Public Sector Reforms

galway2007

Sleepy wrote: »

This is where we need a government with balls. You don't ask employees if it's alright with them if you make a few changes to how things are done: You inform them of the changes coming and listen to any input they have. If any of the input is worthwhile to the organisation (e.g. that process will cause problem x here or could have a knock on effect to process Y there) you incorporate it into your plan and then proceed.

If the only feedback is along the lines of 'we want more money for that' or 'we're not doing that' you point them to the door with their P45 in hand and thank them for their sevices to date.

the feedback you would get is a simple no, then somebody would be sacked and then you would have an all out strike and then the problems start
The union are looking for a reaction to the work to rule and then thry will take all out on strike
You cant think that you can run a public sector with 350000 employees the same way a company with 1000 staff and make the same changes
It will take time and talks to reform it

Riskymove

Sarn wrote: »

As the €5000 (10%) is taken off your pay you never pay tax on it. Your overall taxable income is reduced. This appears as a reduction of €3000 in your annual net income. If the pension levy did not avail of tax relief the €5000 would come directly from your annual net income.

If the levy didn't have tax relief (the income levy is an example of that) it would mean that you would pay tax/PRSI etc on your full 50000.

thanks for those clarifications; that was indeed what I was missing

I think the problem lies in the perceptions from a public and private viewpoint

In the case of a private worker earning 50k, you are making a decision to move 5,000 of that income into a pension and the advantage is through paying less tax than you should as someone earning 50k

from a public worker viewpoint it is harder to visualise the levy like that as no one is taking that money and putting it into a fund or whatever, in effect our salaries are being simply reduced, hence the view of the levy as a paycut; e.g. I could not see why a public worker earning 45k after the levy would be taxed as 50k

thanks for the helpful posts and apologies to those I was arguing with previously

You are right in that it is not exactly the same as a straight cut. The pension levy is better than a straight salary cut as the final pension will not be decreased. There is still no benefit to the worker for paying it.

from a pension point of view, the levy is better

however, I think the point is that there are no extra benefits arising from the increased contribution

but that really that goes back to my earlier points that there are guarantees when it comes to these pensions

Cian92

ei.sdraob wrote: »

didnt they promise us reforms in exchange for benchmarking?

whatever happened to those reforms

Those reforms will be put in place when we get a proper benchmarking scheme. Public and civil servants were earning less than their counterparts both during and now after the boom.

ei.sdraob

Cian92 wrote: »

Those reforms will be put in place when we get a proper benchmarking scheme. Public and civil servants were earning less than their counterparts both during and now after the boom.

surely you must be taking the piss :rolleyes:

what "counterparts" exactly are the Public and civil servants earning less than now

please do entertain us with some solid references to backup this outrageous claim

The_Honeybadger

Cian92 wrote: »

Those reforms will be put in place when we get a proper benchmarking scheme. Public and civil servants were earning less than their counterparts both during and now after the boom.

Graph of public and private sector wages, Ireland, 1998-2008


This graph compares pay in both sectors and clearly shows public pay is and always was higher

Sleepy

galway2007 wrote: »

the feedback you would get is a simple no, then somebody would be sacked and then you would have an all out strike and then the problems start
The union are looking for a reaction to the work to rule and then thry will take all out on strike
You cant think that you can run a public sector with 350000 employees the same way a company with 1000 staff and make the same changes
It will take time and talks to reform it

No? Let's take that 'no' and go with it using sensible business logic:

• The all out-strike starts.
• The management refuse to give in.
• The unions can't afford to pay the workers and those workers can't afford to miss more days' worth of pay if they want to pay their mortgages (note reluctance from PS workers over threatened second day of action in December). A complete lack of support for the strike sees government popularity rise while the public suffers the inconvenience of the strike.
• The strike breaks as workers go back to their jobs.
• The change is implemented, the workers grumble, morale drops but eventually everyone gets on with their jobs.
• The next change is detailed by management

What happens next assuming rational people are making rational decisions? Go on another strike against the next round of changes? Your last one was broken so most likely this one will be too - your wages are worth more to you than your services are to the country so you either try and give better feedback than a simple 'no' or you just accept the proposed change as is.

Now, afaic, all we need is a government with the rational sense to follow this thinking to it's logical conclusion and implement whatever changes are deemed necessary (implementing some of the recommendations of the McCarthy Report would be a good starting point, common sense should dictate the rest).

ardmacha

It is easy to be blasé about a loss of morale. But do you want your children taught at school by demoralised teachers or your granny looked after by demoralised nurses. You don't want people doing these jobs who are doing the minimum to avoid discipline action but who have lost all interest in their work owing to capricious and unprincipled action by their employer. In skillled employments, public or private, it is better to motivate your staff than flog them.

ei.sdraob

ardmacha wrote: »

It is easy to be blasé about a loss of morale. But do you want your children taught at school by demoralised teachers or your granny looked after by demoralised nurses. You don't want people doing these jobs who are doing the minimum to avoid discipline action but who have lost all interest in their work owing to capricious and unprincipled action by their employer. In skillled employments, public or private, it is better to motivate your staff than flog them.

then fire them and replace them with someone who is more motivated

oh wait they cant be fired :rolleyes:


im sure many of the nurses or teachers from UK who earn half of what the crowd here earn wouldnt mind moving country for such a payrise

The_Honeybadger

ardmacha wrote: »

It is easy to be blasé about a loss of morale. But do you want your children taught at school by demoralised teachers or your granny looked after by demoralised nurses. You don't want people doing these jobs who are doing the minimum to avoid discipline action but who have lost all interest in their work owing to capricious and unprincipled action by their employer. In skillled employments, public or private, it is better to motivate your staff than flog them.

Agree with that definately, however you mention the example of a teacher, with their allowances etc your average teachers starts on about 38k (source below) straight out of college (this is before the xmas paycut) assuming they are full-time, that is sheer madness IMO, hardly any other profession has that sort of starting salary, and increments also ensure their salary rises further pretty quickly. I take your point about morale but wages should never have been allowed rise to that level, it is much harder to cut them rather than ensuring wage restraint to keep a more realistic level. Most public servants do very nicely for themselves and are not downtrodden by any stretch of the imagination, even after the recent cuts they are extremely well paid in general. I know some are poorly paid but these would mostly be manual or administrative workers with no qualifications who would hardly command a higher salary in the private sector. I understand them being very angry and i would be too if my salary had been cut three times in two years but the reality is it had to be done, there simply was no alternative as 65% of government spending is wages, there was only so much savings to be got elsewhere.

http://www.tui.ie/Salary_Scales/Default.286.html

ei.sdraob

mickeyk wrote: »

Agree with that definately, however you mention the example of a teacher, with their allowances etc your average teachers starts on about 38k (source below) straight out of college (this is before the xmas paycut) assuming they are full-time, that is sheer madness IMO,

madness is one way of describing it

of course the new/junior members are getting screwed the most, they can thank their unions and older peers for that

ardmacha

While this is a higher starting salary than in Britain it is lower than many other developed countries. Britain is nothing special to emulate in educational terms.

But point are always made about people being well paid "in general". This is precisely the problem, there needs to be attention to detail not generalities. People who weren't especially well paid were cut as much as those who where, people who were efficient were cut by exactly the same amount of those who were not.

The_Honeybadger

ardmacha wrote: »

While this is a higher starting salary than in Britain it is lower than many other developed countries. Britain is nothing special to emulate in educational terms.

But point are always made about people being well paid "in general". This is precisely the problem, there needs to be attention to detail not generalities. People who weren't especially well paid were cut as much as those who where, people who were efficient were cut by exactly the same amount of those who were not.

There was a thread about this lately I think, performance review isn't done properly in the PS according to posters who claimed to work in it so there is very little that can be done to protect the really outstanding workers (of which there are many) until they introduce a system that measures output properly. The cuts affected the lower paid disproportionately I doubt anybody would argue with that.

By the way out of interest what country pays teachers more starting off than us? I'd be amazed if there was more than one or two.

ei.sdraob

ardmacha wrote: »

While this is a higher starting salary than in Britain it is lower than many other developed countries. Britain is nothing special to emulate in educational terms.

But point are always made about people being well paid "in general". This is precisely the problem, there needs to be attention to detail not generalities. People who weren't especially well paid were cut as much as those who where, people who were efficient were cut by exactly the same amount of those who were not.

and hence this thread

if the lot of 'em in the PS bothered to implement reforms and put in mechanisms to separate weed from the chaff (identify and fire the wasters and floaters-by)

then the people in the PS who are new and/or hardworking would not be getting shafted now

once again you can thank the unions and your older peers for this "disgrace"



anyways bureaucracies are rarely capable of reform so im not holding my breath

in the private sector bankruptcy is a powerful motivator to "reform",
it seems that even with the state itself being bankrupt is not enough of a stick to trigger reforms

doc_17

Once again a thread about the public gets on to bashing teachers!!! As I have said before, if it's so wonderful why don't you all try it? Comparing with britain is interesting since they have a lower cost of living for a start (see all the shoppers going north?). Things cost more here. You only have to look at the difference in car prices to see that.
. In the UK they cannot find people to teach due to the difficulties of the job and the pay. Hence all the english schools coming begging to other countries for teachers. \if they did pay a decent salary they wouldn't have problems filling the job. Here in Ireland we have no such problems attracting highly skilled candidates for teaching becuase the salary is fair.

ardmacha

if the lot of 'em in the PS bothered to implement reforms

The lot of 'em cannot implement reforms. In any organisation management has to coordinate reform and the government are pretty much incapable of engaging in management. To read this forum you would think that the unions have to organise reform and implement it even where management hasn't a clue.

woodseb

ardmacha wrote: »

It is easy to be blasé about a loss of morale. But do you want your children taught at school by demoralised teachers or your granny looked after by demoralised nurses. You don't want people doing these jobs who are doing the minimum to avoid discipline action but who have lost all interest in their work owing to capricious and unprincipled action by their employer. In skillled employments, public or private, it is better to motivate your staff than flog them.

i would rather our nurses and teachers are not motivated by money, like in any industry the best way to motivate employees does not lie in their wage packets

doc_17 wrote: »

Hence all the english schools coming begging to other countries for teachers. \if they did pay a decent salary they wouldn't have problems filling the job. Here in Ireland we have no such problems attracting highly skilled candidates for teaching becuase the salary is fair.

if this in true then a fair salary would be somewhere in between that of ireland and britain where there is neither a lack of demand for teaching jobs nor a glut of supply of teachers

ei.sdraob

doc_17 wrote: »

Things cost more here.

have you ever stopped and asked yourself
why do things cost more here?

doc_17 wrote: »

Once again a thread about the public gets on to bashing teachers!!!

who is bashing teachers? i just pointed out that they are rather nicely well paid and we dont really have much to show for it

@ardmacha has written that the children in this country will suffer because the morale is low in the public sector now

well i tell you
these children will suffer for a long time paying back the debt + interest being racked up to pay the current crop of teachers
thats if any of them would be lucky to find a job by time they grow up

now thats a depressing taught no?

:mad: <--v. mad

The_Honeybadger

doc_17 wrote: »

Once again a thread about the public gets on to bashing teachers!!! As I have said before, if it's so wonderful why don't you all try it? Comparing with britain is interesting since they have a lower cost of living for a start (see all the shoppers going north?). Things cost more here. You only have to look at the difference in car prices to see that.
. In the UK they cannot find people to teach due to the difficulties of the job and the pay. Hence all the english schools coming begging to other countries for teachers. \if they did pay a decent salary they wouldn't have problems filling the job. Here in Ireland we have no such problems attracting highly skilled candidates for teaching becuase the salary is fair.

The salary is extremely fair indeed. I actually did teach in a primary school (unqualified sub) for a while while I had just returned from travelling and it was ok, good money but it is certainly not easy as some people imagine it is. It just wasn't for me so I did something else as I knew I wouldn't be happy long term in a classroom, i was surprised how much time went into class preparation. I wasn't teacher bashing I was just commenting that the starting salary seems awfully high when compared with other sectors, they would still attract good people for a lower salary, and the other poster brought it up. This come and join us argument is getting a bit old and is neither here nor there, that'd be great for the economic recovery wouldn't it, a nation of unemployed teachers :rolleyes:

ei.sdraob

ardmacha wrote: »

The lot of 'em cannot implement reforms. In any organisation management has to coordinate reform and the government are pretty much incapable of engaging in management. To read this forum you would think that the unions have to organise reform and implement it even where management hasn't a clue.

then hire people who can implement reforms
may I ask, what the hell are highly paid people in top and middle management in PS are doing? aint it their job to manage, reform is a form of management no?


and last I checked the public sector workers obviously dont want to do anything that the government tells them to do

so its a bit hypocritical pointing the finger at the government and saying they wont tell us what todo, when once told what to do anything that might "rock the boat" the unions organize strikes

ardmacha

i would rather our nurses and teachers are not motivated by money, like in any industry the best way to motivate employees does not lie in their wage packets

What is required is fair treatment, clarity in what is expected of people and some sense of acknowledgement when people do this. Not much chance of that from this government.

thats if any of them would be lucky to find a job by time they grow up

Well, they won't be helped by being in an education system with demoralised staff.

now thats a depressing taught no?

Perhaps you mean thought. Children are taught, people have thoughts.

soden12

Flex wrote: »

The difference is that some private sector workers work for companies that are still doing ok, or even making a profit. Whereas, 100% of public sector workers are working for an employer facing bankruptcy.

What about the banks ?

They are facing bankruptcy .

They got a payrise last year.

They are causing an immense strain on the economy -something that our children will be paying for.

woodseb

soden12 wrote: »

What about the banks country?

They we are facing bankruptcy .


They public sector wages are causing an immense strain on the economy -something that our children will be paying for.

fixed your post

soden12

woodseb wrote: »

I made mindless changes

FYP.

Let's go and aim our guns at _all_ the wrongdoers.

Let's get the banks who dragged us into this mess and are leaving us with the millstone of NAMA whilst feathering their own nests.

ei.sdraob

ardmacha wrote: »

What is required is fair treatment

fair to whom? what the unions are doing is screwing the (remaining) taxpayers in the private sector and the junior members of the public sector itself in order that some overpaid employees (who can not be fired) continue to get fat checks, lets ignore that the cost of living has also gone down and the only things that did go up in last year (eg: healthcare) is tied to the public sector

ardmacha wrote: »

clarity in what is expected of people

yee are expected to do your jobs

ardmacha wrote: »

and some sense of acknowledgement when people do this.

having a safe pension, secure job and being paid 30% more than the private sector is not good enough of an acknowledgment?

ardmacha wrote: »

Well, they won't be helped by being in an education system with demoralised staff.

then fire these people, and hire people who might appreciate how well pampered the teachers here are

300,000 people from the private sector got "demoralized" by being handed a p45, so please cry me a river about how tough things are being a public servant (right now these servants are not doing a good job at serving the public either, by working to rule)

ardmacha wrote: »

Perhaps you mean thought. Children are taught, people have thoughts.

my English teacher must have been demoralized


finally the country is bankrupt, there is no money.
if the unions get their way > then we end-up in a situation that Greece is in now > and then the cuts will be forced not by the government but by either EU or IMF

dvpower

soden12 wrote: »

What about the banks ?

They are facing bankruptcy .

They got a payrise last year.

They are causing an immense strain on the economy -something that our children will be paying for.

Many staff in the banks got a payrise last year. This was completely unjustified, not because of the damage that the banks did to the economy, but because the banks are not making profits to justify a payrise.

AFAIK, the payrises were paid to non management grades; these people were not responsible for the lending decisions and policies of the banks that caused us all so much trouble.

woodseb

soden12 wrote: »

FYP.

Let's go and aim our guns at _all_ the wrongdoers.

Let's get the banks who dragged us into this mess and are leaving us with the millstone of NAMA whilst feathering their own nests.

if the lower paid bank officials didn't get a pay rise, would you now accept public service pay cuts?

pointing the finger at somebody else doesn't change the structural deficit in the economy

K-9

dvpower wrote: »

Many staff in the banks got a payrise last year. This was completely unjustified, not because of the damage that the banks did to the economy, but because the banks are not making profits to justify a payrise.

AFAIK, the payrises were paid to non management grades; these people were not responsible for the lending decisions and policies of the banks that caused us all so much trouble.

They also went through the Labour Court procedures.

I don't think that is open to the Public Sector though, though I think there has been an offer from the Commission.

Count Dooku

soden12 wrote: »

What about the banks ?

They are facing bankruptcy .

They got a payrise last year.

They are causing an immense strain on the economy -something that our children will be paying for.

Do you mean that if banks escaped punishment, taxpayers must support everybody, who wants it?
Sounds like reasonable explanation why trade unions stayed away from anti-NAMA protests

ceret

Nidot wrote: »

But does anyone have a legitimate example/examples of where these reforms can be made. i.e. you identify a specific problem, you can accurately measure the wasteful resources and then you can implement necessary changes which would result in cost savings.

Some members of the public service get paid time off to go to the bank to lodge their pay cheques. Banks being only open during office hours. However, they're all paid by direct debit now, not cheque...

Sleepy

Another one: junkets.

The amount of conferences that some PS workers attend on the expense account is incredible. Certainly, it tends to be only senior staff but from my experiences at a few conferences I've attended comercially they treat them like an extended staff party that they've been paid to drive to.

And that's just the one's in the country. Ban all conference attendences, unnecessary travel etc.

I've heard stories of council staff flying to China for a week to 'inspect' tiles they were thinking of using in a refurbishment of a building which was no more than 30 miles from a local quarry.