Wednesday 30 December 2009

Is This a Major Shock?

Below is a the headline to this article from the Telegraph

Rising public sector pay cost £11bn in taxes

Britons would have been spared £11bn in taxes had public sector pay rises been kept in line with the private sector over the past two years, according to a think-tank.

I'm not shocked by this.

We all knew that the public sector was being paid more than the private sector, but finding out that they have cost us £11 Billion is unforgivable.

How many quangos are there that doesn't do much else apart than being a talking shop, and issuing useless and stupid new rules and regulations.

I would love to know the truth how much money has been wasted throughout the last 10 years on computer systems that don't work, bonuses for workers who save money on buying equipment that isn't up to the job (yes MOD i am talking about you)

Bonuses for workers who put their 'lives on the line' (yes that's right the immigration officials See This Blog).

The government, local and national, should be under the same rules as private business. They should be legal requirements to show the public, whose money it actually is, that the money isn't being wasted.

If someone in government does waste millions or billions on a computer system that doesn't work, for example, then the people responsible should be fired.

That's what normally happens in private business, but if that happens in government you get promoted and get a huge bonus.

How much of the tax payers money has helped some MPs become rich through house sales, where they buy them cheap, do the house up at the tax payers expense, and then sell at a profit. How many MPs have done that.

Will this all change next year?
Will the public sector pay get frozen next year?
Will we see a reduction in the amount of public sector employees?
Or will it be a token gesture and the status quo will carry on?

That is just what is wasted by the UK Government.
I would hate to know how much is wasted in the EU?

3 comments:

Carneades said...

,BR>That's what normally happens in private business, but if that happens in government you get promoted and get a huge bonus.


But it also happens in private business. That's certainly what's happened with the banks at any rate. Remember Fred?

And there is a problem with tying public salary structures too closely with private industry. In the good times, private wages and pensions easily outstrip the best the public sector can offer, and it's only in the bad times - recession and depression - that public pay appears to go far in advance of private. I doubt you'll find the Telegraph running any stories asking for parity during the good times.

My Thoughts My Country said...

Yes, i remember Fred, but he was retired when it all failed.

The bankers are only a small percentage of the highly paid.

Private businesses earn money from people buying their product, mostly.

The public sector (government local and national) are paid by us (the tax payer) through our taxes and there should be more restraint on the pay that they get.

Yes to get the best people you have to pay them the same as the private sector, but how many non jobs are there in the public sector that we pay for.

Carneades said...

Essentially, I agree with the main thrust of your blog article, not least because the burgeoning QUANGO growth has become a national disaster, with seemingly little achieved for a lot of money. But I suspect that most of the public sector salary expenditure is on the education, social service, Police and administration sectors, and on the ordinary folk, rather than the single big earners. It's just that no government in its pre-election year is going to start slashing public services the way they will almost certainly have to after the election.