General Election May 7th

[northbank123]

DB10 agree that public sector bashing is all too easy and all too fashionable but generally terms and conditions of employment are unbelievably generous. Not just remuneration, or even pensions, but just about every contractual benefit like contractual redundancy payments, holiday entitlement, contractual maternity pay etc

As for the laziness stigma, local authorities in particular seem to have extremely generous flexi-time and a not stay past 5 mentality. That said, I have worked temporary roles in private companies of drastically varying sizes and they are filled full of incompetent lazy people. By contrast, there are plenty of people in the public sector who work incredibly hard and people in senior positions have anything but comfortable professional lives.

[the playing mantis]

I do chuckle when I hear ministers bitch and moan and civil servants and bureaucrats as if they're some sort of internal enemies of the state.

These are the same bloody people who try to implement the very same ministers' ridiculous, back-of-a-fag-packet policies that these vote chasing *word censored* dream up.

not always true, there are many many accounts of civil servants being resistant to change and implementation of those they are supposed to serves policies. indeed this is on of the main beefs that people have as the unelected mandarins and sir humphreys, are interested more in their own ideas and projects than actually doing what they are supposed to, being at the service of an elected representative, especially the cuntslop gus o donnel

[the playing mantis]

I don't know what your public sector is really like in the UK but I've read the same stupid uniformed comments (lazy, inefficient, wasteful, poorly managed etc) levelled at the public sector here in Oireland - usually by a reaction-seeking media dullard, an idiot down the pub, or a government minister trying to turn the private and public sectors against each other to deflect attention away from the real problems in the country. If you believe that old horsehit you will believe that civil service pensions were the cause of the housing bubble going bang and dragging the economy down the shitter here, and had nothing at all to do with greedy private sector builders, developers, bankers and corrupt politicians!! Also, politicians/govt ministers (in general) are not civil servants, they are temporary public servants.

I've worked for over 25 years in both private and public sectors in Oireland. They are basically very similar in many ways. You simply cannot isolate and compare the entire public service with one or two smaller private sector companies. If you look upon the public sector as a similar entity to a large private sector conglomerate (which is a fair comparison) you will find similar levels of waste, inefficiency, laziness, poor management etc. The only major difference is that the public sector is (rightly) publicly accountable and therefore the failings of that sector are made public far more often than similar failings in the private sector. This gives the perception to the uninformed that the private sector is all well managed & hard working and the public sector is all badly run and lazy. The truth is both sectors share both of those sets of "qualities".

maybe things are different in ireland, but the british civil service is completely grossly oversized, and suffers the associated problems with that. it is so as brown used it to create non jobs to get unemployment down, hence why the coalition have tried to cut it back to get rid of many of the pointless non jobs, and all the associated benefits that come with civil service in britain (that northbank points out) that these people were guaranteed as a result of its over expansion. another of the resentments of private sector workers is the sense of entitlement british public sector workers have, they moan at pension raids, cuts and pay freezes, yet the private sector and self employed have been suffering from these for years, if not pay cuts simply to remain in a job.

[Theoperator]

Can I also just add that I simply cannot understand anyone that is a royalist. I despise royalty, despise the very concept.

Sorry DB10 cant agree mate, Much much prefer Royalty to "elected" baffoons that swagger around claiming for Duckhouse and moat cleaning then clear off to the Lords on a massive Pension. Besides in many areas of the country you can have a gorilla as a candidate and Labour or Tory voters would elect them. Indeed Hartlepool had one as Mayor for a while

for me the Queen has earned mega respect, 70+ years of service barely a complaint at doing it, still working into her 80s, warming the hearts of countless millions worldwide, charity support all over the place, keeping tabloid journos in a job. The way I look at it is this, Politicians have the interests of the country for 10-15 years max, just about over their own interest. The Queen has the interest of the country for the next few generations. Gawd bless her.

In any case, accident of birth is a bit short, its all in the genes, Kennedys, Benns and Bushes all have gone down generations, its not an accident there (Not always anyway )

[officepest]

Can I also just add that I simply cannot understand anyone that is a royalist. I despise royalty, despise the very concept.

Sorry DB10 cant agree mate, Much much prefer Royalty to "elected" baffoons that swagger around claiming for Duckhouse and moat cleaning then clear off to the Lords on a massive Pension. Besides in many areas of the country you can have a gorilla as a candidate and Labour or Tory voters would elect them. Indeed Hartlepool had one as Mayor for a while

for me the Queen has earned mega respect, 70+ years of service barely a complaint at doing it, still working into her 80s, warming the hearts of countless millions worldwide, charity support all over the place, keeping tabloid journos in a job. The way I look at it is this, Politicians have the interests of the country for 10-15 years max, just about over their own interest. The Queen has the interest of the country for the next few generations. Gawd bless her.

In any case, accident of birth is a bit short, its all in the genes, Kennedys, Benns and Bushes all have gone down generations, its not an accident there (Not always anyway )

I know - it must be hard having to make do with only 10 or so official residences, it must be a tough life. Not to mention having to put up with 100s of flunkeys and footmen who will take care of every petty need that the mind can conjure.

All in the genes? Really?

All in the wallet mate more like: the Clinton, Kennedy or Bush name practically guarantees you a run at the Presidency, as long as you have the money to run.

[DB10GOONER]

DB10 agree that public sector bashing is all too easy and all too fashionable but generally terms and conditions of employment are unbelievably generous. Not just remuneration, or even pensions, but just about every contractual benefit like contractual redundancy payments, holiday entitlement, contractual maternity pay etc

As for the laziness stigma, local authorities in particular seem to have extremely generous flexi-time and a not stay past 5 mentality. That said, I have worked temporary roles in private companies of drastically varying sizes and they are filled full of incompetent lazy people. By contrast, there are plenty of people in the public sector who work incredibly hard and people in senior positions have anything but comfortable professional lives.

Again, I can really only speak from my experiences of Oirish private and public sectors, but here on average, grade for grade, the civil service worker is paid less than the private sector worker. Indeed one of the main stumbling blocks to getting the best people into the public sector is they can earn a hell of a lot more doing the same basic role in the private sector.

The media in particular here love to point at a basic clerical officer and compare their terms and conditions with a poor burger flipper in McDonalds without pointing out that the CO had to sit three tests, do a resit verification of those 3 tests and pass a competency based interview to get that job. The CO will then be trained (in most departments) to a standard roughly equivalent with a lot of private sector junior managers, and take on similar levels of responsibility, yet won't earn that much more than the burger flipper.

You can balance small perks like CS flexi time against the fact civil servants don't get bonus payments like many private sector workers do. In Oireland holiday entitlements are roughly the same; in some private companies you'll get more than a civil servant at grade equivalent, in others you might get less.

One thing I notice is the many statements on here in relation to the UK public sector are basically heresay, very few based in fact or proven. I would say if someone actually looked into the real terms and conditions of employment for your PS and CS they would be surprised at what they found. Again I would say we simply cannot compare the entire public sector to one or two private sector companies, and draw an accurate conclusion, but must compare the many public sector departments with a large conglomerate; the basic positives and negatives are roughly the same across the board.

[SPUDMASHER]

I've got a few friends that work in the public sector and the main thing they like about their jobs is the total lack of accountability. Whenever things go wrong the fragmented nature of their jobs mean that no single person is responsible. A lot of this came about as a result of compliance rules and the need for transparency within UK tax funded jobs. This has left us with a 'slopey shoulders' type of workforce that can always claim that they 'did their bit' and it must have gone wrong elsewhere. In reality, and in most instances, they have done things right but the internal system and politics is what screws it up.
With regard to wasting money, well, lots gets wasted that way but then there are blatant incidents whereby bad decisions are made. The example I cited earlier of the statue at the hospital is a classic example. The decision was:- Save a life by buying some medical equipment or make the hospital look nice? I cannot see how they took the second option. Their reason, as bizarre as it may seem, was that coming to hospital can be traumatic and it helps patients to be more relaxed in a pleasant environment.
Utter bollocks basically!

The Public sector has many problems but they can be fixed. All you need is somebody with balls to take it on, risk offending the world by being honest and not be easily swayed by the culture so they too become absorbed in it.

[officepest]

UKIP coming out on top in this poll?

Take away faux-everyman Farage and there is nothing of substance there, and fuck-all in the way of sensible policies.

Worrying.

[northbank123]

DB10 I deal with terms and conditions of public and private sector employment contracts on a daily basis. There generally isn't a significant difference in pay but the ancillary benefits afforded to civil servants are exponentially more generous. Some of the stuff is impossible to justify because it's nowhere near what any private sector employer would consider offering to employees of any seniority. The reforms are over half a decade late in coming and where the workforce is unionised they are unreasonable in their complete refusal to acknowledge the fundamental need or fairness of cutbacks.

As I said with respect to attitudes, there are plenty of people on both sides of the divide who completely buck the stereotype. But the significance for me is that the management culture in the public sector is so lackadaisical that it inevitably filters down to employees who realisr they can get away with murder. If a private company had the same attitude and environment at senior level it would filter down to their workforce in exactly the same way.

[the playing mantis]

UKIP coming out on top in this poll?

Take away faux-everyman Farage and there is nothing of substance there, and fuck-all in the way of sensible policies.

Worrying.

apart from proposing putting sensible restrictions on immigration by having a points based/requirement based system...

[the playing mantis]

DB10 I deal with terms and conditions of public and private sector employment contracts on a daily basis. There generally isn't a significant difference in pay but the ancillary benefits afforded to civil servants are exponentially more generous. Some of the stuff is impossible to justify because it's nowhere near what any private sector employer would consider offering to employees of any seniority. The reforms are over half a decade late in coming and where the workforce is unionised they are unreasonable in their complete refusal to acknowledge the fundamental need or fairness of cutbacks.

As I said with respect to attitudes, there are plenty of people on both sides of the divide who completely buck the stereotype. But the significance for me is that the management culture in the public sector is so lackadaisical that it inevitably filters down to employees who realisr they can get away with murder. If a private company had the same attitude and environment at senior level it would filter down to their workforce in exactly the same way.

and thus the private company would inevitably go to the wall...

the reforms have been needed for longer than a decade, but have been made far more crucial and urgent by the gross overexpanding of the public sector by gordon brown, but no government of any color dares take it on.

i am a bigot, but even so i still have to say in my experience of county council workers and internal departments within such entities, its often the 30+ yr old women who are the worst in terms of getting away with murder, doing the bare minimum fucking off bang on 5, lots of breaks, spending all day on the internet, generally doing very little productive.

awaits rebuke

[officepest]

UKIP coming out on top in this poll?

Take away faux-everyman Farage and there is nothing of substance there, and fuck-all in the way of sensible policies.

Worrying.

apart from proposing putting sensible restrictions on immigration by having a points based/requirement based system...

That appears to be their only policy, and that was nicked from the Australians. Like it or not, we are not going to leave the EU, and we are not going to get any meaningful concessions from them either.

I don't find them to be a racist party; but I do find it unsavoury when Johnny Foreigner gets the blame for all the ills of modern society.

[the playing mantis]

UKIP coming out on top in this poll?

Take away faux-everyman Farage and there is nothing of substance there, and fuck-all in the way of sensible policies.

Worrying.

apart from proposing putting sensible restrictions on immigration by having a points based/requirement based system...

That appears to be their only policy, and that was nicked from the Australians. Like it or not, we are not going to leave the EU, and we are not going to get any meaningful concessions from them either.

I don't find them to be a racist party; but I do find it unsavoury when Johnny Foreigner gets the blame for all the ills of modern society.

not so sure. when we have the referendum there will be a very high chance we will.

as for blaming johnny foreigner, no i agree, the issue is population growth, it impacts every other aspect of society and infrastructure, johnny foreigner is just part of that cause for growth.

[northbank123]

I also don't view UKIP as a racist party - although plenty of their nutjob candidates clearly are. I just don't view them as a credible political party. When Nigel Farage was questioned on aspects of their 2010 manifesto he just wrote the whole thing off as a load of rubbish. Funny, honest and a far more effective question evasion policy than any of the other parties. Just not credible or reassuring.

[storrmin571]

Farage is just a pound shop enoch powell. Him and his type are the Diet coke version of the BNP and the like.