Public sector pay freeze for top 40,000 public servants announced

[csirl]

Who are these people that you believe can be cut without impacting services?

The book of estimate lists every item of expenditure the Government makes. There are staff, sometimes entire organisations, associated with every line of programme expenditure. There will be programmes cut in the upcoming budget. Therefore the staff who work specifically on these programmes will be surplus to requirements. There will be many other areas where programmes will be reduced in scale thus not needing as many staff as are currently employed.

 

[Complainer]

Other things, like bloated welfare rates, the minimum wage, cartels amongst the professional classes, and import and trading regulations need to also be addressed to rapidly change the competitive base for generations to come.

You forget a few important things off your misguided list - starting with the property prices that our Govt is working hard to keep at artificial levels, to support their friends in the building industry.

 

[Latrade]

It's great that you can speak with certainty about how a programme that hasn't yet been devised will work, and what the impacts will be. Any tips for the 3.15 at Haydock on Saturday?

Just to clarify: we have a situation where members will be balloted regarding industrial action over cuts when we haven’t even been told what, how much or where those cuts will be made and my point regarding how it might actually be a reasonable approach to cuts is the one to ridicule? Are we really so self absorbed that the irony is missed here?

I can speak with some certainty because that is a reasonable and more common system of redundancies.

This is nothing to do with comradeship or support. This has to do with public services. Who are these people who have 'no productivity' in the workplace? Who are these people who offer 'no value'? Get down from your high horse with these wild, unsupported generalisations, and let's get some specifics on the table about what organisations you want to 'dissappear'?

Wow, start thinking about your own posts before asking others for specifics. All we have from you is a blanket defence of the entire public service. It isn’t untouchable. While you avoid specifics and chose to just shout down anyone who offers suggestions I have been specific (and I think reasonable). And yet when I am specific, you start lampooning the suggestion and ask for racing tips. So what’s the point of being specific when your MO is to just mock without substance or consideration?

Now, are you honestly saying that every single member of the public sector is productive? Every last one of them? If so it’d probably be the most unique workplace in the state.

However, where do I get the perception of “non-productive” employees from? Easy: the Unions. In the last few years their defence of their members and their members’ interest has been the overloading at line and middle management level. All those stats about the Health Service and how many managerial grades there are. Or am I not allowed to bring up the Union’s own stance when it comes to looking at cuts?

Look again at what I’ve written. Natural wastage, voluntary redundancies and looking at non-productive areas (mainly middle and line management overloading), then tell me just what is so unreasonable about this? How much more specific can I be?

I would indeed be utter nonsense. That's why I never suggested this. It would also be utter nonsense to suggest that putting a chunk of public servants on the dole will not have a direct effect on social welfare payments, medical card costs, rental/mortgage interest allowances and a downstream effect on where there money is currently spent.

All would be fine if this wasn’t alarmist nonsense which no body but the Labour Party and Unions are suggesting. Again the impact will not only be minimal (look again at the bit on natural wastage and voluntary redundancy and redundancy package), but just the simplest of arithmetic will easily show that the small impact from those people out of work is nothing compared to the cost of keeping then in work.

Things are much nicer when you base your defence of the indefensible on reality. I’ll admit, it makes the argument much weaker and far less entertaining. But sometimes reality has this habit of spoiling the fun.

There is no basis for your assumption that there are piles of non-productive administrators or managers waiting to be trimmed off. The OECD report confirms that the Irish public sector is (if anything) understaffed, and is just about catching up on international norms of staffing levels after years of under-resourcing.

Yes there is: the Unions!

Now, which rhetoric are we now resorting to? The OECD report doesn’t show anything about under staffing. It shows spend on public services across Europe. It’s right and we do spend less than some countries on a pure euro per head basis. Look if you want to use this report as a defence, then go beyond the first graph. Look at the analysis of spend compared to taxation. We’re much lower in taxes than a lot of nations, yet our spend on the public sector is definitely comparable. You can’t use France with 50% plus taxes as an example and ignore all the others that indicate we overspend.

Also oft ignored is the bit that looks at amount spent on salaries rather than just amount spent. And yet again we see Ireland is topping the charts. Proportionally more of the money we do spend on PS goes on wages than many other countries.

The OECD weren’t looking at staffing levels or even redundant positions, it wasn’t their remit. But their report really isn’t the Holy Grail of defences the Unions want it to be.

Shocker - one union official blew his top! Maybe instead of recalling what one public official said on the news one day, you'd like to look at the reality of what is happening on the ground every day right across the public sector. PMDS (or variations of) are standard operating procedure. They aren't perfect, and there is still a lot of learning to do (just as there is in performance management in many private sector bodies), but it is there. To be honest, I wasn't thinking about PMDS in my answer. I was thinking about the kind of restructuring and reallocation of resources that has happened in my organisation and in many others, with some limited impacts on services.

One union official speaking on behalf of his members, isn’t that what they do?

Another example of where specifics are given and you don’t like them. You mentioned an acceptance of change and history shows that it has been anything but accepted or even effectively implemented. Let’s not forget that FAS also had its performance reviews of all grades…how’d that one work out? Sorry, that’s another specific that you’ll probably decide doesn’t apply.

Yes, the PS has had change forced, but only after being dragged kicking and screaming and on the basis of more money under benchmarking.

This seems to be one of those things where you try and make people believe something by repeating it often enough. Who decided that the PS is too expensive (certainly not the respected OECD in their recent report)? Who decided that the extra tax is going to support benchmarking and not (just for example) going to NAMA or Anglo-Irish?

Keep up the OECD references as it doesn’t bode well for the PS to keep bringing this one up. And who decided? Are you kidding me? I can understand the finger in the ear “la la la, I’m not listening” approach preventing the onset of reality for a little while, but have you not seen the bottom line of Tax take verses PS spend? Are you really suggesting that it’s a lie and myth that there is this deficit?

If my outgoings are more than my incomings then I can take your finger in ear approach and end up destitute, or I can cut down on my outgoings.

Of course, I’m probably making all that up and it’s a complete media agenda to suggest that we really are heading down the toilet.

 

[csirl]

One fact that is lost in this debate is that the majority of what the press refers to as "public sector pay and pensions" costs are paid to private sector employees. Remember that the majority of health and education sector employees paid out of taxpayers money are private sector employees employed by private organisations.

 

[Purple]

One fact that is lost in this debate is that the majority of what the press refers to as "public sector pay and pensions" costs are paid to private sector employees. Remember that the majority of health and education sector employees paid out of taxpayers money are private sector employees employed by private organisations.

In theory yes but they are Public Sector is every way that matters.

 

[csirl]

In theory yes but they are Public Sector is every way that matters.

Why arent these services put to tender?

 

[Purple]

Why arent these services put to tender?

I agree that they should be but the fact they aren't is why I say they are really Public Sector.

 

[z107]

Why arent these services put to tender?

I doubt it would make much difference to the outcome of who gets awarded the contracts.
I have zero faith in the tendering system, especially public sector.

 

[liaconn]

Why?

 

[csirl]

I doubt it would make much difference to the outcome of who gets awarded the contracts.
I have zero faith in the tendering system, especially public sector.

Considering what happened in Drogheda, there is little chance that the Medical Missonaries of Mary would ever win a public tender.