible in the UK having fair pay, decent holiday allowance, the burden of fear removed if they are unfortunate enough to become longer term sick, people instead say 'its not fair they have more than me, bring them down to my level' which is only making their own lives worse in the long term. Bring them down to my level' is a jealous, sulky and short sighted view - there is [i]always[/i] someone worse off then yourself - so where do you stop - when everyone is brought down to living in a cardboard box on 50p an hour pay? Instead work to improve the standards and conditions of employment for all and by default for yourself, your family and any kids you have in future employment.

Think long term/big picture instead of tearing down lower earners to a level that suits the truly well off and their profit margins /greedy ruthless gains from privatisations.

/applauds Midnighthour.

It's interesting just how few private sector have posted, granted it's personal thing and my normal response is "nothing do with you" but I'd thought and show some truth. I'm fortunate but I got there by keep up with my training, working hard and loyalty over the last 21 years.

OHI - You were being complimented there. It was one of the others in the other department who was a bit crap - not Debbie, Mike or Jimmy...

I've worked in the public sector for 20 years (NHS, civil service, university, back in the NHS). About a year ago I was approached by a private sector company and offered a job doing similar sort of work at a similar level. The private company was offering about 20% more on the basic salary + company car or £5K car allowance. On the downside I would have lost about 10 days holiday, plus employers pension contributions would have been about 5% of salary instead of 15% (and the private pension would not have been fixed benefits but subject to the vagaries of the markets). I sat down and worked it all out in terms of pay and benefits earned per day worked and they came out about equal. Things like hours worked per week and flexible working practices were also similar. The decider for me was a combination of location and keeping my holidays, so I stayed in the public sector.

+1 in applauding Midnighthour.

+2 Midnighthour.
Really well put!

I don't think it is right but,

globalisation seems to mean levelling down, everyone will be shafted as pay and conditions worsen over the next few years.

So while the private sector has been shafted for a good few years and on the whole the public sector hasn't now it is the turn of the public sector. What will it mean, outsourcing, longer hours, worse t&c's etc. Oh and the senior mangers getting more and more money.

All i can say is i was made redundant march last year, having done some temp work and have now got a permanent role, In that time the best paid roles were public sector, Not saying much though, most of the jobs i have seen advertised have been well short of 20k.

But i fail to see how it is in anyones interest to have no money in the economy, which is basically what is happening. Pay for rent, food, fuel and that is it.

Odd how with all the talk of pensions i seem to have missed any mention of MP's and their scheme being revised?

Teachers in any type of school will have a hard time with the kids behaviour if they are crap at teaching their subject.

a huge oversimplification, yes shit teachers are shit but an average teacher can get by with nice kids but would be crucified at a tough inner city school

its nothing to do with globalisation. Public sector jobs cannot be shifted overseas.

Tandem, you are wrong, some public sector jobs can't be shifted i will agree with you on that. A nurse has to be with the patient, a road sweeper where the road is.

But what of the accountant, the IT support, the call centres, etc etc. If you don't have to be in the same physical place as the end user then you can be outsourced and your pay will be at the lowest they can be justified.

Birmingham City Council has just made the decision to outsource some of its IT to India

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8552402/Birmingham-council-to-outsource-100-jobs-to-India.html ]Birmingham council to outsource 100 jobs to India[/url]

So while the private sector has been shafted for a good few years and on the whole the public sector hasn't now it is the turn of the public sector.