Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:18 pm  

The Chair Maker wrote:

Parking in King Street which is in the city centre of Manchester £6.80 for two hours
Parking in THE CITY of London is £2.50 per hour

Umm it was meant to be a tongue in cheek post. But for the sake of argument, if you want to park where I work in London, it costs £4.40 an hour.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:19 pm  

Hull White Star wrote:

You said that you deserve the high parking fees because you voted in the Tories. I just told you what, imo you really deserve and that is to be embarrassed about the way they are going about things and treating vunerable members of society.

I actually didn't think that was difficult to understand

I was being sarcastic...

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:23 pm  

Rock God X wrote: Has anyone actually said that pay will be cut in the north? Details are murky. The wording is that public sector staff should have "pay brought into line with private sector salaries in their regions" (e.g. here). The proposed mechanism appears to be that public sector workers in some regions will not receive a pay rise until the private sector salaries in those regions reach some (as yet unstated) target. Presumably (though again it's not stated), any pay rises thereafter will somehow be linked to regional prosperity. Teh Grauniad wrote: It has not yet been decided if localised pay will apply only to new staff or to existing staff as well, but it was being stressed that no current employee would suffer a pay cut. Instead pay levels will gradually be adjusted to take account of costs, leading to larger pay rises in the south-east where some labour shortages exist. [...] The Treasury intends to spread the reforms beyond the civil service across the public sector in the years ahead as staff come out of the public sector pay freeze. The department is not trying to introduce just regional pay, but local or zonal pay that might take account of, for instance, living costs in suburban Manchester as opposed to inner-city Manchester.

Rock God X wrote: Has anyone actually said that pay will be cut in the north? Details are murky. The wording is that public sector staff should have "pay brought into line with private sector salaries in their regions" (e.g. here). The proposed mechanism appears to be that public sector workers in some regions will not receive a pay rise until the private sector salaries in those regions reach some (as yet unstated) target. Presumably (though again it's not stated), any pay rises thereafter will somehow be linked to regional prosperity. Teh Grauniad wrote: It has not yet been decided if localised pay will apply only to new staff or to existing staff as well, but it was being stressed that no current employee would suffer a pay cut. Instead pay levels will gradually be adjusted to take account of costs, leading to larger pay rises in the south-east where some labour shortages exist. [...] The Treasury intends to spread the reforms beyond the civil service across the public sector in the years ahead as staff come out of the public sector pay freeze. The department is not trying to introduce just regional pay, but local or zonal pay that might take account of, for instance, living costs in suburban Manchester as opposed to inner-city Manchester.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 4:33 pm  

Dave Lister wrote: Make sure you don't mention the Wandsworth Council Tax rates to our friend The Chair Maker too Good idea Wandsworth Council wrote: Band H: £1363.27 (or £1413.01 in the conservators' area) My Band B council tax would come down by £700 in Wandsworth. I expect the area I live in would be considered 'poor'...

Dave Lister wrote: Make sure you don't mention the Wandsworth Council Tax rates to our friend The Chair Maker too Good idea Wandsworth Council wrote: Band H: £1363.27 (or £1413.01 in the conservators' area) My Band B council tax would come down by £700 in Wandsworth. I expect the area I live in would be considered 'poor'...

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:10 pm  

LeightonP wrote: Details are murky. The wording is that public sector staff should have "pay brought into line with private sector salaries in their regions" (e.g. here). The proposed mechanism appears to be that public sector workers in some regions will not receive a pay rise until the private sector salaries in those regions reach some (as yet unstated) target. Presumably (though again it's not stated), any pay rises thereafter will somehow be linked to regional prosperity. No matter how its dressed up, there will still be a divide in pay within the same organisation. Like I state previously hubby has gone for two jobs in the private sector, exactly the same job he is doing now only in a different environment but the pay difference was £10,000 so how exactly will it be decided what the equvillent is in private sector when there is a huge difference.

LeightonP wrote: Details are murky. The wording is that public sector staff should have "pay brought into line with private sector salaries in their regions" (e.g. here). The proposed mechanism appears to be that public sector workers in some regions will not receive a pay rise until the private sector salaries in those regions reach some (as yet unstated) target. Presumably (though again it's not stated), any pay rises thereafter will somehow be linked to regional prosperity. No matter how its dressed up, there will still be a divide in pay within the same organisation. Like I state previously hubby has gone for two jobs in the private sector, exactly the same job he is doing now only in a different environment but the pay difference was £10,000 so how exactly will it be decided what the equvillent is in private sector when there is a huge difference.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 5:24 pm  

Hull White Star wrote:

No matter how its dressed up, there will still be a divide in pay within the same organisation.

That's right. There is already with London weighting, mind. Oftentimes there's a salary scale with multiple spine points, where people in the same office - doing the same job - are paid differently for no reason other than the length of time they've been employed (true where I work, for example). The question is not whether there is a division of this sort, but whether it's fair, justified, or reasonable.

Hull White Star wrote:

Like I state previously hubby has gone for two jobs in the private sector, exactly the same job he is doing now only in a different environment but the pay difference was £10,000 so how exactly will it be decided what the equvillent is in private sector when there is a huge difference.

That's only one of the many problems with the proposal, as reported - it's not clear how any such equivalence, or 'private sector pay rates', is meant to be established.

[DaveO]

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:31 pm  

The other side of the coin is if the idea is public pay matches private can we expect the public sector workers in London to brought up to the average pay levels of the private sector there?

I am sure its going to work both ways isn't it? Large salary increases all round?

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:31 pm  

Surely our government should want to make living in the North more attractive. If they widen the gap between the pay then eventually you will finish up with worse teachers, nurses etc.. in the north and it will be a spiral downwards for the northern areas. Going from the TES private sector teachers get paid more than public sector teachers in Yorkshire, so would this mean an increase in pay for public sector teachers in Yorkshire? Somehow I doubt it, this is just a crude way of making the South richer and the north work for minimum wage or a bit above to keep the south rich.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:52 pm  

DaveO wrote:

The other side of the coin is if the idea is public pay matches private can we expect the public sector workers in London to brought up to the average pay levels of the private sector there?

I am sure its going to work both ways isn't it? Large salary increases all round?

The problem with such a means of spurious "rate matching" is that it works on the principle that for every job in the country there is a "grade" and for that "grade" there is a "rate",

Now that works perfectly well in the civil service, as anyone who has worked in the civil service knows almost every job has a grade and every grade has a salary band and its known and publicised so that you know exactly where you stand on the ladder of hierachy.

Unfortunately the civil servants who make policies tend to think that the rest of the world all works the same way too - but is doesn't, not even close.

Take a lowly accounts clerk processing invoices all day long - a civil service accounts clerk will have a clearly defined grade and a band of remuneration limits, low to high.

The exact equivalent accounts clerk working for a private company will be paid whatever the hell their employer wants to pay them, starting from the national minimum wage and quite often ending at the national minimum wage too, there will probably be minimal or zero pension provision in the job, we won't go into the sick pay provisions...

Point is that there is nothing to compare it to, you are not comparing eggs with eggs, there are no scales of pay in the private sector.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:14 pm  

It's more expensive down south in the hope that it'll keep our northern bretheren from moving there.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. They still come down and tell us how much better it is where they come from, whilst still taking the coin.

Wouldn't have happened under Danelaw eh?










Yes, I'm being ironic before you lot get all viking on me.