大象传媒

The difference between high earners in the public sector and in the private sector is that in the private sector the employees on high salaries are usually producers of profits.In the public sector it makes no difference whether the high paid are any use at their job or not, nobody is checking and nobody really cares. Cuts are necessary, but sadly when they come, the knife will be wielded by the very people who should be cut; cut away will be a few bin men, road workers, hospital cleaners or porters and low salary clerical workers, but the real and worst cost, that of employing useless high salaried people in unnecessary posts will continue.

Sir John Elvidge, the permanent secretary to the Scottish Government, will retire from his 拢185,000-a-year job at the end of June, after accruing a pension pot of 拢1.7 million.

He will walk away with a tax-free pension payment of 拢225,000 and an annual pension of 拢75,000.

Yes Douglas. Scotland's public sector workers are overpaid.

I agree with kaybraes; nurse and teachers should be producers of profit.

Imagine how much "waste" could be reduced if we made parents pay for their offspring's education?

How much does Douglas earn to tell us what someone else has told him?

What "profit" is he producing? He is, after all, paid by the taxpayer.

Creation of unnecessary managerial layers have partly been driven by self interest (rife in management in the private sector too) and also, by successive governments obsessed with monitoring, gathering performance indicators/targets data (that rarely inform us in any meaningful way about quality of performance as far as service users are concerned) and creating swathes of people to manage those who actually deliver services! So, yes, perhaps some overhaul could make savings here.
But,
Cutting front line workers jobs will damage vital services for those who are the most vulnerable in our society. Cutting front line public sector workers pay will disillusion further those who are going to (continue) to be expected to rovide ever better services with ever less resources.
The whole debate over the degree of 'pain' to be suffered by 'all of us' that is being repeated again and again in the media skews the truth as it implies, we will all face similar levels of 'hardship' - lets face it, those that are likely to be in most 'pain' after the cuts are likely to be those who were furthest away from causing the financial crisis in the first place.

"The result is that GPs are better paid, relative to national income, than family doctors in any comparable country"

This fact is not really understood by the public at large and if it was, at a time of cuts I am sure many would be none to happy?

I read somewhere that German Doctors could earn more in a weekend working nights in the UK, covering for their UK compatriots (who opted out of such menial work and still got a pay rise) than they could earn in a full week in prosperous Germany.

It may be that when the cuts begin to bite such grotesque anomalies may be widely highlighted and people will grow to understand that it is not only the bankers who take more than their fair share of the national cake!

Yes, to some extent I agree, GP's (compared even to hospital doctors) seem to have managed to wangle an unusually fruitful deal, and I think it was a disastrous mistake to let them do so at the same time as allowing opt outs for unsocial hours. Nevertheless, I would suggest that this anomalous situation is just that and has not been replicated in the same way or by the same degree in any other parts of the (front-line) public sector. So this definitely should not get bankers off the hook!!

Douglas,
you like so many more in the media sector always dance round the problem and never get down to attempting to solve the problem why?
I have lived in the private sector all my working life, so I can only talk about my own experiences; they have been many and varied. I started in as an indentured apprentice receiving 1/30th of the journeymen that were teaching me, this income then rose with annual increments until I was earning 50% of that same journeyman during my 5th year and did receive the full rate on the day my 5 years was finished. Needless to say this was such an experience that I quickly moved on when I discovered that my qualifications opened up doors that proved to be better at paying the rate for the job.

Having changed industry, I then worked with a bonus system for a good number of years, this was enlightening in that my basic pay was miserly and the bonus systems put forward by the management were open to fiddles by all including the management. Suffice to say this gravy train did eventually hit the buffers.

A new top man arrived, the bonus systems were scrapped as were many of the layers of management, we were all now paid a salary that was a living wage. We were also paid a profit share, the upshot of the management restructuring was that the pyramid disappeared and in its place a structure more the size of a plook.
We had before these changes had at its best 15% of the market, within 4 years we had 60% of the market and 30% of our production was exported.

My observations regarding the public sector during that same period was and still is at best amusement or even absolute fear at its worst, management pyramids鈥� abound decisions that should take days or even hours in the private sector, take weeks, months and even years as everyone in every pyramid has to pass it up then pass it down, then send it to the bean counters in their pyramid.

Why does it take a report dictated take 14 days to get in the post within the NHS Scotland and a similar dictated report take 24 hours to be delivered by post from the private sector? Could it be that there is no pyramid in the private sector?

I tend to agree with oldmack.

I worked in the private sector in a small company, later a much larger one and latterly within the public sector.

Flattening the pyramid would be great but there are a number of issues:

1. It's extremely difficult to fire anyone.
2. Managers when they are recruited tend not to be paid more than they get in the private sector, subsequently it tends mean that their ability was never more than sub-optimal.
3. No-one ever leaves (unless they retire) this makes process or cultural change difficult.
4. It's just a little bit too cosy, everyone is your pal. There are no consequences for poor performance, lasaize-faire management (relax and do nothing) may well be a default position.
5. On the flip side motivating staff who work for you is extremely difficult (unless they are altruistic).


Come the revolution - we'll pay our GP's for the longevity of the populations they care for (the difference they make). We'll pay our consultants for the hospital stays and medical / surgical procedures that they managed to prevent - as well as they ones they actually completed.

Oh and the letters/ reports?
They'll be e-mailed out, appointments will be texted to your mobile phone. Patients who cannot use these methods will be contacted in the way that best suits them.

Why is it not happening now? Surely it's the dead hand of those in the middle of the pyramid (and possibly at the top) those who Deloitte believe are 'planning strategically'.

If the legacy of 'Fred the shred' is a cull of public sector managers - surely we should thank him.

I'm pleased to see that GP bashing has jumped from the pages of the Daily Mail to the 大象传媒 website.

As per usual, when you follow the links, it's not possible to see where these figures come from, or how reliable they're likely to be. The reason this is a problem is that GPs aren't paid directly by the government; practices earn money through their various activities, and the partners in the practice take a share of what's left after paying the bills, including staff costs. So there is no central salary scale for GPs.

Furthermore, this data is for 2006 - GP income has been frozen since then and GP year on year income has declined as staff and other cost have continued to rise. Maybe the commentators above would like to disclose whether they have taken a pay cut every year recently, one which is likely to continue every year for the foreseeable future? That said, as a (young) GP, I cannot complain about being badly paid, but I'm currently only 10% better paid than I was as a junior doctor in hospitals. Sure, my hours are less antisocial than they used to be, but I do work 11 hr days and I work harder when I'm at work than I did in hospital. According to the OECD report, hospital consultants remain better paid than GPs, despite the remarks of one of the previous commentators.

I'm not complaining - it's a great job and I'm well paid, I just wish there was slightly less media driven misinformation

I am not into 'GP-bashing', and I understand you get payments related to specific areas of practice, I merely pointed out that GP's comparatively speaking, (whether they have had pay freezes or not) have done rather well. And when it comes to hospital medicine, it depends which hospital department you work in - A&E doctors do horrendous hours and I can assure you, many in relatively senior positions get a lot less than 10% of an average GP wage. Anyway, I find it rather amusing that you imply 10% more isn't a lot - most people would consider a 10% jump in pay a huge amount! Also, doctors have powerful backing for their negotiations - fair play to them, no-one in their right mind in their position would think that was a bad thing. But the majority of public sector workers are not so fortunate. Additionally, some upper and middle management posts seem to exist entirely to create spin to justify their own existence and worth, that would put political parties to shame, or to monitor those at the coal face every move without improving practice at all. The fact remains those who I suspect will REALLY be hit the hardest will be those who have the least already. To shed tears for those at the top, already on high wages who might see a pay freeze or a small cut is misplaced.

As a member of a family with a dedicated local authority officer as the main bread winner I want to throw a few points into this debate.

1) Audit Scotland have recently identified that LA's across Scotland exceeded their efficiency targets last year but may now be cutting into bones rather than any fat to get further savings.

2) Pay and conditions as negotiated with the Unions are often subject to national agreements and many LA officers have already agreed to pay freezes and other measures to reduce costs and preserve services.

3) Many authorities have, over a number of years, been reducing management structures, in some cases by 30% in the last year. All organisations should constantly review their cost bases and LA's in my experience are no different. The flexibility in making changes is however not the same as in private companies.

4) LA's are controlled by local politicians who set policies and strategies with advice from officers. Unlike a board of directors the motive is not usually profit but to provide the best services for the least cost which tends to lead towards a cost neutral position with little room for future investment.

5) Leaving GPs and Teachers aside the pay awards to LA staff in many of the last 13 years have been at best 1% above inflation whilst in many areas of the private sector basic and bonuses have been in double figures. This is very obvious in those authorities with low staffing levels (of which there are many) which rely on private companies to deliver services and is a perfectly acceptable approach that has worked well. The trimming of budgets will of course lead to far fewer contracts in the private sector as well for the army of consultants and agency workers employed by LA's.

6) None of our family friends work in the public sector and cannot understand why anyone would given the constant public criticism and I quote "rubbish pay" and "long hours".

6)Efficiencies and restructuring will only go so far and are very difficult to push through when many teams are already very lean and efficient and the cause of the deficit is so far removed from the LA role in society. Shared services and joint working also have a role to play ad are already in place in some authorities but often the benefits of these approaches can be of the "emperors new clothes variety"

7) Policy positions will have to be reviewed at Local and National levels. But will these be acceptable to the "shareholders" that are the voting public.

I hope these assist the debate and would encourage a more rounded view of how the public sector goes delivers

It seems to me a little ironic that two of the organisations offering advice to the Government are probably benefitting hugely from public sector budgets and indeed contribute to a vast amount of public money being drawn away from frontline services. Would a partner in a successful accountancy firm earning a six-figure partners' salary fare quite as well as a senior accountant in a public body? Not to mention their admirable role in ensuring their clients pay as little tax as is possible.

Furthermore, why in all of this debate is the focus on the so-called 'overpaid' public servants? Why not the 'overpaid' accountants and lawyers who routinely charge hundreds of pounds an hour for their services provided to both the public and private sectors? Granted they are producing 'profit' but that profit has to come from somewhere and in the case of a private firm the profit comes from a combination of cost-cutting (here's your P45, thank you and goodbye) and price inflation, which hits anyone who consumes goods or services. High lawyers' and accountants' fees are simply another tax on consumption, slapped on everything from the performance of a pension fund to the price of a box of eggs at the local supermarket.

Why not celebrate a culture that encourages high pay in the public sector? One that actively seeks fuller employment? Surely we want the best and the brightest working to our mutual benefit, rather than simply their own? Higher pay in the public sector encourages healthy competition for staff, encourages shockingly low-payers to raise their employee benefits and can encourage the development of new types of worker and industries through funding employment that would otherwise be 'commercially unsustainable'. And it encourages spending in the wider economy that has dropped as a result of decreased private sector employment and demand.

We'd do well to think about the tax that comes back to the government from every public sector employee - Income Tax, National Insurance, Council Tax, Stamp Duty, Fuel Duty and VAT to name just a few must send around 30-40% of the total cost of an employee back the way.

And we'd all do very well to think about the actual cost of the cuts - a smaller public sector, a smaller private sector, fewer jobs, higher unemployment and higher benefit payments. That's really going to get the country moving..isn't it?

Perhaps if we taxed the rich appropriately, the 'axe' wouldn't have to be wielded just so heavily on others, whatever sector they work in. But that wouldn't suit the Conservatives (or their new best mates now either it seems) who ultimately, will be loving the thought of rolling back the state in any way possible - as usual, the public sector is easy-target number one - just a thought!

Yes, me and millions of other low level civil servants are so well paid we qualify for Working Tax Credit. We definitely need a wage cut.

We're not all paid at the GP/Perm Sec level. Daily Mail readers please note.

One example of an unjustifiable public/private difference is that the highest paid first year trainee solicitors in Scotland work in the public sector, whether for the government or local council.

Workers in the public sector simply must accept that they will have to face the same cost cutting measures that private sector workers do. Its just unfair otherwise. We're all in this together, lets not get Greek about this.

Yes, but serious question here as I don't know, what are their comparative earnings later in their career? trainee solicitors aren't trainees for long, and when they qualify, my guess is, their potential earnings may well be much higher in the private than the public sector. Regardless, you cannot expect public sector workers not to be perturbed by the tone of the piece above and indeed, about the wider discourse. Surely the debate should be about how to save whilst protecting those already in the most vulnerable positions - I would suggest generally, they are not solicitors (or trainee solicitors)!

Okay I accept that its open season on public sector workers but please remember that we are also tax and council tax payers. We don't get off just cos we work for the authorities. As a person with a slight disability the private sector were very reluctant to employ me as they perceived I would be off sick all the time, councils have to employ a percentage of people with disabilities so gave me a job - I have had no days off sick in the last 2 years but thats beside the point. My work is not a Statutory service post so its likely that I will lose my job - at least I know enough about the system to know which bvenefits I can claim but I would much rather be working in my council job - which has no private sector relative - than claiming my 拢65.45 JSA. Charities do get funding from councils to provide the service I provide but that changes to do you the public want a professional service or a volunteer service.

The press today is full of council tax pays for public pensions claims - well I pay my council tax so I pay twice - from my wages and from my council tax - and at the rate we're going I'll be lucky to get a pension. If I lose my job then many of the small shops round my workplace will also suffer - no public coming into the office & no staff means there is less footfall on the street and less customers . Our office was closed as a cost saving and the 2 shops either side have suffered as there is less customers

I work in the public sector in an IT dept and I am absolutely SICK at the lack of efficiency especially in making decisions and progressing projects, it is a total joke! My previous experience is in th eprivate sector.

From my own experience the "layers of managers" comment is spot on. However, by far the biggest issue is lack of clear leadership. There seems to be no one in the public sector (in my org anyway) that's willing to progress big IT projects in a manner similar to the private sector. There are so many different departments that even if someone wanted to progress the work they probably wouldn't have the authority. Let me give you an example:

We have big/medium IT Projects that have been in the "pipeline" (love this word, leverage is another one :-)) for 3+ years because we are progressing down a path of external procurement yet we have the toolsets and the skills in house to deliver this project, us developers are PULLING OUR HAIR OUT, we could have developed 3 or 4 key modules in 3+ years. The top-level project team is headed by a contractor who lines his pockets for 拢600+; we are on our third one!! The advice they give is based on their previous experience working in homogenous environments with big project; it's totally unsuitable to our environment. This contractor reports to the projects dept, we also have a technical architecture dept and a development dept, who is in charge of this project?? A bloody contractor, we don't even have oversight from someone that is permanent in the org.

All the developers think this contractor is wrong for pushing us down this very lengthy procurement path, but NO ONE LISTENS! If you speak up too often you stop getting invited to meetings and cc'd into emails etc.

The politics and bureaucracy is killing efficiency! It鈥檚 all caused by management types who don鈥檛 really know what they鈥檙e doing, they鈥檙e just playing a game, 鈥渙h lets go to a meeting about a meeting that we want to have next week, Oh look I鈥檓 getting paid 拢60,000 thank sooooo much kind tax payer鈥�

having worked in front-line social work in the past, I can empathise to some degree with your predicament Gi - an example in a(slightly) similar vein was when some front line workers and their immediate (lower level) managers tried to suggest changes that would make service delivery smoother, (dare I say, more efficient) and responsive to service user needs ie. trying to make the best of the limited resources we had which would make us more 'productive' by using our time more effectively - what happened? Obstacles at every turn as it was being shot down in flames by managers higher up who frankly, did not have a clue about the ins and outs of every day service provision and service user need.
Lots however, happened for show - we were CONSTANTLY having to spend increasing amounts of time completing meaningless exercises to provide meaningless performance indicators to managers, that revealed nothing about quality or efficiency of service - everyone filled them in differently so they were even more unusable than I even imagined they could be. It got so bad a few years ago that there were two local managerial posts 'created' (at over 60k each salary) to manage the local community health partnership (as far as we could all tell, two were appointed just to keep both the health and social work hierarchy happy) and to somehow demonstrate joint working in action and the manager immediately above their positions, when asked, said he didn't know what their job descriptions were going to consist of - this while we were getting bigger caseloads, with less resources to respond to need and front-line staff members (who incidentally cost a lot less per year!) who were leaving were not being replaced. Meanwhile, the hierarchy agreed the chop for a vital support for VERY vulnerable people (a service for people with dementia)but agreed funding for another service which was NEVER used by anyone because it didn't meet the needs of anyone who was vulnerable enough to receive our service! Consultation before such axing/commissioning was scarce, tokenistic or after the fact - apparently, they knew best. Sorry, I'll draw breath! But it's infuriating! In fact, it's immoral, on a number of fronts!

Delloites FREE advice is absolutely spot on. I have dealt with a Unitary Authority which has layer upon layer of "MANAGEMENT"
A good dose of Private Business Practices would strip out at least 3/4 layers of 拢60k plus jobs.
Whilst recognising that any Local Authority must have professionals heading its Finance,Enginering,Planning and Social sciences, it does not need a plethora of Grades below that. In terms of its other needs,Legal Bulding Regulations and other similar services, these could (and indeed some are in some Scotish Authorities) contracted out.
Most Local Authorities could contract out services for less and use this practice to reduce the burgeoning unfunded Pension Costs which are currently financed by Today's Income.
The whole Public Service Conditions of Employment need a thorough review to bring them into line with current Commercial Practices.

What is the average salary of a 大象传媒 Scotland presenter?
What is their staff pension scheme like?
Slainte Mhor

I find this criticism of doctors pay tedious beyond belief.

The problem of course stemmed from Alan Milburn (he of the flat vowels) who thought consultants spent all their time at their club or on the golf course. However when they actually looked at the vast amount of additional work NHS consultants were doing free gratis they had to stump up something in recompense. Hence the new contract.

I have been a doctor for 24 years and a consultant for 18 of those years. The service is now consultant led to the point that juniors are essentially supernumerary and largely at work to be trained. I have never had so much work to do nor has the complexity of my work ever been greater. In fact here I am at 10pm on a Sunday night....at work! Interference in the life of a consultant is also now endless with ridiculous issues like annual appraisal and now revalidation (to stop all us wouldbe Shipmans) acting as unwanted purposeless distractions from the real job.

I am one of the leading experts in my field in the UK. I have more degrees than you can shake a stick at. I receive hundreds of complex cases from around the UK every year and deal with in excess of some 5000 items of work per year....not to mention speaking at meetings, training juniors and chairing committees blah blah blah! I receive a basic salary of 89k. I will let you do the maths to see if this is good value but you should bear in mind that in the private sector each item of work would be billed at 拢100-300.

Last week a plumber and a couple of apprentices spent a morning at my house repairing a few washers, a non-flushing loo and replacing a mixer tap in the kitchen...the bill was nearly 600 quid. If only I was paid that amount per item of service I would be driving back home in a Bentley! Is it not bizarre that a plumber is making more than a cancer specialist, brain surgeon or perhaps someone replumbing your coronary vascualture! So I do not for one minute feel that as a highly trained specialised professional in the NHS that my salary is excessive. In fact I would say it is distinctly average for the training, qualifications and expertise required to do the job and the level of responsibilty that it entails.

Much more moaning about docs salaries and pensions (which have in fact already gone to career average earnings for new recruits and are poor when compared to MP's, firemen and the police) then we should do what the dentists did a few years back ....all go private! But then politicans and journalists like Mr Fraser have short memories of tha havoc and bad press that caused.

Why not get at people who are payed daft sums...footballers, most bankers and susan Boyle would be a good start!

"fedupdoc 24"

"Last week a plumber and a couple of apprentices spent a morning at my house repairing a few washers, a non-flushing loo and replacing a mixer tap in the kitchen" - It must have seemed just like an average Friday afternoon directing a couple of your junior doctors :)

I don't think any criticism of salary levels are aimed at the medical profession in general, indeed Douglas Fraser's blog makes the point that the salaries of hospital consultants are only mid range when compared internationally.

Rather, any criticism is of GP contracts, which has left family doctors "better paid, relative to national income, than family doctors in any comparable country".

Is it too late for you to train as a GP?

LOL fife1874! Recently we've all been required to fill in spreadsheets as well! Snap! Apparently to account for our time so that the top managers can show our agency customers what we're working on. I find it so perverse that their inefficiency at progressing big projects means we have to fill in timesheets to justify our existence. In fact I鈥檝e heard that we have internal developers working on an application to store this info in a database rather than spreadsheets, presumably so that someone can write reports for it. We have meaningless managerial posts created as well, 40k+ titled "partner managers" or something, these posts and possibly many more like them across public sector agencies do not provide any value for money. These managers go to meetings with other managers of other departments all day, and the whole organisation is busy going round in circles servicing ITSELF rather than the customer.

If this information was posted about an African nation we might think possibly in a smug & superior way "HA! CORRUPTION!鈥� Well, guess what, our government agencies are crippled by CORRUPTION! WE have gotten so good at doing it that it's not something the man on the street sees, it not the in your face kind that we hear about in other places. This corruption involves individuals at the top that don鈥檛 actually have ANY tangible skills, they are simply 鈥渢alkin shops鈥�, it鈥檚 in their interest to keep the wheels moving slowly. WE have sophisticated corruption. It wears a respectable suit and by God it can talk the talk but it rarely delivers ANYTHING! (A bit like new labour)

I hope the public purse hasn't paid for this "paper". The first half tells us precisely nothing that we could not glean from watching the news. When it comes to actual figures we are presented with a couple of tables of unprocessed data and a graph that shows that "wage inflation" (an interestingly emotive phrase, don't you think?) has been very low in the private sector during a recession. Gee! I wish I could get paid for coming up with that.

And then we have the salary comparison of two - count them, two - private sector jobs with other OECD countries. So tell me, why do we have data on primary teaching, but not secondary - is it so much harder to find the data? Why only one job comparison for the whole medical sector?

And, more crucially, the report itself states that there is a huge differential in salaries (compared with the private sector) between staff with degrees and those without. Why are we not presented with salary comparisons across the OECD for the latter?

This is a terribly thin piece of work. It contains almost no genuinely useful data. It makes no attempt to take into account other aspects of employment (flexible working, bonuses etc) that may have costs and which should be taken into account when comparing the public and the private sectors. It comes across as little more than a first year economics essay. In these times of economic hardship there will be tensions between private and public sectors - this report does precisely nothing other than fuel those tensions.

There are comparisons now I come to think about it...although my juniors generally needed less tea and fag breaks!

With regards to GP's the contract underpriced opting out of night work such that the majority ditched out of hours services. We now have a bizarre service (NHS 24) whereby a nurse tries to asssess the severity of your illness over the phone. When I was a young doc refusal to attend a patient would result in referral to the GMC...now the government have made this the national 'standard of care'. To get the GP's to take this work back would now require further shed loads of money...but even then I doubt many would take this back on.

And no I wouldn't want to be a GP for any amount of money...!

High salaries are paid to workers in the public sector to 'managers' who are responsible to promote 'leadership at all levels' of strutures. They however never give autonomy to the very people they are trying to inspire, rather contineously audit and monitor. If people fall to live up to expectation they are left to stagnate and continue to earn their money without really moving with the times.

Education is a classic example. At local authority level there are a whole raft of managers earing>拢50 pa who in manage another raft of 'senior' managers in schools, all earing >拢45 who manage middle managers i.e. 'heads of department/faculties who earn >拢40 + pa.

How many managers do they need to help a pupil read and write to a standard that might meet that of mainland Europe?

I personaly think we should equip and free our chalk face teachers to manage the pupils they know really well. Pay them a wage that will attract the right calibre of individual, give them autonomy ( as they do in many European countries ) and get ride of the layers of out of touch managers who sit in a office light years from the classroom.

May sound a bit dramatic, but as I have already intimated, it works effectively in other countries.

cathenryhenrythenavigator , Modernising the conditions would be a good start. But the cancer at the heart of the public sector is the culture & status quo that has developed. I have no idea how this would be addressed comprehensively. One major step would be to stop promoting from within for managerial posts and have external efficiency auditors. I have seen people go from pleb to project manager to programme manager in less than a year and a half. There is a definite culture of "He's a good guy, he'll get that job wink! wink!"

Although my own agency is a joke, we are not entirely to blame, our government customers are an even bigger joke, they continually hold us back. They鈥檙e unable to work together and agree on things, and there is no one person who can progress anything.

The public sector needs no nonsense Alan Sugar types at the very top, putting pressure on government agencies to talk to each other and agree on common business processes. Common business processes is absolutely key, everyone MUST have the same processes so that a guy like me can do his job. In my agency us programmers are all DESPERATE to do our jobs and develop something ONCE for EVERYONE and then host it on ONE set of servers and have ONE set of developers/expert users/help desk guys/2nd line support guys/HW maintenance contracts supporting it, we would save loads of money! Our government customers would be able to share data and stop getting ripped off & taken for a ride by free loaders and criminals. We need a public sector efficiency TZAR for each key area where functionality overlaps e.g. Local authorities, Policing, Health...

As a public servant I can agree that cuts have to come from the top. But to broadly make generalistations about the Public sector is a bit ignorant. It's a fact that the average civil servants wage falls below the uk average wage level. Civil servants did not enjoy the associated benefits of the economic boom, but we are expected to pay the cost for everybody elses success now the country is in trouble.

What about the millions and millions in tax that deos not get pursued?, and why have the senior members of the banking sector got off scott free? It sickens me. Sir Fred must be laughing all the way to the bank and back.