Public servants are indeed getting hit again but it is still true that any private sector workers would jump at the chance of getting an equivalent job in the public sector.
This kind of generalisation really grinds my gears in the whole public/private debate - I know people who have turned down some of the few public sector jobs (in lower/middle management) on offer in recent times, because the package on offer - lower pay than they could command in private sector, but better terms (working hours, holidays) - couldn't justify the loss of earnings for comparative employment in the private sector.
Similarly, I know of a competition to recruit staff for ICT roles in the last year or so, where they were unable to fill all positions because of the gap between the market rates, and the public sector payscales for those roles.
For recent & current entrants, myself included, there is a healthy skepticism about the value of our supposed "gold-plated" pensions - I can't afford to assume that it'll be there waiting for me in 35 years, but I am paying just over 10% of my salary in there already (if you include the pension levy) without any say in the matter, so I suppose I just have to hope for the best... I took a job which involved about 15-20% drop in gross pay, and a bigger drop in net pay if you factor in the pension levy/contribution that I would have opted out of if I could. The incremental scale and what I now consider an overestimation of the value of my pension, and job security, were critical to my decision. I now have to have a long hard look at my position - ironically my private sector employability has improved as a result of my public sector employment.
The mantra of not being able to afford to continuing to pay "excessive" wages to PS staff is all well and good, but the reality is that if you pay peanuts you will only ever get monkeys. For example:
The young, mobile, highly educated/qualified, recent entrants to the PS will head back to the private sector ASAP, as the arithmetic will no longer add up to be in there - longer hours for less pay and less flexible working, and as I already mentioned, less value being placed on the promise of pension. With increments being messed around with, and advancement by way of promotion non-existent (redeployment being the order of the day to fill vacant roles, with scant regard for how suitable the candidate is for the role), the brightest and best simply cannot and will not stay.
This will reduce headcount, but not by getting rid of the deadwood - the people who are "lifers"; the ones everyone has heard stories about, who occasionally sit at their desk in between tea breaks, and are largely left alone because it's easier to do so than to waste others' time trying to cajole normal levels of productivity out of them. These people are inevitably the last ones to leave; they know they're onto a good thing (though they'd never admit it of course), so they're going nowhere until either a package is offered to entice them out, or they reach retirement. I see nothing in this deal to put skates under these people - they are a small but costly minority of the PS workforce, everyone knows they exist, and they should be the ones weeded out.
This for me is the real failure of the process, by both sides involved; they took yet more relatively easy decisions that will just cause more problems further down the line, rather than agreeing on real public sector reform.
