| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Time for a Genral Strike of all public workers? | |
| Posted by: | Adam Beamish | |
| Date/Time: | 09/07/09 12:30:00 |
| Alexandra/all, I've sat on both sides of the 'divide'. I spent 10 years working in local government, and have subsequently spent 18 months in the private sector. In terms of pay, there was little numerical difference in financial terms between my last public sector job and my current private sector job. In terms of benefits however, in the public sector I received more annual leave and my employer contributed to my pension. In the private sector, I get two benefits - my membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute is paid by my employer (worth about £250 a year - some of the Councils I worked paid for this) and a company car with fuel (which of course I am taxed on and the first car I 'inherited' was not a car I would ever have chosen and arguably cost me more in tax than I would have paid had I supplied my own car and paid my own servicing and fuel costs). Since moving to the private sector, I have gone through one redundancy (where I along with the 50 plus people in my entire regional office were made redundant) and am currently working a 4 day week with the resulting 20% salary cut (for at least 8 months of 2009) - so in real terms I am on considerably less than I was in my last public sector job. I worked hard in the public sector, and so did most of my colleagues. You get alot of grief from members of the public, and it's rare for people to say thank you. At the same time, there was never a year in the public sector I didn't get a pay rise, or felt I was at risk of redundancy/reduced working hours. I do believe the last part has changed somewhat in the last 18 months, but I still believe that Councils prefer to re-deploy staff to other areas (or to some extent 'make up' work where it doesnt' necessarily exist) than to make them redundant. I also believe there is less pressure in the public sector (depending of course upon what field of work you are). Some Councils I deal with are like 'holiday camps'. As a customer I rarely feel that I am treated with courtesy and respect, the emphasis is totally about performance statistics, which is the fault of central government. Only today I've come across a great example. I put in an application almost 11 weeks ago. Despite extensive phone calls to the Council officer, she has usually not returned my calls (which always go to voicemail) nor given me any kind of feedback. Left messages Mon, Tues and finally this morning I leave one clarifiying that if I don't get a call back by lunch I'll have to go up the ladder. Sure enough I get a call back. Informs me that application has been signed off by managers and refused on the grounds of insufficient information provided. I point out that she could have told me this before issuing the decision as the Council could have invalidated the application at any time saying "we need more info". Hardly unreasonable to ask for that as a customer. But like most Councils, the answer you get is "we're legally entitled to determine the application as you submit it, not to negotiate or discuss changes etc". Yet in this case by her own admission the Council didn't feel it could make an informed decision based upon the information provided. Helpful ? - not in the slightest. Reasonable ? - I think not. Does the Council give a damn ? - no. All she had to do was pick up the phone and either answer my calls, or ring me up, hardly asking for the earth. Until the public sector is allowed to start treating its customers like people, rather than assessing performance on statistical bullsh*t, the situation is not going to improve. |