the government has tabled a proposel to reduce pay outs of long standing civil servants ,
i know you hear a lot of bad press about top civil servant payouts but they are a minority
the majority of cival servants are band b or c
and there wages average from £15000 per year at band b to £23000 for band c ,
the view held by some pcs members is that this is a starting point of privatising the benefit system affecting thousands of the poorest people in the country.
the benefit system is slowly undergoing change to make benefits simpler thus making it more attractive to a private take over ,this may sound good but a lot of people with severe disability's would lose out as a lot of hard won concessions would vanish as to simplify the complicated claim system
.if the government get this change through parliament we could see all the lifetime employees being made redundant to make way for short term 18month contracts [a very enticing prospect for a private company as no redundancy payouts if they have to make cuts]
the other side is we all know how unsympathetic private company's can be towards the general public ,
and people on benefits are the most vulnerable
anyway heres some links
http://www.publicservice.co.uk/news_story.asp?id=10303
http://www.congressvoices.org/2009/e2-cuts...on-scheme-cscs/
http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/200...ial-action.html

edit
its predicted that 17000 civil servant jobs may go based on government predicted savings
what your view ,

I think the negative public perception of the civil service is not so much to do with the "fat cats" but more to do with the "jobsworths".

You know, that huge army of people who are salaried by the taxpayer, and their role in life is to pursue, to the bitter end, people who transgress some petty by-law in some minor way, like putting their rubbish out on the wrong day, or having too much of it.

Or the "Gay and Lesbian Outreach Counsellors".

Or the "NHS Management Consultants".

Or the perennially-failing-but-at-the-same-time-over-zealous-in the wrong-areas Social Services.

It goes on and on. And none of them ever get sacked for incompetance, they just get moved sideways. And they have gold-plated pension plans, unlike the rest of the private-sector workers, who watched as G Brown destroyed everything they'd worked all their lives for.

And the populace justifiably ask "why have we needed to employ another 800,000 civil servants since 1997? What do they do?

And most importantly. "Are they giving us value for money?"

It's unfortunate, as a civil service is a vital component of a national government, and essential to it. However, the incumbent government has been hell-bent on creating a client state, and in the long run, this client state will eat itself. Short-termism. But then, that's what Nu-Lab was always about. Instant gratification.

So it's really no surprise that "Joe Public" has a somewhat cynical take on the civil service these days.

Hmmm thanks for pointing this out pete, i have no opinion at the moment as it's all new to me but i shall have a read and try not to get angry

I'll be back

Without getting into an argument about whether public servants earn their salaries or not , according to the articles, redundancy payouts can be up to 6.5 years salary and are running at an average of three years pay. This does seem like a very large redundancy package (assuming reporting accuracy). I can certainly see why they may want to consider capping it at a figure that might be considered fair by general industry standards. These massive packages are bankrolled by taxpayers money which is much needed for other things (like internet filtering etc).

Takes a really Deep Breath......
The Senior Civil Service (SCS)
Although there are only just over 4,200 of them (around 1% of the total), a good deal of attention is paid each year to the salaries of the SCS. This is because

they are very well paid relative to the taxpaying population at large, and yet
they are very poorly paid relative to their private sector counterparts, even though
their jobs are these days no more secure than those of those same counterparts.

No member of the SCS is on the bread line. The vast majority earn between £57,000 and £100,000 and Permanent Secretaries (heads of department) earn £140,000 and more.
..So even at the bottom end of the scale you are refering to there Badog.. 3 years pay @ the rate of £57.000 X 3 years =..£199.500..so for arguments sake call it £200.000 redundency ...that is the equivalent of over 10 years wages if you take the national minimum wage,(see below in Red) which the vast majority of the UK workforce recieves..!
And of course they always have the opportunity to get re-employed..(Jobs for the Boys..) by the same people..i.e. council,Local government after being made redundant from their initial employment....

If Salary Comparison information shows, the large salary figure is based on 2009 data, otherwise all data collected by mysalary.co.uk in February 2008. Data is based on over 13,000 responses from UK based employees entering their salary information and therefore no guarantee can be made on the accuracy of this data. Working 8 hours a day, 250 days of the year, the data suggests the hourly rate for Civil Servant is £13.84.

Which is still over twice the national minimum wage that we "Normal people " are expected to live on,and we don`t have the added benefit of being able to claim expenses for travelling to work or anything that is remotely comparable to the wages these people recieve..!

The UK Government has announced that the national minimum wage will rise by 7p to £5.80 an hour starting in October 2009.

Workers aged 22 and over will receive a minimum of £5.80 per hour from October; up from the previous £5.73 national minimum wage.

The rate for 18 to 21-year-olds will also increase to £4.83 from £4.77. Minimum wage for 16 to 17-year-olds will increase by 4p to £3.57 an hour.

According to the government, nearly one million people benefit from this increase, after it approved recommendations made by the independent Low Pay Commission (LPC).

I personally think that public and private sector work and pay rates and conditions should be made to be equalized and brought into line with the "rest of us",Why we put these people above us is beyond me..


Civil service network

Thats over 2 years pay to a Normal worker on The national minimum wage..!
Now I`m all for paying people what they are worth, but to pay someone who sits in an office and just signs documents and goes to "meetings" vastly more money because of their "office" or status is not only unfair, but it is in my opinion immoral..! Its is also very perculiar to the civil service...If you are a fireman going to save someones life in a house fire ,is the person on the phone taking the initial call on more money than the fireman just because they have a job description of Office manager?...or is the office manager of a transport company worth more than the drivers of the Trucks and Lorries that actually deliver the goods...One cannot exsist without the other..
As Far as I can see(Please bear in mind I`m just a numpty Lorry driver) Nothing that the civilservice do cannot be done by people on "normal wages" in a "normal" work environment..Do these people really need to be paid at such a vastly inflated rate of pay just because they are "civil servants"?..
I think a private company "Not paid for by the Tax payer" should be allowed to pay their workers what they like and what they are worth to the company.!
We The public should have no say in what they do with their Privately earned wgaes.The only time we should be able to put our two pence worth in is if we the Public have to stepo in and "Bail them out" i.e. The banking system in the last couple of years.!
As I have said I can only put My point of view accross to you ,I`m not having a dig at any individual person,I just feel that it is unjust and extremely unfair that the monster wages are paid to vastly underworked and overpaid Fatcats, and if we are to have a fair and decent society this above most other things needs to be addressed..!

we are striking on Monday and Tuesday
and just to correct you over this matter
we are not SCS [senior civil service] and not one of us get £57000. per year [i wish]
yet another that has fallen foul of the government/media propaganda [your not alone most MPs have too]
,the majority of civil servants are band A or band B they earn between £12000, to £15000. p/year,and no expenses claims to boot.
in fact not much more that the customers that claim benefits in fact most of my customers actually get a lot more money going into their h/hold than i do,

Hi Pete21

When you say 'we are striking', who is we? What is the strike about? What is on the table and what are the demands?

easy m8
when i say we i mean
myself and other members of the pcs and civil service

,,
here are some links
Media myths about civil and public services

Civil servants lobby parliament

Members vote for national strike

were not just fighting tp prevent the loss/reduction of the compensation pay outs
but also
fighting job losses and privatisation
and we all know how well the private sector does in the public services ,
the most vunerable would suffer first
ie
people on benefits

i just popped in to thank anyone/everyone who supported us today and maybe you will support us tomorrow
it was well cold on the picket line this morning at 7am it was minus 5 ,brrr
at least it made the national news

Please don't take this the wrong way, I'm way out of the news loop on this issue.

From what I can gather an average worker who earns less than 30,000 quid a year will have their redundancy package cut to a maximum of three years' pay or £60,000, whichever is lower.

This still sounds like a fair redundancy package to me, it still equates to at least two years pay and maybe more for the lower income employees. Isn't this in line with industry standards or do you think it's lower than the norm? Is this the main issue of the strike?

Personally, I think any 'Civil Servant' not satisfied with their terms of employment, pension scheme or redundancy payments, should be allowed the go out Into the 'Real World' and get a job.

You know the type, where you work shifts, get dirty, start at 7am, then, If you should be made redundant, get around a weeks wage for every year served...........I didn't mention a pension, as you wont get one, well, not one paid for by the 'Tax Payer'..

2plus
the tax payer doesn't pay for our pension we have to top it up
see you have not looked into it
so civil servants dont have real jobs ,
shifts ect
ummm
ask the boarder patrol that ,
oops yes it seems they are 24-7

oh and its ok for the employer [government] to entice you to a low paid job for years with a promise of a good pension and/or payout if it all goes wrong ,
then renege on the deal,
and its not about getting dirty in your job believe me we get different types of dirt on us ,and personally speaking i did not spend all my life as a civil servant im a time served plasterer and i did my time on sites i have worked shifts and nights in factory's and worked with drainage,slept in the back of vans or in open houses on new sites to keep in work, have you twoplus ,
don't throw stones in glass houses m8

but back to the real issue
what this means if you cannot see it is the government can cut jobs on the cheap
leaving public services open to attacks from private firms
and if you recall
private firms do not have a good track record
oops of course you recall we are going through a recession because of private firms/banks

im getting made redundant on the 6th of april and after 7years a only get 7 weeks wages in redundancy which totals 2 thousand .my coworker has been in same place 22 years he is not even getting 3 years salary how should the Civil Servants be any different from the public?

You did all those dirty jobs with early starts and still prefer a low paid job as a 'Civil Servant'

I think you just made my point for me pete.

As for what I have done or not In my life, I could outgun you there easily pete.

But I'm glad you manage to 'Top Up' you're pension though, that makes me feel much better..

Please don't point the finger at Private companies, they have to justify what they do or die.

The Banks are another subject altogether and beyond contempt.

Every plasterer I know is overwhelmed with work.

The plasterer I use, works 7 days a week, has had two operations on his shoulder, but still gets up for work every morning.

So get you're trowels out and get grafting, stop being oppressed by you're wicked employers......That would be me and the other suckers like me who pay you're wages.

I've been reading through your posts pete21 and I can't agree with your view of things. Firstly your first post is I feel misleading connecting plans to cut redundancy pay to some vague theory of privatisation of the civil service, these must be secret plans I assume? Or is there actual goverment plans for privatisation? I would of thought they would create some fairly big headlines. Unfortunately the fact is that the people who earn between 12000 and 15000 in the public sector would earn no more in fact probably less in the private sector and they would certainly not receive the same pension or redundancy (even in its reduced state) benefits.

I also find your claim to be doing this for the "most vulnerable" as you say in our society leaves a rather bitter taste in my mouth. On one hand you make that claim while on the other hand complaining they receive more than yourself and make comments about the dirt you have to deal with, seems like it just your own interest really and doing for the most vulnerable just an excuse.

The only reason the goverment would consider privatisation is because the public sector is so unproductive compared to the private sector. I hate to say this but this strike seems to be motivated by greed plain and simple. The goverment wants to cut a redundancy deal that gives public sector employers on average 10 times what someone in the private sector receives to a still very generous offer and people strike on that basis! The people who pay for this under performing service don't have such a luxury and that seems a little greedy to me I could go on but I better stop ranting. I feel very lucky in my role I think you should as well.

Peace

I'm pretty sure the civil service pay taxes aswell, so technically are they not paying their own wages.

Why do civil servants not look out the window in the morning?
So they have something to do in the afternoon!