It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
The idea of removing the pay freeze from some public sector workers and not others is a transparent ruse to try to divide people who in most circumstances ought to be gearing up for a general strike the way they have been treated under the Tories.
It's also fairly evident that those being offered the bung are those professions that would be most damaging to the government's credibility if they went on strike. Notable that the money is coming from the Old Bill, who cannot legally strike.
The idea of removing the pay freeze from some public sector workers and not others is a transparent ruse to try to divide people who in most circumstances ought to be gearing up for a general strike the way they have been treated under the Tories.
It's also fairly evident that those being offered the bung are those professions that would be most damaging to the government's credibility if they went on strike. Notable that the money is coming from the Old Bill, who cannot legally strike.
All true, what annoys me the most is if something like this happened where I work I would not stop asking questions of the decision makers on where they expected us to cut service-wise because, guess what, they made the decision.
I struggle to listen to arguments about how there is only so much to go around when that is blatantly bullshit. It's just easier to rump us than have a sit down with some genuinely scary and powerful people and hold them to account to make them pay the correct amount of tax.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
You certainly know the tax system better than I do and what you say makes sense. The bank bit was simply me thinking out loud about what happens to all the money the FCA take in fines when banks break the rules. Does it get diverted back into public services, help to pay of government debt, given to 10 northern Irish MPs? Just wondering what actually happens to it
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
You certainly know the tax system better than I do and what you say makes sense. The bank bit was simply me thinking out loud about what happens to all the money the FCA take in fines when banks break the rules. Does it get diverted back into public services, help to pay of government debt, given to 10 northern Irish MPs? Just wondering what actually happens to it
All the fines levied by the UK regulator go to the treasury and a lot then went onto charities particularly military, it paid for some memorial refurbishments I recall and an air ambulance. As they are 'one off' fines I would guess it is viewed best to spend on one off purchases, much like an individual who gets an annual bonus as you can't guarantee you will get it next year.
I just think the government only really control, across all workers, a few things in relation to money in their pockets. Minimum wage for the lowest earners and tax are the two that spring to mind.
So rather than single out police, prison staff or nurses, teachers or some public sector workers deal with the country as a whole. That said of course, lower taxation will bring lower tax receipts so they might have to balance it a little at the higher end (although I'd argue any change to the tax allowance and the 20% band won't effect those higher earners anyway as they lose the vast majority of any of those changes anyway).
To me we get too hung up on gross annual salary, it makes no difference if you earn £50k and pay 50% tax so only get £25k or earn £35k and pay 28.5% tax and still get £25k. What you really get is still the same.
Much like people say the higher earners have had a tax break (50% rate down to 45%) - the headline of course is true, that on that band the rate has reduced, but the reality in take home pay is the opposite due to other factors like the removal of the personal allowance, the fact the 40% band starts at 33.5k now rather than the 37.5k in 2010 etc etc.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
If (and it will be) pay increases come out of existing budgets it will mean that cuts (like job losses or service closures) will have to come from elsewhere to pay for it. When the public complain the government can say 'its the fault of the police service they blew all their money on a pay rise'.
Last year the government backed the living wage for care staff, which was the right thing to do, but then told the care agencies that they had to fund it themselves. They then gave no new money to the NHS or Local Authorities which is where care homes and agencies get their income from (along with private payers).
The result was that care homes closed down (no longer profitable) meaning people couldn't be placed in the community and therefore had to stay in hospital. End result was (and is) bed blocking. Rough estimate is £800 per day for an NHS bed, probably half that for a week in a care home.
The Public Sector is the responsibility of the government who encouraged the private sector care home market with the aim of reducing costs and improving choice. They are now are destroying that and at the same time destroying the public sector who have to pick up the tab.
The biggest con of the last seven years is that the Tories are the party of business, nobody but asset strippers would run a business like that.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
@Rob7Lee you have mentioned before (in a long dead thread) that each individual service area, I think you were referring to schools or chains of schools, should be given the ability to pay whatever they saw fit to attract the talent they needed.
Is this possible with ever decreasing budgets as I can see it working if budgets are stable and you can choose not to buy something and blow the money on a first class Geography teacher but not so sure in a system where you are forced to cut services.
Not saying I am for or against as I can see pros and cons but interested in how you see it.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
@Rob7Lee you have mentioned before (in a long dead thread) that each individual service area, I think you were referring to schools or chains of schools, should be given the ability to pay whatever they saw fit to attract the talent they needed.
Is this possible with ever decreasing budgets as I can see it working if budgets are stable and you can choose not to buy something and blow the money on a first class Geography teacher but not so sure in a system where you are forced to cut services.
Not saying I am for or against as I can see pros and cons but interested in how you see it.
Yes, although of course it is all relative to the overall budget constraints, but employers/managers should be able to reward the higher achievers greater than the lower achievers. Whether that means the pot is 1% for pay rises or 10% they should be able to divert more of the 1% or 10% to that high achiever than simply a flat rise to all. Appreciate that's all 'ideal' and not easy in the real world especially when Unions are involved.
I think you are referring to my comments on Teachers specifically where previously it was set scales and regardless of how good or bad a teacher you were you effectively were rewarded on length of service. I always struggled with say two teachers, one who was fantastic at their job, the other average yet if the average teacher had 8 years service but the excellent teacher had 2 years service my hands were tied and I had to pay the average teacher more generally. How do you justify or explain that to the excellent teacher?
There just doesn't seem to be the appetite to make these sort of changes though, the unions in this example, particularly the NUT, fought and probably still are against any form of performance related pay blindly not realising that to an extent all they are doing is dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. By stifling that, the best will leave or move up the ladder, I know a few teachers who never really wanted to come out of the classroom but their only way to progress was into management and out of class. Could I have done I'd have paid them more to stay in the classroom than the deputy head salary they moved for as despite I don't doubt they made very good deputy heads they were outstanding teachers and it was a real loss them coming out of class.
Schools are very close to my heart and it always frustrated me that very minor changes could make huge differences, the money often wasted is on a level you really wouldn't believe, sort that out across the board and there wouldn't be any budget or pay rise issues in education.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
If (and it will be) pay increases come out of existing budgets it will mean that cuts (like job losses or service closures) will have to come from elsewhere to pay for it. When the public complain the government can say 'its the fault of the police service they blew all their money on a pay rise'.
Last year the government backed the living wage for care staff, which was the right thing to do, but then told the care agencies that they had to fund it themselves. They then gave no new money to the NHS or Local Authorities which is where care homes and agencies get their income from (along with private payers).
The result was that care homes closed down (no longer profitable) meaning people couldn't be placed in the community and therefore had to stay in hospital. End result was (and is) bed blocking. Rough estimate is £800 per day for an NHS bed, probably half that for a week in a care home.
The Public Sector is the responsibility of the government who encouraged the private sector care home market with the aim of reducing costs and improving choice. They are now are destroying that and at the same time destroying the public sector who have to pick up the tab.
The biggest con of the last seven years is that the Tories are the party of business, nobody but asset strippers would run a business like that.
I don't even believe they are the party of business anymore. They are the party of big business and the wealthiest in society. Ask all those small businesses on the high street when business rates went up if they were represented fairly by the Tories. I appreciate it's local councils that set business rates, but why are local councils having to set them so high. Because they don't have any money and are being pillioried by central gvt to merge libraries with public toilets
They had an opportunity to grow some balls and hammer google for what was a fair share of tax a year or so back, but in the end we get a meek deal from a company that has a stock pile of cash the size of the GDP for some small countries. That's where the money is, a disproportionate amount. But oh no, we can't have a government that is seen to be regulating and restraining free capitalism, because they are fearful their very rich friends won't fund their reelection into office
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Kent Fire Service are saying they can't afford the new pay rises, as you both say it is meant to come from their already allotted budget but the rumours are the government will meet the extra if required.
In the police and prison service, there is a huge opportunity cost if this pay rise comes from the existing budget. Either man power or equipment suffers with this, it seems both will.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Kent Fire Service are saying they can't afford the new pay rises, as you both say it is meant to come from their already allotted budget but the rumours are the government will meet the extra if required.
Some of how the emergency services are funded I find odd to say the least (and I'm not referring to the total from central government). The London Fire Brigade gets a lot of funding from insurance premiums (which increases every year due to indexation), however the other fire services around the country don't........
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Kent Fire Service are saying they can't afford the new pay rises, as you both say it is meant to come from their already allotted budget but the rumours are the government will meet the extra if required.
Some of how the emergency services are funded I find odd to say the least (and I'm not referring to the total from central government). The London Fire Brigade gets a lot of funding from insurance premiums (which increases every year due to indexation), however the other fire services around the country don't........
We do collections in our village for them on a regular basis, I also think it is weird that the Ambulance service are funded through the NHS and are only given what is left in the pot at the end. Also our local air ambulance is totally charity funded.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
Kent Fire Service are saying they can't afford the new pay rises, as you both say it is meant to come from their already allotted budget but the rumours are the government will meet the extra if required.
Some of how the emergency services are funded I find odd to say the least (and I'm not referring to the total from central government). The London Fire Brigade gets a lot of funding from insurance premiums (which increases every year due to indexation), however the other fire services around the country don't........
Absolutely agree about the RNLI it is madness but more and more services that either used to be statutory provision or by law must be statutory will have to apply to a pot of money often administered off site (so much for a bonfire of the quangos).
There will be winners and losers and some things that used to be considered as statutory will be moved off the books or down graded to almost an advice only service.
I wouldn't worry too much. Once we are out of the eu and the economy is boom boom booming with all the freedoms and opportunities that offers I'm sure that everybody is going to get pay rises galore. Happy days.
'Except those in the Armed Forces. Where we want to see a few more cuts taking place."
and my other question was as i didn't know was do the armed forces come into public sector pay rises
He was talking about cuts in numbers of personnel, not in pay.
i know what he meant, but its so hard for anyone that's been in the forces to get a job coming out, fair enough if you have had a trade whilst serving but if your a run of the mill infantry soldier after 4 years are surplus to requirements v difficult to get into anything else, i also don't think there wages fall into the same brackets as emergency services;
'Except those in the Armed Forces. Where we want to see a few more cuts taking place."
and my other question was as i didn't know was do the armed forces come into public sector pay rises
He was talking about cuts in numbers of personnel, not in pay.
i know what he meant, but its so hard for anyone that's been in the forces to get a job coming out, fair enough if you have had a trade whilst serving but if your a run of the mill infantry soldier after 4 years are surplus to requirements v difficult to get into anything else, i also don't think there wages fall into the same brackets as emergency services;
Ultimately people do choose what career paths they go down, but low paying of public employees isn't a new thing,so lets not pretend it is.
Do they still get bonuses depending on where they are serving? A mate of mine was in the military and they got a rate of pay for being on base, a bit extra for serving over seas, even more for serving in an area of trouble like Northern Ireland and even more if they came under fire. I only ask because if that is all they get for what they endure in places like Helmand province that is beyond poor.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
@Rob7Lee you have mentioned before (in a long dead thread) that each individual service area, I think you were referring to schools or chains of schools, should be given the ability to pay whatever they saw fit to attract the talent they needed.
Is this possible with ever decreasing budgets as I can see it working if budgets are stable and you can choose not to buy something and blow the money on a first class Geography teacher but not so sure in a system where you are forced to cut services.
Not saying I am for or against as I can see pros and cons but interested in how you see it.
Yes, although of course it is all relative to the overall budget constraints, but employers/managers should be able to reward the higher achievers greater than the lower achievers. Whether that means the pot is 1% for pay rises or 10% they should be able to divert more of the 1% or 10% to that high achiever than simply a flat rise to all. Appreciate that's all 'ideal' and not easy in the real world especially when Unions are involved.
I think you are referring to my comments on Teachers specifically where previously it was set scales and regardless of how good or bad a teacher you were you effectively were rewarded on length of service. I always struggled with say two teachers, one who was fantastic at their job, the other average yet if the average teacher had 8 years service but the excellent teacher had 2 years service my hands were tied and I had to pay the average teacher more generally. How do you justify or explain that to the excellent teacher?
There just doesn't seem to be the appetite to make these sort of changes though, the unions in this example, particularly the NUT, fought and probably still are against any form of performance related pay blindly not realising that to an extent all they are doing is dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. By stifling that, the best will leave or move up the ladder, I know a few teachers who never really wanted to come out of the classroom but their only way to progress was into management and out of class. Could I have done I'd have paid them more to stay in the classroom than the deputy head salary they moved for as despite I don't doubt they made very good deputy heads they were outstanding teachers and it was a real loss them coming out of class.
Schools are very close to my heart and it always frustrated me that very minor changes could make huge differences, the money often wasted is on a level you really wouldn't believe, sort that out across the board and there wouldn't be any budget or pay rise issues in education.
I am afraid that the public sector is not in a place where it can cope with proper performance related pay. When it has tried in a very small way to do so in the past, it has generally not worked. i.e. everybody gets the pay rise or managers are not supported to say no. Either way it encourages longevity rather than creativity particularly the further out of big cities you get (in my experience).
There is also a real problem, which you touch on, with not rewarding people for being good at want they do. I have been managed by and have manged so many people who were a great whatever but couldn't manage to save their lives. End result is you lose your best worker and gain a crap manager, this also leads to a managerial approach that tries to make everybody have to meet the same standards by replicating systems and processes. By that I mean in an attempt to raise the standards of the lowest, competent managers have to follow the same system which takes up time and stifles exactly what they are good at in the first place.
In the public sector we have too many checkers and not enough doers. Checkers are important but we as a nation have become so risk averse in the last thirty years that we are spending resources in the wrong place and I say that as a checker.
'Except those in the Armed Forces. Where we want to see a few more cuts taking place."
and my other question was as i didn't know was do the armed forces come into public sector pay rises
He was talking about cuts in numbers of personnel, not in pay.
i know what he meant, but its so hard for anyone that's been in the forces to get a job coming out, fair enough if you have had a trade whilst serving but if your a run of the mill infantry soldier after 4 years are surplus to requirements v difficult to get into anything else, i also don't think there wages fall into the same brackets as emergency services;
Ultimately people do choose what career paths they go down, but low paying of public employees isn't a new thing,so lets not pretend it is.
Ive written this before. It used to be that public sector workers earned less than equivalent private but this was seen to be compensated by good pension and job security. That's no longer the case.
How the country is expected to fill rising vacancies in the nursing and allied professions is really a problem looming.
Even with a pay upgrade Brits just don't want to do nursing and similar jobs that are essential not just to the economy but the wellbeing of the nation. A good start would be for this ridiculous government to stop people who do want to enter the medical professions from leaving training with a debt upwards of £30k.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
If (and it will be) pay increases come out of existing budgets it will mean that cuts (like job losses or service closures) will have to come from elsewhere to pay for it. When the public complain the government can say 'its the fault of the police service they blew all their money on a pay rise'.
Last year the government backed the living wage for care staff, which was the right thing to do, but then told the care agencies that they had to fund it themselves. They then gave no new money to the NHS or Local Authorities which is where care homes and agencies get their income from (along with private payers).
The result was that care homes closed down (no longer profitable) meaning people couldn't be placed in the community and therefore had to stay in hospital. End result was (and is) bed blocking. Rough estimate is £800 per day for an NHS bed, probably half that for a week in a care home.
The Public Sector is the responsibility of the government who encouraged the private sector care home market with the aim of reducing costs and improving choice. They are now are destroying that and at the same time destroying the public sector who have to pick up the tab.
The biggest con of the last seven years is that the Tories are the party of business, nobody but asset strippers would run a business like that.
I don't even believe they are the party of business anymore. They are the party of big business and the wealthiest in society. Ask all those small businesses on the high street when business rates went up if they were represented fairly by the Tories. I appreciate it's local councils that set business rates, but why are local councils having to set them so high. Because they don't have any money and are being pillioried by central gvt to merge libraries with public toilets
They had an opportunity to grow some balls and hammer google for what was a fair share of tax a year or so back, but in the end we get a meek deal from a company that has a stock pile of cash the size of the GDP for some small countries. That's where the money is, a disproportionate amount. But oh no, we can't have a government that is seen to be regulating and restraining free capitalism, because they are fearful their very rich friends won't fund their reelection into office
All a big pissing joke.
@cabbles I don't intend getting drawn into this debate too far but just to correct you on a point of fact. It's a common impression that many have (and also suits the government of the day not to correct it) but councils do not set business rates. This is done using valuations and formulas provided by central government who task local councils with collecting it on their behalf and forwarding it on to the treasury for redistribution.
There are some proposals to change the system to allow councils to keep what they collect but whether this will happen we'll see as it would favour areas with already high property prices over more deprived areas where the rateable value and therefore income is much lower.
I din't know that @Bournemouth Addick I thought there was a cap which the govt were going to remove to allow councils to raise funds. Good of course if you live in an area that can sustain that.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
If (and it will be) pay increases come out of existing budgets it will mean that cuts (like job losses or service closures) will have to come from elsewhere to pay for it. When the public complain the government can say 'its the fault of the police service they blew all their money on a pay rise'.
Last year the government backed the living wage for care staff, which was the right thing to do, but then told the care agencies that they had to fund it themselves. They then gave no new money to the NHS or Local Authorities which is where care homes and agencies get their income from (along with private payers).
The result was that care homes closed down (no longer profitable) meaning people couldn't be placed in the community and therefore had to stay in hospital. End result was (and is) bed blocking. Rough estimate is £800 per day for an NHS bed, probably half that for a week in a care home.
The Public Sector is the responsibility of the government who encouraged the private sector care home market with the aim of reducing costs and improving choice. They are now are destroying that and at the same time destroying the public sector who have to pick up the tab.
The biggest con of the last seven years is that the Tories are the party of business, nobody but asset strippers would run a business like that.
I don't even believe they are the party of business anymore. They are the party of big business and the wealthiest in society. Ask all those small businesses on the high street when business rates went up if they were represented fairly by the Tories. I appreciate it's local councils that set business rates, but why are local councils having to set them so high. Because they don't have any money and are being pillioried by central gvt to merge libraries with public toilets
They had an opportunity to grow some balls and hammer google for what was a fair share of tax a year or so back, but in the end we get a meek deal from a company that has a stock pile of cash the size of the GDP for some small countries. That's where the money is, a disproportionate amount. But oh no, we can't have a government that is seen to be regulating and restraining free capitalism, because they are fearful their very rich friends won't fund their reelection into office
All a big pissing joke.
@cabbles I don't intend getting drawn into this debate too far but just to correct you on a point of fact. It's a common impression that many have (and also suits the government of the day not to correct it) but councils do not set business rates. This is done using valuations and formulas provided by central government who task local councils with collecting it on their behalf and forwarding it on to the treasury for redistribution.
There are some proposals to change the system to allow councils to keep what they collect but whether this will happen we'll see as it would favour areas with already high property prices over more deprived areas where the rateable value and therefore income is much lower.
My mistake. And as that's the case, that makes it even worse.
It's interesting when you actually read where the 1% increase is going to come from for the police. Straight out of their budget. So this will invariably mean that something else that they spend their budget on will get less funding.
There certainly isn't a magic money tree it would seem. Fucking joke. Are they saying this 1% that I think amounts to £50m cannot come from a diversion of other public money. Have the FCA issued any of the banks fines recently for bad behaviour that cannot be allocated?
Thats how I read it too. Not seen anything re banking fines.
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
As at July this year, fines imposed by the FCA in 2017 amounted to £163,305,322. Or, otherwise known as a drop in the ocean. Of that total, £163,076,224 came from one organisation Deutsche Bank; the rest came from 4 individuals.
As said, since 2012 the fines go back into The Treasury's general coffers. This is a very, very big improvement on the old system whereby receipts from fines went back into reducing the level of authorised firms fees (except those firms that had been fined).
The level of fines is still pathetic and paltry. I've long thought that the fine system would be better served if the fine matched exactly the total level of executive pay and all senior staff bonuses for the year(s) in which the misdemeanour took place. That way the firm would be required to make a decision. The three available choices would be binning shareholders dividends; binning the vastly unnecessary staff bonuses and executive salaries; or the third choice would be to actually pay attention to the rules and regulations and not screw people over.
(Fines in 2016 were only £22mn and Aviva was the only entity most will have heard of that got fined. The hefty years fines-wise were 2014 - £1471mn and 2015 - £905mn with lots of famous names getting a whack, including Deutsche who apparently didn't learn.)
Don't think this is moving the dial or the end of austerity, I only briefly read the news as need to be somewhere important tonight but I think I read it'll have to be paid out of existing budgets?
Interesting chart @bobmunro so in 2009 private -4% and public +4%. Without plotting it on a spreadsheet with compound the gap over the period doesn't look as big as the headlines often indicate.
Not sure Austerity is a con @MuttleyCAFC, austerity is simply reducing budget deficits by either raising taxes or cutting spending, or both. I seem to recall Tories were for cutting spending and lowering or not increasing taxes Labour were for increasing taxes and increasing spending. Both sound like austerity to me in some respects.
A simple way to get more money into pockets regardless of private or public is to raise tax thresholds (being done) and lower taxes......
It is a con because it doesn't work and never has done. When your economy is struggling you try to grow it not supress it! When you are growing, that is when you can pay off debt. You only have to look at history to observe it.
'Except those in the Armed Forces. Where we want to see a few more cuts taking place."
and my other question was as i didn't know was do the armed forces come into public sector pay rises
He was talking about cuts in numbers of personnel, not in pay.
i know what he meant, but its so hard for anyone that's been in the forces to get a job coming out, fair enough if you have had a trade whilst serving but if your a run of the mill infantry soldier after 4 years are surplus to requirements v difficult to get into anything else, i also don't think there wages fall into the same brackets as emergency services;
Ultimately people do choose what career paths they go down, but low paying of public employees isn't a new thing,so lets not pretend it is.
Do soldiers also get board and lodgings? I know it isn't a great deal but it will be a factor.
You are spot on about infantry soldiers though, in a previous job I was helping soldiers leaving the services to get paid employment.Most were pretty clued up and had skills and training that was directly compatible with 'outside' work. The infantry I met had in the main little idea of what they were going to do and hadn't taken any steps to find out what they could do.
All that I spoke too had joined up and thought they had jobs for life and had got used to certain decisions being taken by others. They had not had specialist training and hadn't had good advice about what there skills were. I found it really sad they saw themselves as being on the scrap heap in their early twenties as it was not their decision to leave.
I got a few of them interviews and others additional support but I was just scratching the surface really. It is possible that I was seeing the least prepared though and those that didn't need me wouldn't have sought me out.
Don't think this is moving the dial or the end of austerity, I only briefly read the news as need to be somewhere important tonight but I think I read it'll have to be paid out of existing budgets?
Interesting chart @bobmunro so in 2009 private -4% and public +4%. Without plotting it on a spreadsheet with compound the gap over the period doesn't look as big as the headlines often indicate.
Not sure Austerity is a con @MuttleyCAFC, austerity is simply reducing budget deficits by either raising taxes or cutting spending, or both. I seem to recall Tories were for cutting spending and lowering or not increasing taxes Labour were for increasing taxes and increasing spending. Both sound like austerity to me in some respects.
A simple way to get more money into pockets regardless of private or public is to raise tax thresholds (being done) and lower taxes......
It is a con because it doesn't work and never has done. When your economy is struggling you try to grow it not supress it! When you are growing, that is when you can pay off debt. You only have to look at history to observe it.
Does increasing income tax (or other taxes increasing such as VAT) help grow the economy? or is that also a form of Austerity when an economy is struggling?
Anything that affects spending power potentially affects growth - so taxes and VAT impacts of course - you have to try to put more money in people's pockets. Before you try to make a statement based on few facts - Overall Labour's policies at the last election would have given most people more money and more spending power and spending plans were designed to stimulate growth. You can argue that they wouldn't with somebody else. I think this is generally accepted by most people even if not you. The counter argument is that they can't afford to do it which links to austerity.
Don't think this is moving the dial or the end of austerity, I only briefly read the news as need to be somewhere important tonight but I think I read it'll have to be paid out of existing budgets?
Interesting chart @bobmunro so in 2009 private -4% and public +4%. Without plotting it on a spreadsheet with compound the gap over the period doesn't look as big as the headlines often indicate.
Not sure Austerity is a con @MuttleyCAFC, austerity is simply reducing budget deficits by either raising taxes or cutting spending, or both. I seem to recall Tories were for cutting spending and lowering or not increasing taxes Labour were for increasing taxes and increasing spending. Both sound like austerity to me in some respects.
A simple way to get more money into pockets regardless of private or public is to raise tax thresholds (being done) and lower taxes......
It is a con because it doesn't work and never has done. When your economy is struggling you try to grow it not supress it! When you are growing, that is when you can pay off debt. You only have to look at history to observe it.
Does increasing income tax (or other taxes increasing such as VAT) help grow the economy? or is that also a form of Austerity when an economy is struggling?
Monetarist theory would say austerity of course.
There are no economic models that consistently work.
Yes, that's why there is "Boom and Bust" although Gordon Brown did claim wildly to have abolished that at one point and then went on to save the world after the 2008 crash.
On a brighter note for the UK economy as a whole the unemployment rate figure came out today and is now at it's lowest level since 1975.
I think it is fairly well accepted that the working poor who get wage increases spend their money in the local economy whereas executive giveaways & bonuses go on German cars, foreign holidays and tax avoidance schemes. Something needs to change including Dow Jones tax avoidance which EU are prepared to tackle but we roll over waiting for our tummies to be tickled.
Comments
In the late 90's when we had a recruitment & retention issue in teaching, particularly in London, we paid a recruitment and retention bonus which worked, probably too well. In those days we'd get 50 applications for every role.
Maybe they should look at that for certain roles.
I still think the easiest solution to this and across the board is taxation. Raise the tax threshold by a considerable amount (3.5k) and move the bottom two bands up each year by a minimum of inflation. Or even bring back the 10% band that labour got rid off.
The level tax starts in my view should always be higher than the minimum wage (assuming full time 35 hours a week etc).
There's more than one way to skin a cat.
It's also fairly evident that those being offered the bung are those professions that would be most damaging to the government's credibility if they went on strike. Notable that the money is coming from the Old Bill, who cannot legally strike.
I struggle to listen to arguments about how there is only so much to go around when that is blatantly bullshit. It's just easier to rump us than have a sit down with some genuinely scary and powerful people and hold them to account to make them pay the correct amount of tax.
I just think the government only really control, across all workers, a few things in relation to money in their pockets. Minimum wage for the lowest earners and tax are the two that spring to mind.
So rather than single out police, prison staff or nurses, teachers or some public sector workers deal with the country as a whole. That said of course, lower taxation will bring lower tax receipts so they might have to balance it a little at the higher end (although I'd argue any change to the tax allowance and the 20% band won't effect those higher earners anyway as they lose the vast majority of any of those changes anyway).
To me we get too hung up on gross annual salary, it makes no difference if you earn £50k and pay 50% tax so only get £25k or earn £35k and pay 28.5% tax and still get £25k. What you really get is still the same.
Much like people say the higher earners have had a tax break (50% rate down to 45%) - the headline of course is true, that on that band the rate has reduced, but the reality in take home pay is the opposite due to other factors like the removal of the personal allowance, the fact the 40% band starts at 33.5k now rather than the 37.5k in 2010 etc etc.
Last year the government backed the living wage for care staff, which was the right thing to do, but then told the care agencies that they had to fund it themselves. They then gave no new money to the NHS or Local Authorities which is where care homes and agencies get their income from (along with private payers).
The result was that care homes closed down (no longer profitable) meaning people couldn't be placed in the community and therefore had to stay in hospital. End result was (and is) bed blocking. Rough estimate is £800 per day for an NHS bed, probably half that for a week in a care home.
The Public Sector is the responsibility of the government who encouraged the private sector care home market with the aim of reducing costs and improving choice. They are now are destroying that and at the same time destroying the public sector who have to pick up the tab.
The biggest con of the last seven years is that the Tories are the party of business, nobody but asset strippers would run a business like that.
Is this possible with ever decreasing budgets as I can see it working if budgets are stable and you can choose not to buy something and blow the money on a first class Geography teacher but not so sure in a system where you are forced to cut services.
Not saying I am for or against as I can see pros and cons but interested in how you see it.
I think you are referring to my comments on Teachers specifically where previously it was set scales and regardless of how good or bad a teacher you were you effectively were rewarded on length of service. I always struggled with say two teachers, one who was fantastic at their job, the other average yet if the average teacher had 8 years service but the excellent teacher had 2 years service my hands were tied and I had to pay the average teacher more generally. How do you justify or explain that to the excellent teacher?
There just doesn't seem to be the appetite to make these sort of changes though, the unions in this example, particularly the NUT, fought and probably still are against any form of performance related pay blindly not realising that to an extent all they are doing is dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator. By stifling that, the best will leave or move up the ladder, I know a few teachers who never really wanted to come out of the classroom but their only way to progress was into management and out of class. Could I have done I'd have paid them more to stay in the classroom than the deputy head salary they moved for as despite I don't doubt they made very good deputy heads they were outstanding teachers and it was a real loss them coming out of class.
Schools are very close to my heart and it always frustrated me that very minor changes could make huge differences, the money often wasted is on a level you really wouldn't believe, sort that out across the board and there wouldn't be any budget or pay rise issues in education.
They had an opportunity to grow some balls and hammer google for what was a fair share of tax a year or so back, but in the end we get a meek deal from a company that has a stock pile of cash the size of the GDP for some small countries. That's where the money is, a disproportionate amount. But oh no, we can't have a government that is seen to be regulating and restraining free capitalism, because they are fearful their very rich friends won't fund their reelection into office
All a big pissing joke.
As for a service I have tried to support more and more the past few years, the RNLI (if anyone wishes to join or donate please please do so, they really need the money - https://rnli.org/support-us/become-a-member?&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt8nazPOh1gIVipTtCh25uwJJEAAYASABEgI4M_D_BwE) they get how much funding from government?...... yup 0% from UK Central Government, 94% of funding is from donations..... why?
There will be winners and losers and some things that used to be considered as statutory will be moved off the books or down graded to almost an advice only service.
this is the 2017 pay table
Entry Level Soldier £14,931
Entry Level Officer £25,984
Salaries on finishing training and joining your unit:
Soldier
Private £18,488
Lance Corporal £25,524
Corporal £29,768
Sergeant £33,490
Staff Sergeant £37,697
Warrant Officer Class 2 £41,002
Warrant Officer Class 1 £47,487
Officer
2nd Lieutenant £31,232
Lieutenant £32,328
Captain £40,025
Major £50,417
Lt Colonel £70,760
Colonel £85,726
Brigadier £102,158
Ultimately people do choose what career paths they go down, but low paying of public employees isn't a new thing,so lets not pretend it is.
Either way it encourages longevity rather than creativity particularly the further out of big cities you get (in my experience).
There is also a real problem, which you touch on, with not rewarding people for being good at want they do. I have been managed by and have manged so many people who were a great whatever but couldn't manage to save their lives. End result is you lose your best worker and gain a crap manager, this also leads to a managerial approach that tries to make everybody have to meet the same standards by replicating systems and processes.
By that I mean in an attempt to raise the standards of the lowest, competent managers have to follow the same system which takes up time and stifles exactly what they are good at in the first place.
In the public sector we have too many checkers and not enough doers. Checkers are important but we as a nation have become so risk averse in the last thirty years that we are spending resources in the wrong place and I say that as a checker.
How the country is expected to fill rising vacancies in the nursing and allied professions is really a problem looming.
Even with a pay upgrade Brits just don't want to do nursing and similar jobs that are essential not just to the economy but the wellbeing of the nation. A good start would be for this ridiculous government to stop people who do want to enter the medical professions from leaving training with a debt upwards of £30k.
There are some proposals to change the system to allow councils to keep what they collect but whether this will happen we'll see as it would favour areas with already high property prices over more deprived areas where the rateable value and therefore income is much lower.
As said, since 2012 the fines go back into The Treasury's general coffers. This is a very, very big improvement on the old system whereby receipts from fines went back into reducing the level of authorised firms fees (except those firms that had been fined).
The level of fines is still pathetic and paltry. I've long thought that the fine system would be better served if the fine matched exactly the total level of executive pay and all senior staff bonuses for the year(s) in which the misdemeanour took place. That way the firm would be required to make a decision. The three available choices would be binning shareholders dividends; binning the vastly unnecessary staff bonuses and executive salaries; or the third choice would be to actually pay attention to the rules and regulations and not screw people over.
(Fines in 2016 were only £22mn and Aviva was the only entity most will have heard of that got fined. The hefty years fines-wise were 2014 - £1471mn and 2015 - £905mn with lots of famous names getting a whack, including Deutsche who apparently didn't learn.)
It is a con because it doesn't work and never has done. When your economy is struggling you try to grow it not supress it! When you are growing, that is when you can pay off debt. You only have to look at history to observe it.
You are spot on about infantry soldiers though, in a previous job I was helping soldiers leaving the services to get paid employment.Most were pretty clued up and had skills and training that was directly compatible with 'outside' work. The infantry I met had in the main little idea of what they were going to do and hadn't taken any steps to find out what they could do.
All that I spoke too had joined up and thought they had jobs for life and had got used to certain decisions being taken by others. They had not had specialist training and hadn't had good advice about what there skills were. I found it really sad they saw themselves as being on the scrap heap in their early twenties as it was not their decision to leave.
I got a few of them interviews and others additional support but I was just scratching the surface really. It is possible that I was seeing the least prepared though and those that didn't need me wouldn't have sought me out.
There are no economic models that consistently work.
On a brighter note for the UK economy as a whole the unemployment rate figure came out today and is now at it's lowest level since 1975.