This BBC article wails on about the threat to public sector jobs, and of course lists the cuddly ones first to make the would-be size-of-state-reducers like me look really heartless.
Don't listen to them, basically.
Only about a quarter of taxpayer funded jobs are actually 'frontline' workers (i.e. people in contact with members of the public). Also, ask yourself, if you were running a local council and wanted to be re-elected, which jobs would you cut first - the ones that people care about, or the jobs that the general public never even realised existed? So the chances are that the people doing worthwhile stuff will survive through to the next round anyway.
Clive Anderson - Peter Cook Interview
1 hour ago
11 comments:
Also, ask yourself, if you were running a local council and wanted to be re-elected, which jobs would you cut first - the ones that people care about, or the jobs that the general public never even realised existed?
That all depends on how you want to portray the government that's forcing you to make those cuts.
I agree with PJH - and it also depends on who exactly is wielding the axe.
In Kirklees, for example, my money would be on the £119,000 Director of Organisation Development whose job description became a byword for jargon and gobbledegook last June.
He or she would, of course, be acting in conjunction with the Director of HR, who defended the Council's gibberish thus:
"The terms used in the advert will mean a lot to the sort of people who are looking at this."
The bureaucratic in-crowd will surely cling on to their meaningless non-jobs while letting front-line staff fall by the wayside.
A perceptive analysis by the economics editor at The Mash
Councils are full of 55 - 64 year olds who all WANT to be pensioned off or go onto 2 day weeks.
PJH, McH, which is why the Directors of Communications and HR etc. will offer up the lollipop ladies and librarians as sacrificial lambs.
VFTS, The Daily Mash nails it as ever.
SL, quite possibly true. Unfortunately, their pensions are almost as high as their salaries, so pensioning them off doesn't save much money.
The article says
"The councils are budgeting for an average 2.5% increase in revenue spending - covering running costs rather than capital projects - in the year from April."
A 2.5% increase doesn't even look like much of a cut to me, but maybe I don't understand complex mathematics like that used by local councils.
Adam:
A 2.5% increase doesn't even look like much of a cut to me
Perhaps they're somehow figuring in RPI[X]/CPI/whatever method of inflation is being used this week to put such numbers in a positive light?
Or more likely they're comparing it with the 5.3% figure in the next paragraph which was last year's increase.
"Yay, our increase this year is less than last year's - that means it's a decrease."
They could always take a leaf out of Birmingham City's account book - the council is "looking at what can be done to increase revenues at its cemeteries and crematoria..."
I'm not sure I like the sound of that...
Sorry MW, their salaries (+employers pension contributions) are 100% taxpayer funded, whereas there is a big pot of money (admittedly in shortfall) to pay their pensions when they start claiming.
When cuts hit local gvt it starts with no renewing temporary contracts/hiring freeze, then early retirement/voluntary redundancy then compulsory redundancy.
It's the civil service pension that is the completely unfunded ponzi scheme.
S_L, that is a good point and well made. But nonetheless, the local council's pension fund is there to pay for retirement benefits, not to be a substitute for current salaries for people who's job isn't worth doing.
"whose" not "who's"
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