Public sector pay threatens economic viability - ISME

Champ

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story_business_island.asp?j=247086393&p=z47x87z56&n=247087336

Nice informative article.
Very tempting to transfer to the public sector.:)

"This is completely unacceptable that our hard earned money is constantly going to a sector that is not accountable to anyone including their own employer, the Government, and whose representatives continuously threaten to withdraw those services as is the case with the current nurses’ dispute.

Very well put i thought. I for one am tired of the continual: Unions want X, Y, Z and if they don't get it (even if the Labour court rules against them) they go on strike.
No one forces them to work any particular job, if they don't like the job just pack up and go find another one. Given the pay difference between the two sectors, striking on the grounds of entitlement to more pay is hardly a winning point. Even if it was the fact that they regularly use the service as a hostage to their demands is something that drastically needs to be fixed.

TempestSabre

The Govt is spending about a billion (approx because no one incl the Govt knows) to further disimprove the civil service by moving it all over the place with very little logic at all. Selling buildings and then renting space instead.

D'Peoples Voice

TempestSabre wrote:

The Govt is spending about a billion (approx because no one incl the Govt knows) to further disimprove the civil service by moving it all over the place with very little logic at all. Selling buildings and then renting space instead.

To coin a phrase from Monty Pontin's Life of Brian,
Making it worse, how could it possibly be worse!
The civil service doesn't work now, for god's sake man. I'm STILL waiting on my credit card sized driving licence almost 3 years after the civil service were to send it out to me!
Then take the elctoral register, the government have thrown another EUR 12 million at the civil service to get it right. I have a unique number & address on my (recent)passport, I have a unique PPS number and address on any tax related document, likewise with my motor taxation cert, and what happens the civil service send me a form to fill in stating where I live! I ask you! So the two of us fill in the form, guess what, the civil service leaves one of us off the register. There were only two names on the form!
Therefore IMO there is almost nothing the government can do to make the situation worse. Sack them all and out source the work to competent people.
The good news is that the EU will continuously push for greater privatisation, and hence we can only hope many of these scumbags will be sacked!
All that and I never even had to mention An Post!
Oh TempestSabre another thing, you need to say that the 1 billion cost is gross of ANY sale price they achieve from selling the Government buildings in Dublin & and the present value of any cost savings made from cheaper annual rent of their buildings into the future- it's cheaper to rent a premises in Kanturk than St. Stephens Green!

gazzer

Ive worked in the civil service since 1992, have had 3 promotions in that time.. the most recent of these was to an IT area where I am a Sytems Analyst(for the last 3 years) and my salary is nowhere near this 'average salary of 46,000 euro), in fact my salary is 10,000 below this.

kluivert

I spent two hours on the phone to the revenue today looking for a simple bit of information to be confirmed. I already know the answer just wanted someone to confirm it.

Anyway I spoke to seven different people in seven different offices and after demanding to speak to a supervisor I got my confrimation.

Two things typical with the civil service.

1. Pass the buck at every opportunity.
2. Never make a decision, as you will be held responsible, See 1. above in order to avoid this problem.

Anything else, they get paid way too much in my opinion.

Trade Union reck the economy.

This country is coming to the edge, enjoy this christmas because next year after the government get re elected from briding the good people of this country for their votes with a huge give away budget this year, they will sit in their office for another term and do feck all.

I wonder why you never hear on the news about the manufacturing companies closing down in this country any more, you certainly dont hear of any manufacturing companies setting up here any more.

Harvest while the sun shines.

RainyDay

Champ wrote:

Very tempting to transfer to the public sector.:)

So what's stopping you? I made the transfer to a public sector role last year, after 20+ years in the private sector. It's really not all that different. Most people care about their work. Most people work hard. There are a few slackers, just like there were slackers in the private sector. I'm paid about 30% less than I was last year, but I'm working about 30% less hours, so I'm getting to spend more time with my daughter.

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

To coin a phrase from Monty Pontin's Life of Brian,
Making it worse, how could it possibly be worse!
The civil service doesn't work now, for god's sake man. I'm STILL waiting on my credit card sized driving licence almost 3 years after the civil service were to send it out to me!
Then take the elctoral register, the government have thrown another EUR 12 million at the civil service to get it right. I have a unique number & address on my (recent)passport, I have a unique PPS number and address on any tax related document, likewise with my motor taxation cert, and what happens the civil service send me a form to fill in stating where I live! I ask you! So the two of us fill in the form, guess what, the civil service leaves one of us off the register. There were only two names on the form!
Therefore IMO there is almost nothing the government can do to make the situation worse. Sack them all and out source the work to competent people.
The good news is that the EU will continuously push for greater privatisation, and hence we can only hope many of these scumbags will be sacked!
All that and I never even had to mention An Post!
Oh TempestSabre another thing, you need to say that the 1 billion cost is gross of ANY sale price they achieve from selling the Government buildings in Dublin & and the present value of any cost savings made from cheaper annual rent of their buildings into the future- it's cheaper to rent a premises in Kanturk than St. Stephens Green!

Get down off that high horse and come back to the real world. It's a bit rich for you to go on the attack when it is clear from your post that have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. You don't understand the difference between Government/political responsibilities, civil service responsibilities and local authority responsibilities.

You also seem to have swallowed the PD spin on decentralisation without any true understanding of what is happening on the ground. There won't be any cost savings if they are paying for BOTH decentralised staff in the new locations and the old staff to sit in Dublin doing nothing (as is the current plan). The state will slide back between 10-20 years as agencies turnover 70%-90% of the staff. One specialist agency that I'm aware of have requests from 2 out of 40 staff to move to the new decentralised location, so it will be training in 38 new staff. You really need to start looking beyond the press releases and see the reality.

TempestSabre

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

....TempestSabre another thing, you need to say that the 1 billion cost is gross of ANY sale price they achieve from selling the Government buildings in Dublin & and the present value of any cost savings made from cheaper annual rent of their buildings into the future- it's cheaper to rent a premises in Kanturk than St. Stephens Green!

I can't say if its 1 billion or 2 billion gross or net. No one has any idea what it will cost. What magic hat are you pulling your figures from?

Or you could so what Enterprise Ireland has done. Take a 25-year lease office blocks in Dublin to accommodate 600 staff, and also move to Shannon?

Or outsource like the PPARS or Pulse?

TempestSabre

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

...
The civil service doesn't work now, for god's sake man. I'm STILL waiting on my credit card sized driving licence almost 3 years after the civil service were to send it out to me! ...

Can you get credit card sized licenses yet? I thought they were still the folding paper type? I renewed mine about 2 yrs ago and I got the old style one, and it only took a couple of weeks. Though I had to send it back and get it corrected. Why would you wait 3 yrs? That doesn't make any sense.

TempestSabre

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

...
The good news is that the EU will continuously push for greater privatisation, and hence we can only hope many of these scumbags will be sacked!....

Scumbags? Did someone kick your puppy or something?

TempestSabre

http://www.unison.ie/breakingnews/index.php3?ca=35&si=101870

There were 1,054 days lost because of industrial disputes in the third quarter of 2006.

This compares with over 2,300 for the same period last year.

During the first nine months of 2006, the Construction Sector accounted for two thirds of total days lost, while almost a 20% were lost in the manufacturing sector.

Champ

So what's stopping you? I made the transfer to a public sector role last year, after 20+ years in the private sector.

They don't have many public sector jobs to my liking down here in the South West, but i am keeping an open eye.;)

Moving to Dublin would help the prospects, but i'm on a decent income and happy with my family and friends and my current company treats me fairly.:)

D'Peoples Voice

RainyDay wrote:

You don't understand the difference between Government/political responsibilities, civil service responsibilities and local authority responsibilities.

if the truth be known, neither do many of the state agencies, you only have to look at the headcount of foreign immigrants, no-one can give an accurate count- it's always someone else's responsibility- their department only look after x, someone else looks after y! that in my book is the fault of the General Secretaries in each department.

RainyDay wrote:

You also seem to have swallowed the PD spin on decentralisation without any true understanding of what is happening on the ground. There won't be any cost savings if they are paying for BOTH decentralised staff in the new locations and the old staff to sit in Dublin doing nothing (as is the current plan).

If you read my post again, you will see that I never in fact said it would be cheaper or more cost effective overall, if it were, the government would have published the cost benefit analysis. I merely questioned the figure of 1 billion, as to whether it was gross or net. I think that's fair enough to ask. As you know the cost of someone buying a big house down the country, is a lot less for them if they are trading up, rather than a first time buyer. That's merely what I'm saying- give us the net figure - although I know that's difficult becos the Government are not disclosing it.

TempestSabre wrote:

Can you get credit card sized licenses yet? I thought they were still the folding paper type?

you need to know the right people in the civil service to get one!

Minister for Transport (Mr. S. Brennan): "We are progressing the plastic card licence and I am determined that in 2004 we will move to a credit card size licence."

therefore thats all of 2004, 2005 & 2006 and I have still to receive mine!
http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0174/S.0174.200311270009.html
clearly our civil service don't have the know how of those in Namibia
http://www.grnnet.gov.na/News/Archive/2002/June/Week3/credit.htm
tempestSabre, you are spot on, there are strikes in the private sector also, BOI for example, but if you look at those same strikes, the same staff do not go on strike almost on a yearly basis. Usually but not always, it's the result of YEARS of neglect of workers rights or serious changes to workers welfare.

TempestSabre

So your complaint is that people only know their own area, and not what everyone else is doing across the civil, public service? Get real.

Whats the point your making. The 1 billion is a estimated cost, its not accurate as was already stated when it was mentioned. If its net or gross is nitpicking over nothing. The cost could be 2 billion. The lack of information on the cost is the fault of the govt, not the civil service or anyone else.

So your complaining about licenses that aren't generally available? Seriously?

Its ordinary people vote to have a dispute. They just don't happen. The reason it happens more in civil and public service is that govt often use them to play politics, regardless that its playing with people lives. Decentralization lunacy being a case in point.

D'Peoples Voice

TempestSabre wrote:

So your complaint is that people only know their own area, and not what everyone else is doing across the civil, public service? Get real.

thank you, you've just explained why we never get joined up thinking in the civil service.
All this time, I was thinking it was this incompetent government's fault for not coordinating between departments, but you've clearly outlined the situation, it's not "real" to expect civil servants in one department to know what another is doing.

It explains why Gardai were given hand held IT devices to record penalty points for drivers, but couldn't tell how many penalty points the driver already had. To listen to the speeches by M Cullen on this, followed the next day by McDowell contradicting Cullen, it was hilarious.
I understand it all now. The civil service only wish to know about their own area, not what may be happening in another department, reagrdless if it's related.
I think we can end the debate at this point!
The public sector deserve their pay increase.

super_furry

Sssssh everyone. We wouldn't rat you out.....

TempestSabre

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

thank you, you've just explained why we never get joined up thinking in the civil service.
All this time, I was thinking it was this incompetent government's fault for not coordinating between departments, but you've clearly outlined the situation, it's not "real" to expect civil servants in one department to know what another is doing.

Do you ring your sales dept to get your PC fixed, and do you ring the IT dept to place orders? Or HR to run a marketing campaign? As RainyDay said you don't understand the system, and you don't know what you are talking about.

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

It explains why Gardai were given hand held IT devices to record penalty points for drivers, but couldn't tell how many penalty points the driver already had. To listen to the speeches by M Cullen on this, followed the next day by McDowell contradicting Cullen, it was hilarious. I understand it all now. The civil service only wish to know about their own area, not what may be happening in another department, reagrdless if it's related. I think we can end the debate at this point! The public sector deserve their pay increase.

That would be the Pulse system which was outsourced and is largely maintained by big name private sector companies and consultants. That and politicians playing politics is nothing to do with the Public sector.

Ironically that point your proving is that private sector and/or outsourcing is expensive, inefficient and poor value for money and the public sector is run at the whim of politicians for short sighted political gains.

RainyDay

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

you need to know the right people in the civil service to get one!

therefore thats all of 2004, 2005 & 2006 and I have still to receive mine!
http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/S/0174/S.0174.200311270009.html

So take it up with Minnie Brennan, not the officials who are left waiting for him to allocate some funding for the project.

randomname2005

RainyDay wrote:

You also seem to have swallowed the PD spin on decentralisation without any true understanding of what is happening on the ground. There won't be any cost savings if they are paying for BOTH decentralised staff in the new locations and the old staff to sit in Dublin doing nothing (as is the current plan). The state will slide back between 10-20 years as agencies turnover 70%-90% of the staff. One specialist agency that I'm aware of have requests from 2 out of 40 staff to move to the new decentralised location, so it will be training in 38 new staff. You really need to start looking beyond the press releases and see the reality.

Just a quick question for those of us who 'dont understand the system', will the 38 people who get left behind be still employed by the same department, even though the department is now located in a different part of the country?

Edit: What Im really trying to see is whether people who dont want to move will be left sitting at a desk doing nothing because their life long employment means they cant be fired/let go. In the private sector, if a company decides to relocate the workers have two choices, to move or be let go, (obviously existing contracts must be honoured). Is it the case in the civil service that the decentralisation will leave lots of people in dublin because they have a job for life?

R

kluivert

Talk about going off the point just a tat.

Not sure what way the re allocation would be for those who didnt opt to move. One would assume that they would still be employed on the basis that they a have employment contract. If not they will would get some type of compensation.

Never mind where civil servants are moving to the important issue here is whether or not they deserve the rate of pay in which they are getting.

Personally I would rather impose a pay cut for pencil pushers and give it to Nurses and Garda who are on the beat (not the pencil pushers)

Has anyone considered the cycle of money in this country, when you look at it, its very scary. The main industry in this country is Construction.

Banks lend money to developers and provide mortgages to customers. This is the start of the cycle. And if you think it through its the end of the cycle as well. Basicly there is very little sources of income from other countries through exporting, thats why the economy is not as good as it appears and when the crap hits the fan, the civil servants will be sitting pretty as they know that the government will not sack them, that the government will probably borrow to keep them employed.

TempestSabre

randomname2005 wrote:

Just a quick question for those of us who 'dont understand the system', will the 38 people who get left behind be still employed by the same department, even though the department is now located in a different part of the country?

The problem no one really knows because the Govt haven't planned that far ahead. Amazing while the govt manages to waste billions of everyones tax payers money, on alsorts of mismanaged projects and schemes. People are more concerned with the cost of the public sector pay instead of focusing on the origin of all these problems, the Govt.

Edit: What Im really trying to see is whether people who dont want to move will be left sitting at a desk doing nothing because their life long employment means they cant be fired/let go. In the private sector, if a company decides to relocate the workers have two choices, to move or be let go, (obviously existing contracts must be honoured). Is it the case in the civil service that the decentralisation will leave lots of people in dublin because they have a job for life?R

The problem no one really knows because the Govt haven't planned that far ahead. People seem to think working in the public sector is a life of roses, without having any experience of it. Try it if you think its that great. You shouldn't take what you read in the media at face value.

TempestSabre

kluivert wrote:

...
Never mind where civil servants are moving to the important issue here is whether or not they deserve the rate of pay in which they are getting.

Personally I would rather impose a pay cut for pencil pushers and give it to Nurses and Garda who are on the beat (not the pencil pushers) ...

Its the same in any organisation, public or private, the rewards should be performance related. Funny you should mention nurses. My personal experience of nursing in particular is that its become a paper pushing exercise rather than a vocational career. The paper work might say the work is being done, but the patients and relatives of patients see the reality is something else. Health service is in tatters, the country is more crime ridden than its ever been, yet you want to reward them? Why?

randomname2005

TempestSabre wrote:

The problem no one really knows because the Govt haven't planned that far ahead. Amazing while the govt manages to waste billions of everyones tax payers money, on alsorts of mismanaged projects and schemes. People are more concerned with the cost of the public sector pay instead of focusing on the origin of all these problems, the Govt.

Surely the cost of public sector pay is down to the unions ensuring that their members get guaranteed pay increases irrespective of productivity? Should people not be concerned that public sector wages are increasing when they cant see any basis for the increase?

Forgive my ignorance here, but are the civil service departments not also responsible for implementing some of these schemes and projects?

TempestSabre wrote:

The problem no one really knows because the Govt haven't planned that far ahead. People seem to think working in the public sector is a life of roses, without having any experience of it. Try it if you think its that great. You shouldn't take what you read in the media at face value.

No,my opinions are based on conversations with people who work there!

TempestSabre

randomname2005 wrote:

Surely the cost of public sector pay is down to the unions ensuring that their members get guaranteed pay increases irrespective of productivity? Should people not be concerned that public sector wages are increasing when they cant see any basis for the increase?

Shirley?

http://www.finance.gov.ie/ViewDoc.asp?DocId=-1&CatID=31&m=c

AFAIK it was meant to an exercise in parity of payment between public and private sectors.

Forgive my ignorance here, but are the civil service departments not also responsible for implementing some of these schemes and projects?

Some yes. Other no, so you'd have to be specfic. Sweeping generalisations aren't informative.

No,my opinions are based on conversations with people who work there!

Like I said no experience of it.

D'Peoples Voice

TempestSabre wrote:

Do you ring your sales dept to get your PC fixed, and do you ring the IT dept to place orders? Or HR to run a marketing campaign?

Me lad, If I get a pay increase from my manager in our department, I expect HR to know about it; why? because there is communication between my manager and the HR department. That is a concept that the civil service seem to not practise, and that is something you agree with you say.
I'll give you yet another example of how the civil service do not communicate between one another. Nursing homes fees, one department agreed to medical cards for over 70's in the budget, yet another department was still charging people nursing home fees to over 70's two years later. There are so many examples of lack of non-cooperation between departments, and to us in the private sector, it smacks of incompetence, which is why we hate to see such practices rewarded. But as you say, it's something you're pleased about. I guess the private sector will never understand the public sector.

TempestSabre wrote:

That would be the Pulse system which was outsourced and is largely maintained by big name private sector companies and consultants. That is nothing to do with the Public sector.

Apologies, being from the rpoivate sector I would have understood that members from the civil service would have agreed certain specifications with the developers before the project began.
Such parameters would have included efficiency and value for money. Clearly you are stating publicly that the civil service did not state any such specifications, and clearly gave the private company a blank spec on which to work from. That would explain how the private company, asked to come up with PPARS was such a disaster.
In the private sector, if we outosource, project specs are agreed with members from our company, and then developed externally before being returned to the company for testing. You seem to be suggetsing that the civil service leave everything up to private companies, and do no specing, testing themselves. So now we understand how the public sector WASTES our taxes, they launch software they are not even familiar with.Although having said that, I must admit Revenue On-line Service(ROS) is a great bit of software, was that developed in-house or outsourced?

TempestSabre

If you are going to quote me, quote me as is written. Editing the text out of context and putting quote tags around it isn't quoting, especially if you are doing it to change the meaning. For example...

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

...the private sector, smacks of incompetence, which is why we 're pleased. I guess the private sector will never understand.

I don't know how that project was run, you were mocking how it works, and I'm just pointing out that it was built by the private sector. So its ironic you picked that example. Projects go bad in the private sector, the public sector doesn't have a monopoly on that either.

Your manage approves pay increases but he doesn't action them. Which is why he has to contact other departments. Does he tell everyone in marketing, everyone in support? Does he tell everyone in other branches around the country? Even in the private sector, in large companies you often get one department not knowing what other departments are doing. Its the nature of very large organisations. No one wants it to happen but the reality is it happens from time to time.

RainyDay

randomname2005 wrote:

Just a quick question for those of us who 'dont understand the system', will the 38 people who get left behind be still employed by the same department, even though the department is now located in a different part of the country?

Edit: What Im really trying to see is whether people who dont want to move will be left sitting at a desk doing nothing because their life long employment means they cant be fired/let go. In the private sector, if a company decides to relocate the workers have two choices, to move or be let go, (obviously existing contracts must be honoured). Is it the case in the civil service that the decentralisation will leave lots of people in dublin because they have a job for life?

You're showing more & more about how little you know with every post. The example that I mentioned is for an agency (as I explained) and not a department. So those left in Dublin are still employees of that agency, and have job contracts with that agency. They have no rights to transfer to any other public service role, as their contract is solely with that agency.

How come that for private sector workers, you are quick to slip in that 'existing contracts must be honoured', but you don't apply the same standard to public sector workers?

vesp

Everyone knows the public service are way overpaid and mostly - but not always - underworked, especially when you consider their job security , perks, pension etc

RainyDay

vesp wrote:

Everyone knows the public service are way overpaid and mostly - but not always - underworked, especially when you consider their job security , perks, pension etc

When you have something substantive to add to the debate beyond 'everybody knows' pub-talk, you might find that people will engage in serious discussion with you. If you continue with the wild trolling, you will be ignored.

vesp

RainyDay wrote:

When you have something substantive to add to the debate beyond 'everybody knows' pub-talk, you might find that people will engage in serious discussion with you. If you continue with the wild trolling, you will be ignored.

As well as everyone knows, its statistics. Even Eddie Hobbs mentioned it on his programme on the telly there about a month ago, how public sector workers are paid more than private sector workers, despite the differences in job security, pensions etc etc

TempestSabre

vesp wrote:

As well as everyone knows, its statistics. Even Eddie Hobbs mentioned it on his programme on the telly there about a month ago, how public sector workers are paid more than private sector workers, despite the differences in job security, pensions etc etc

In the private sector you have all sorts of other perks, bonuses, fast promotions and potential for making more than your basic salary that don't exist in the public sector.

vesp

TempestSabre wrote:

....potential for making more than your basic salary that don't exist in the public sector.

.......potential does not put food on the table. the hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector who earn much less than those supported by their taxes in the public sector will tell you that.