The public sector has entered a period of rolling strikes from Network Rail and Border Force to nurses and the Ambulance service. Postal workers are also on strike in a service which still has a public sector service guarantee to meet, to deliver post to any address in the UK and preferably to keep down the cost of a second class stamp.
Most of these groups of employees negotiate their settlements with independent managements. The Health Service has an Independent Pay Board which makes recommendations which government usually as this year accepts. Whilst Ministers make the overall call on the NHS national pay scales in line with the recommendations, the senior managements of the Trusts and the national health quangos determine use of pay scales, promotions and other conditions of employment. The nurses are often raising matters about staffing levels and work organisation which are the preserve of the senior management to resolve. There are various issues over payment for parking, meal arrangements, shift patterns, use of Agency staff and the rest.Local managers should use more of the flexibilities to look after valued existing staff as the best Trusts are doing.
It is true in the case of the NHS most of the revenue to sustain the service comes as a Treasury grant, and Ministers are the decision takers over the budget totals for the NHS and over the national pay scale awards. There are too few medical staff with plenty of vacancies. It is the case that Ministers could ask the Pay review Board to think again, though this would be a new departure. They could also invent a one off payment not consolidated into pay rates going forward to deal with one off high inflation on family budgets. The Prime Minister has stated he does not think he should depart from the Pay review Body’s conclusions, and the Secretary of State has been forceful in saying a 19% pay rise for nurses is unaffordable for taxpayers.
The railways are a series of disputes with different employers. Network Rail is a public sector company, and some franchises are now in state hands. The rest are under the control of competing private sector franchise holders. The railways are currently offering services which in many cases attract few passengers and in some other cases only have decent numbers by offering heavily discounted fares. The bulk of the money to pay the wages should come from the fares travellers pay to use the railway. The railway is short of passengers.
The state has been offering large sums of subsidy to the railways during covid lockdown, and is still providing substantial financial support. There must be limits to how much for how long, as the whole point of the railways should be to construct a timetable of popular services which largely pay for the costs of the industry from fares. That is why any further pay rises for the rail industry should be linked to improving working practices and improving services to attract more travellers willing to pay the costs of their journey. Working smarter could help bring down the costs of travel, boosting demand. The Secretary of State should not join in the negotiations between Unions and employers. The answer should not be for the industry to conclude wages should go up without improved working and service provision, requiring a yet larger subsidy from the taxpayer.
I would be interested in your thoughts on how these strikes can be resolved and what role if any you think the government should play.
December 20, 2022
Good morning.
But locking down a country, spending large sums for many to sit on their backsides and prevent people like me from earning money and paying said taxes was considered affordable.
People should have the right to withdraw their labour if they think they are being unfairly treated. And as for the government ? I think it has made a big enough mess and should concentrate on preventing the invasion that is going on by Albania.
December 20, 2022
If people are not happy in their jobs they have the right to resign – NOT STRIKE. The government should make strikes ILLEGAL in ‘essential services’ and should then make a list of these. Clearly medical services would be included, and so should public transport. For people without cars public transport is indispensable for things like going to work. Without public transport many cities – especially London – would grind to a halt. And border staff are clearly also vital for the security of the nation and to keep international travel going – something which is essential to our economy. So list these jobs as ‘essential’ and BAN THE STRIKES. The government’s failure to keep Britain working normally proves that the Tories are NO BETTER THAN LABOUR.
December 20, 2022
The privatised rail model has been a failure and this needs to be addressed.
We have a fragmented system with the most expensive fares in the world and foreign ownership of franchises who can use profits in the U.K. to improve their home countries railways.
We need a joined up system with a clear and transparent system of affordable fares.
Franchises never improve anything and there is disruption and loss of experience when a new franchise takes over.
Subsidy is not a taboo. Road building also requires subsidy and if we are being priced out of personal transport then public transport requires drastic improvement.
December 20, 2022
Nurses do exactly what you advocate in your first sentence. Are you satisfied with the resultant service? If you want to make striking illegal then it follows that the govt must play fair and not reduce real wages as they have been doing over the last 12 years. Dogma does not equal good government. In the end the worm turns as they are now finding out. You also remark on cities, but what about outside them? In the countryside, public transport barely exists and to charge staff to park is an insult and a further reduction of wages.
December 20, 2022
XT,
The Tories are far worse. They lie and pretend to do something when they have no intention whatsoever to implement their promises to get elected. Ie immigration and the cabinet was not serious in private!
We recently read the disaster Cameron secretly agreed not to tighten employment laws to get unions to back remaining in the EU!
Do not forget the Tories changed employment law to accelerate all things woke into the public sector that JR now moans about on a regular basis as if it were someone else’s fault. Crown servants were unique in their employment status, same for military. All changed hence why the army have diversity officers!! With an 80 seat majority they could have changed back or another direction by now. But no, it is never their fault.
December 20, 2022
Mark B,
Or giving away£11.8 billion in climate reparations! Perhaps £11.6 billion in school boy fraud not worth investigating! Perhaps £11 billion to EU for nothing! It is only £34 billion!
Hunt as Health Secretary wasted £34 billion for failed NHS IT system! Any censure or sacking- no!
Sunak and Hunt waste £7 million plus a day to put up criminals in all inclusive four star hotels and last Friday the High Court deemed they must have an inflation uplift for their pocket money! Only a few more billion.
Still Snake wants to waste more billions of our taxes on corrupt Ukraine and totally align with EU.
Hunt’s Answer raise more taxes, wind fall taxes for energy so they clear off, raise corporation tax to send business and strivers abroad as well. Give inflation to 5.6 million welfare claimants and allow them to claim mortgages from welfare! Good plan. The party for the wasters and feckless.
Allow hundreds of thousands civil servants to cut their working costs by working from home.
The economic mess was created by the Tory party.
The debt was tripled by the Tory party.
Billions in interest on money borrowed to give away higher than some public service budgets!
I wonder why people strike?
December 20, 2022
The strikes are a coordinated effort to bring down the government.
It’s high time some of the excessive perks were addressed. Police retiring at 50 and immediately walking into a civilian post doing a similar job.
Open ended sick leave and more holidays than the private sector and most of all their gold plated pensions.
There’s apartheid in the practices between public and private sector employees.
December 20, 2022
@Ian Wragg +1 ‘The strikes are a coordinated effort to bring down the government’ says it all, the Labour Party funders at work against a weak Government that refuses to Manage anything
December 20, 2022
Ian Wragg
Indeed. Dad ( a retired PC) reached his fourth decade of retirement on a pension larger than his final salary and was retired longer than he was actually working ! Mum is still taking half of it 35 years later.
This is unsustainable.
December 20, 2022
Ian
Why make the ‘effort’ when the government (sic) is making such a good job of bring both the country and itself down ?
They see the government as weak and are trying to get one last big pay rise before Labour get in and afford to sit it out as they will have five years and the worthy excuse of Tory misrule.
December 20, 2022
IW,
I do not accept your view. This self made mess was created by the Tories. They had plenty of time to sort out the economy, Brexit, immigration, public services, employment law, education, NHS, law and order etc etc.
It is never their fault always someone or something else. Global problems, EU problems, no gas, no oil no coal, no storage, no power stations, no nuclear power stations, the wind does not blow wind machines- our forebears worked that out over a hundred years ago!! I wonder why water mills were preferred or better coal!! Their repeatedly solution more tax, more tax, more tax!
December 20, 2022
‘Gold plated pensions’ is just Daily Mail speak for defined benefits pensions. These were standard practice throughout the public and private sector not so long ago. Gordon Brown screwed up pension provision and many companies then had to withdraw this option for new entrants.
Another loss that working folk were expected to put up with.
December 20, 2022
P,
The Tories could have changed this over 12 years! Tories could have got rid of OBR, ONS and put BOE back under the firm control of the chancellor. Instead of a bonfire of left wing quangos they increased the number!!
So more pensions to be found by the taxpayer, not public sector fault but the Tories who increased the head count by 462,000 since 2018. JRM recently tried to reduce by 91,000 Hunt and Snake reversed it and put up our taxes!
December 20, 2022
This is a rather disingenuous comment and not worthy of reply, but as a retired police officer I am not content to do so. I served from 1967 until 1997, retired and applied for and secured employment in a large commercial company. Twenty years later I finally retired. During my second career much of my income was taxed at 40%, much of my disposable income was spent in my town.
December 20, 2022
Well Sunak has hugely devalued the £ with his vast currency debasement policies, the lockdown, vast government waste (HS2, net harm vaccines, test and trace, eat out to help out…), & huge increases in taxes too. Then we have the “net zero” lunacy artificially pushing up energy cost massively for no sensible reason and on top of this plus we have Kahn’s vast tax grab of £12.50 a day ULEZ up to £4,500PA increases in commuting (not even tax deductible either) and other costs. It is hardly surprising that people want a bit more salary to compensate for these vast decreases in effective disposable income that people have left. Plus we have the often doubling in mortgage interest and vast increases in rents as people leave the industry due to vast double taxation of interest, the threat of Labour rend controls and the huge government over regulation of it.
The result is more people moving onto to benefits, working less, investing less, going black market or leaving the county. Is this what the daft Socialist Sunak wants? Higher earners leaving being replaced by about double the number or benefit claimants and/or low earners?
December 20, 2022
All this civil servants got around ULEZ , 8 hour days, travelling costs and parking they stay at home to be paid. Even during Afghanistan emergency would not bring FCO back to work, including Raab and the top Madeline from France!! Ministers in charge of them do…..nothing. I wonder why people who have to go into work get annoyed?
Still ministers blocked the public from seeing who they get their back handers from to influence law and policy.. that is ethical open and transparent…not! No criticism allowed for corruption in govt. perhaps they have learned from Ukraine!
December 20, 2022
LL,
Who was going to sort out the railways? How did that work out! Who was going to have a bonfire of quangos? One recently got rid of Truss!! Who was going to get Brexit done? N.Ireland given away, border down Irish Sea. Now Sunak, Hunt and Wallace has give the building of our warships to Spain and the fitting out in N.Ireland so all goods to fit out have EU tariffs, laws and regs and checks made if bought from GB to N.Ireland! Building of warships is a national security issue, as is making steel, supplying food and supplying energy. Sunak and Hunt have made the UK dependent on the EU again in breach of Brexit!!
What they have not given to the EU they have given to China which the govt would claim is our enemy!!
December 20, 2022
Just a personal view, but I think any organisation that relies on taxpayers money, rather than a trading profit, should not be allowed to strike. Taxpayers money is a bottomless pit, whereas a lack of profits will cause jobs to disappear. Many public sector workers have the power to bring the whole country to a standstill, which is far too much power.
I also suspect that the Blair requirement for many public sector jobs to require a degree has been influential. When a person spends all that time and money obtaining a degree they expect to be well rewarded. Do those jobs REALLY require a degree or would training on the job with day release be better for all parties and then individuals get promoted up to the level of competence, and not beyond. Did we have a shortage of nurses before the demand for degrees was introduced?
December 20, 2022
Agreed
December 20, 2022
Shirley,
This was to keep children and young people in Marxist education giving the jobs to immigrants who in turn would destroy our culture. The taxpayer made to pay for the pleasure!
December 20, 2022
A bottom less pit it certainly is not. We have surely now reached the bottom – the point at which increasing tax rates decreases the actually tax take, pushes every more onto benefits, makes the hard working leave the country, devalues the £ and destroys the economy and kills the tax base. Well done Brown, Darling, Osborne, Hammond, (enforced dangerous vaccines for health workers) Javid and that Socialist PPE tax to death dope Rishi Sunak.
December 20, 2022
What’s after the “bottom of the pit”?. I’ll tell you, it’s full on socialism, state ownership of major industries, transport, energy etc. It’s when foreigners decide UK is not worth investing in. The Tories seem to be laying the pathway.
December 20, 2022
P,
No, they are way down the road after 12 years. Sex and Relationship Act for 4 year olds is to brainwash culture Marxism. The utter surprise and disgrace is that it is a Tory party driving it as they are with all public services to embed in our way of life to destroy our culture and society. Not an accident or mistake, quite deliberate. Just like they are currently getting us back under EU control in all but name.
Cleverly crowing because the EU has delayed medicine rules/regs to N.Ireland u til 2025! Brexit should mean we do not have the EU to allow the UK to do anything in its own country!! Is Cleverly that stupid? Or is it another pathetic deception? Please tell us JR.
December 20, 2022
@Shirley M +1 Agreed up to a point. If we had a UK Government, one that managed the UK, taxpayers money would only be spent were there is a defined return, accountability and responsibility on behalf of those in receipt of it. This Government throws it around and then demands more tax to shore up their inability to manage. With this Government you are required to make sacrifices, on top of sacrifices so they can throw this valuable resource(tax) to hide their own personal in abilities. So the right to strike is in itself not the problem, its this shabby shady Government
December 20, 2022
Thank goodness Supermarkets aren’t nationalised and that they compete for our business otherwise, we’d be starving as they shut up shop to join our other essential services.
December 21, 2022
I have often made the comparison between Public and Private Sectors using supermarkets. Because it is a very good one.
Does anyone remember form the 70’s and 80’s queues outside Soviet Unions shops to see what was to buy ?
December 21, 2022
Supermarket vacancies £10.10 per hour part-time, We’ll work with you on your shifts, but weekend work is a requirement of the role, and we may need to be flexible with your work pattern.
Customer assistant salary £9.87 per hour, fixed term contract, weekend availability required and 5am starts aren’t uncommon, night owls because our shops are open late. You need to be able to work some evenings and weekends.
Supermarket Cleaners £10.10 ph Our stores operate 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, with that brings a wide variety of shift patterns. We’ll work with you on your shifts, but weekend working is a requirement of the role and we may need to be flexible with your work pattern.
Store Assistant Nights £12.64ph part-time temp only.
Section leader £11.10 ph
December 20, 2022
Agree. Well said.
December 20, 2022
This is a political issue. The political system s made up of producers (Government and public sector workers) and consumers
(voters).
There should be two bodies overseeing the political system. A Government and public sector regulator and a voter protector.
The regulator should oversee and negotiate disputes between Government and public sector bodies. The voter protector should be able to stop harmful behaviour to voters.
Currently I see the Government regulator not doing enough and the voter protector not doing enough. Both these functions are too weak.
December 20, 2022
The problem is Governments have not done enough to strengthen the regulators and protectors. The whole legal framework needs more control.
The criteria for protectors are firstly to protect life. This means heat, energy, food, critical health, safety, military. All needs a review. Voters rights to these services correspond to political responsibility to provide them. When the Government takes over these functions and claims taxes off the voters then it has the responsibility to put protection of the voters in place. Similarly it should also let people opt out from paying some taxes if they decide to not rely on the Government.
December 20, 2022
@Javelin – The Protectors as you call them is every MP we voted for – Parliament. In Parliament they are paid by us to singularly be there to protect our interest.
Due to the lack of Management ability now found in Government and the lack of ability for MP’s to do what they are paid for you could have all the regulators in the World in place and nothing would change. In truth you could suggest that each and every Regulator is a friend of a friend (jobs-for-boys) that cant actually get a proper job – wasted space.
The one and only reason the UK is the only so-called free Democracy in the World that is subordinate to the ECHR , is that our MP’s are incapable of regulating the UK
December 20, 2022
Javelin,
Regulators in this country have always been there to provide a fig leaf of respectability for the status quo.
They are routinely staffed by losers and incompetents – people who are not quite able to do a proper job.
Best not rely on regulators but instead try to have a system that works effectively in the first place.
December 20, 2022
P,
Regulators and inspectorate bodies have been used by Tories to direct and guide public services in the left wing woke direction they wanted, a woke direction where law and order is a last resort for the most serious crimes and lesser crimes ignored and non crime themes take a priority like saying a man is not a woman.
How many times have we heard the war on drugs is lost. It was not lost it was never started and the govt did not want it as a priority for the police, despite overwhelming evidence of the misery it causes in wider crimes, financially and in health. How about save lives save NHS do not take drugs or you will face punitive punishments. No, drug use is common among the London elite. It has become a an accepted narrative that drugs are rife and nothing can be done.
December 20, 2022
The strikes are in the public sector. The government needs to shrink it. It’s had 12 years to do something, but has expanded the sector, not contracted it.
December 20, 2022
No, Wanderer, mainly not in the public sector. Railway company employees – private sector. Royal mail – private sector. Ambulance staff – private sector. Airport baggage handlers – private sector.
December 20, 2022
@Wanderer +1 Yup the ‘bonfire of the QUANGO’s’ changed to expand, expand ,expand another election promis made in the last 12 years down the drain. Job-for-the-boys writ LARGE
December 20, 2022
Regarding the NHS the government should be laying down laws that makes it illegal for the Trusts and their staff to treat overseas vocational patients for free. Everybody visiting this country must have medical insurance or proof of adequate funds should medical treatment be required. Consultants cannot cop out of detailing their costs.
Every foreign visitor not charged for their treatment their costs will be deducted from the Trusts funding.
Why should the taxpayer pay for all these treatments and operations all the while they cannot get operations or treatment themselves?
Reply I campaigned on this and was assured the NHS does have to charge foreign visitors. The issue is one of enforcement of the policy
December 20, 2022
Reply to reply
Make the CEO of the trust responsible and any losses are taken from their funding. They are paid to manage, if they won’t or can’t they leave.
One could argue that it could be considered gross misconduct to openly allow such waste to happen let alone exist
December 20, 2022
@turboterrier – that would be silly, expecting those you pay to manage the UK to actualy do that….
December 20, 2022
+1
We could introduce a VISA system which require private medical insurance BEFORE entry. Other countries do this, why can’t we ?
December 20, 2022
People applying for visas already have to pay an NHS Surcharge on top of their visa application fee (on top of all the taxes they then pay once they are here, assuming their visas are granted.
December 21, 2022
Thank you, Peter but I do not want them on the NHS, I want the on Private.
December 20, 2022
Why should they bother though? Who would police it, and what would that cost? The problem is a Communist system, with no comeback for ineffectual management.
December 20, 2022
WB,
What do think happens in the US and other countries? Do you think all foreigners who work there get free health treatment? No they do not. Nor do they provide umpteen translations or translators for foreigners to openly and wantonly abuse their system.
December 20, 2022
Reply to Sir John: I have previously said that the solution to this problem is VERY SIMPLE: make it a requirement that ALL visitors to the UK MUST have health insurance. This would be enforced by the airlines who would not led them board without showing their insurance document (airlines who failed to do this would receive multi-million pound fines, which would ensure their compliance). And given that travel health insurance can be bought for as little as £5 (and would certainly become cheaper as more people were forced to buy this) it wouldn’t even be a deterent to visitors coming here. Why doesn’t the government introduce this policy right away? Because they are morons who are NO BETTER THAN LABOUR.
December 20, 2022
@ Reply “The issue is one of enforcement of the policy” – understood, being exactly as was represented in the 1970’s I recall. We must conclude there is no real interest in making such charges.
December 20, 2022
JR – the person that told you they were charging all foreign visitors get the figures from each hospital, how many patients treated, how much was billed, how much was collected, how much was counter-claimed against charges made to the UK on the GHIC because I know people taking advantage of this with treatment in the EU billed back to the UK.
December 20, 2022
Well Sunak has hugely devalued the £ hugely with his currency debasement policies and increased taxes hugely too. Then we have the net zero agenda pushing up energy cost massively and on top of this we have Kahn’s vast tax grab of £12.50 a day It is hardly surprising that people want more salary to compensate for these decreases in disposable income.
December 20, 2022
LL,
Do not blame Khan. It has been pointed out by other mayors the directive comes from govt.! If the govt. wanted to stop it they could, if the govt. wanted to get rid of mayors they could. Just like the councils you blogged bout restricting movement of its citizens! Why has the community secretary not intervened and stopped this?
December 21, 2022
I have often thought that. Khan presented the Tories with an open goal. Instead, they did a Harry Kane.
December 20, 2022
It is clear that what’s happening is militant unions – which now include the ‘royal college of nursing’ – would prefer a Labour govt, and think that a widespread public sector strike is the best way to bring it about. Holding the public to ransom to achieve clearly unaffordable pay rises or to preserve absurd antediluvian working practices in the case of the railways is a secondary objective. If the govt caved in on all the demands the militant leftists would think of new ones.
The govt should of course not get involved but leave it to managements, and do what they can to break strikes where possible. Useless NHS managements wasting our money eg on woke managerial positions must be exposed and if possible removed, so at least the money can go where it’s best deployed.
More generally it’s just another reminder that we must try to minimise public sector monopolies. They all go the same way – run (invariably badly) for the benefit of the employees with the public periodically held to ransom.
Surely another opportunity also to save £100bn by cancelling hs2 – what about a backbench bill to force a debate?
December 20, 2022
This country is infected by an obsession that borders on insanity that everything that comes under the umbrella of public services has to have layers of management and single operation departments and consultants.
Our new world order regarding working practices is grossly over managed and the open corridors from the coal face workers to the real decision makers are restricted as each little department puts in their comments to ensure any decisions do not effect their little empires within.
Give them their rises when their management and consultancy budgets are reduced by 50%. I remember the days when managers were told “you are paid to manage” JDI or step down.
December 20, 2022
No one wants to pay. Or at least the full cost, which is understandable. So a certain level of social care must be afforded. It is how this is done and who it is open to which is an area where we need to examine. Currently we have an open border where just about anyone can access healthcare no questions asked.
December 20, 2022
M,
I remember reading in a local paper about a foreigner in my local hospital costing over £300,000 for translation fees alone when he had to remain in hospital for a long period of time for care. Fly in and get treatment was an issue Health Secretary Hunt was going to sort out! He dropped it.
December 20, 2022
Er, Royal Mail ain’t the public sector, kids.
December 20, 2022
Er, but no one said it was did they Nottingham Lad?
December 20, 2022
@Lifelogic But it is Government(taxpayer) owned
December 20, 2022
Martin is ex-Nottingham, now enjoyng Cardiff.
December 20, 2022
Jonathan Pie ‘Strikes’ on YouTube has an interesting take on the issue.
He talks about gross economic mismanagement by the government and corporate greed. How the people who are now being demonised were the ones we were encouraged to stand on our doorsteps and clap during the covid lockdown.
Funny old world.
December 20, 2022
All wage settlements can only be agreed when and only when departmental performance, efficiency, waste costs, responsibility and accountability are are the foundation of the deal. Not one brush stroke covers all.
December 20, 2022
Tory subsidies to the railway companies began straightaway after privatisation in 1996, long before the lockdowns. We are surely the only country in the world to subsidise the railways – in effect, the state helps to pay shareholder dividends. If any form of subsidies is to continue, the railways should be taken back into public ownership, with no compensation of their mainly foreign owners, who have had their snouts in the trough quite long enough in my view.
Reply Network Rail owning all tracks, signals and stations is state owned and heavily subsidised.
December 20, 2022
Reply to reply: The striking RMT workers are employed not only by Network Rail but by 13 private railway companies, Sir John.
December 20, 2022
So these private railway companies could begin a dismissal process for non-attendance.
December 20, 2022
No, they couldn’t, MT:
‘Unauthorised absence is when someone does not come to work and gives no reason for their absence or does not contact their employer.’ https://www.acas.org.uk/absence-from-work/
Unless you want them to be in trouble for constructive dismissal.
December 20, 2022
well why not, put a marker in the sand. At least you get rid.
December 20, 2022
Sir John’s usual escape route. Unfortunately for him he is not Houdini anymore as anybody who checks knows that most of the railway companies are private and the strike is not called by Network Rail workers.
Stop taking us for stupid, Sir John, and/or try to sharpen your answers, they are weak.
Reply I am not trying to escape anything. The rail companies running trains are controlled by service and timetable requirements set by HMG and subsidised by taxpayers. Why are you so unpleasant? Why bother with my views if you despise them so much?
December 20, 2022
John, why isn’t network rail charging all their costs to the private railway companies that use the lines, then? Why is it subsidised?
December 20, 2022
‘Reply Network Rail owning all tracks, signals and stations is state owned and heavily subsidised.’
Network Rail was the part that caused the most problems – huge safety issues, Hatfield etc. It had to be taken back into public ownership because the private sector could not be trusted to run it properly.
An early warning for how privatisation of the railways would turn out over the years perhaps?
Unfortunately, though Network Rail is publicly owned much of the work is still contracted out to expensive private sector firms rather than undertaken in house with an established workforce gaining a depth of experience. So the public bear the cost of provision but gain little in the long term. Private sector avoids responsibility for the expensive bit of the rail system.
December 20, 2022
It might be a PITA to manage but regarding nurses give them a different tax code where they don’t get more money but they pay 15% less tax on their existing salary.
It could well add up to a very good employment incentive to attract back all those that have left the service.
December 20, 2022
Lets examine that idea. Average Nurses Pay = £37,500.
Income tax – 12,750 allowance
Balance taxable = 24,250 x 20% rate = £5,000
15% of 5000 = 750.
Is that going to change anything?
December 20, 2022
The average UK household cost of food per person is £47.50/week (£206/month) (21/11/2022).
Are £750 such a small sum that you consider it negligible?
December 20, 2022
The suggestion was that it would attract back all those that had left the service!
Not a cat in hell’s chance.
December 20, 2022
Welfare seems attractive, or go to Calais in the summer hitch a ride to Dover and stay in an all inclusive four star hotel with inflation rated pocket money. Tories are now helping welfare claimants with mortgages, does that not fill you with a warm feeling?
December 21, 2022
If the mortgage is less than private rent would cost, then it would be lower cost. Perhaps they could put a charge on the property of any loaned amount when the property is sold.
December 20, 2022
it’s 15% of £24,250 instead of 19% of £37,500. A reasonable compromise if I may opine.
December 20, 2022
If you gave them free parking too that might help.
December 20, 2022
Micky Taking
You are assuming a variation on the existing system.
15% less tax on their whole salary is 5% of the total and that equates to £1875 which gives them a salary of £35625 less NI and pension schemes. That gives them a £4k pay rise but with no strike conditions or whatever
December 20, 2022
It may well expose government for what it really is but make all settlements conditional on the disbanding of all woke and touchy feeling departments that are perceived to be restricting and demoralising the front line staff and daily operations.
December 20, 2022
If we are constantly short of Nurses and Doctors, then there is clearly something wrong with the system somewhere.
It would seem to me sensible to expand our training facilities, and train the above free of any course fees, on the understanding that they serve at least the first 10 years after completion of such training, with the NHS (Full time). Failure to complete such service would render them liable for full payment of their training, such sums to be taken from their pension fund entitlement, in case they decide to move abroad.
Why are so many of the above retiring or working part time early, and way before normal retirement age, is it because the pension caps is simply too low, if that is the case, then increase it, not a huge loss to the treasury as they will pay tax on it !.
December 20, 2022
With the NHS and the public sector not everything is as it may first appear. These organisations are now run by commissars not managers and their aim is political not functional
The Tory halfwits had the public clapping and banging pans during the fascist lockdown and now they’re silent. Pathetic
Ignore the Socialist public sector propaganda.
December 20, 2022
AB would childcare leave stop the 10 years or would any time on maternity leave be added on to the 10 years? It’s a minefield. Would part-time need 20 years payback period to the NHS?
December 20, 2022
@Berkshire Alan Ah…, but we have lots of administrators, diversity and inclusion staff, so the well-being of all those in involved can be assured of the very best practice in total discrimination – no room for employing the-best-of-the-best
December 20, 2022
Ian B
Always sensible to employ the best for the job, thus the need to do away with all this WOKE, Inclusive and Diversity none-sense.
Given the fact that management and administration is the biggest failure in the HNS, time for a big Cull. !
December 20, 2022
Surely market economics suggest that, if there is a constant shortage of something, the price goes up. In the case of nurses and doctors, that “price” is their salary.
December 20, 2022
Peter
Indeed so if we have more nurses than we train/need, then the price does not have to go up does it.
December 20, 2022
Railways.
This is just a mess, the Government need to decide if it is going to be run by the State and or be subsidised, or allow the whole thing to be privatised.
It would seem to me that many Countries around the World subsidise Transport in one way or another, believing that efficient people movement requires low fares to gain volume usage.
Fully aware of the arguments about one taxpayer who does not use Public Transport, subsidising another who does, so let us have a grown up debate about such, and whilst we are at it, include a discussion about the over taxation of cars and road use.
December 20, 2022
There are many areas where a taxpayer not using a service pays for one who does.
Railways should be subsidised to encourage use – that subsidy might be better if it was on the ticket price so the firms only get subsidies on sales rather than infrastructure.
Train drivers earning £60K plus is an odd arrangement, I’ll wager it is not matched in countries where the rail system is subsidies to a greater level.
December 20, 2022
Essentially train driver pay was the ONLY competition that rail privatisation caused.
The crippling delay penalty system meant that top companies didn’t want to employ novice drivers and so poached experienced ones from lesser TOCs and this caused a wage spiral.
Though not rocket science, intercity type train driving is skilled work with a high level of knowledge and testing needed to cope with out-of-course incidents and breakdowns. Often with over 1000 passengers aboard and stock worth (nowadays) £50 million a set and delay penalties racking up at thousands a minute you want someone who reacts well and knows rules, regs and fault finding inside and out.
Then they complain about signallers on £70k a year after they’ve been centralised into Power Signal Boxes controlling hundreds of miles of region and every aspect of Network Rail Rule Book, including setting up and taking control of single line working around possessions. Apparently RMT didn’t accept digital signalling and the centralising of local signal boxes… so how is it that’s exactly what we’ve got ?
But they want these Super Signallers (probably at least as responsible as a police Commander/Chief Superintendent) to be paid the same as they were when they operated a single block section !!!
December 20, 2022
It has worried me for a few weeks now, why Andrew Bailey signaled that he would not work with Liz Truss as PM, driving the markets into a spin.
Subsequently, our “low tax” Chancellor became PM and appointed another “low tax” Chancellor in his stead.
Bailey seemed satisfied and lo, the markets quietened, fracking and oil extraction were banned and investment decimated by another “low tax” tax introduced. So now we have negative interest rates of -8% and no affordable energy, no growth and everyone seems happy.
How strange…
December 20, 2022
Andrew Bailey who, while at the FCA, gave us one size for all 40% overdraft rates which is any real competition here? Unfit to run his own piggy bank let alone the BoE..
December 20, 2022
John Miller, not sure what you mean by ‘strange’. Bailey attended the WEF Davos forum in 2021, and again in May this year. A WEF Great Reset Dialogue webinar ‘Shaping the Global Economic Recovery and a New Trajectory of Growth’ was on his diary list in May 2020, soon after he took on the BoE top job. No affordable energy and no investment in growth are probably part of the orders he’s been given.
December 20, 2022
I find it amazing that when push comes to shove it would seem that in an emergency situation the Army and our other armed forces are capable of completing many tasks, on a short term basis, with little extra training, serving in the past as emergency Ambulance drivers, Firemen, Construction work (Nightingale hospitals) Transport and logistics, (PPE distribution)
Not a slur on our armed forces at all, in fact to the contrary, that such tasks are performed by ordinary members of staff, but with minimal and efficient training combined with proper supervision and control.
Thus perhaps the lesson here to learn is proper and intelligent management, not simply more pay.
December 20, 2022
@Berkshire Alan – The Government wants to have just 70,000(Putin has lost more in the Ukraine) front line personnel as that is more than enough to face all dangers and provide for the UK’s security. These 70K it is now implied are more than capable of filling in for the more than 1million NHS staff, then they get to replace the Border Force on and on. All the time they are still spread around the World doing what their meagre pay expects of them. ‘A Government covering their failures with sound-bites’
December 20, 2022
Record numbers of military personnel have been recruited into the railway industry.
They turn out to be the most militant of the lot.
December 21, 2022
Perhaps its time to start to re-evaluate how recruits in to the jobs are hired and trained.
https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/how-to-become-a-train-driver
December 20, 2022
The special tax code idea mooted above by Turbo Terrier has merit. But the solution is to make all strikes by those working in monopoly services illegal. The purpose of a strike should be to inconvenience your employer while customers go elsewhere so losing them money. Those working on monopoly, taxpayer funded services are only inconveniencing the customer.
December 20, 2022
Indeed they can in effect often close down or hold to ransom £ billions of often public capital assets in order to extort higher pay for themselves. Paid for by extra taxes on people usually earning far less them themselves which worse pensions & often doing far more demanding jobs than them too.
December 20, 2022
The RMT are on a death spiral, falling footfall, rising prices, coupled with their refusal to move forward, their wage demand is an unattainable myth. Let it fizzle out. The NHS nurses strike is a matter for their individual trusts, where we have every respect for their endeavours throughout the pandemic, we must stand firm. Other strikes must be dealt with by their respective management. And one cannot escape the cynical abuse of the festive season. Small government.
December 20, 2022
Almost every time unions extract higher wages for their members they nearly always ensure fewer jobs for their members. The more they cost the fewer are employed. This as they price themselves and their services out of the market. Fewer trains are run as fewer make economic sense or the companies just find work a-rounds or automate them.
December 20, 2022
Falling footfall is more a reflection of the state of the nation and its economy than on the RMT.
The proles are being denied freedom of movement by economic mismanagement.
Remember. this is the 13th year of Tory rule. The Unions were pretty compliant until this year. All of it down to the gross economic incompetence and political chicanery of the Tory government, their lies and their broken promises. Everything is a failure from energy to immigration – much of it directly opposite to the manifesto pledges that were made.
Zero trust and zero credibility. No organisation in the UK is worse than the Conservative Party and more in need of reform.
December 20, 2022
Emergency Service personnel should not be allowed to strike and as promised government should legislate accordingly. When a NHS Trust advertises for a Director of Lived Experience at a salary in excess of £100,000pa it’s obvious the organisation is completely detached from reality. This ludicrous waste should be stopped. Government is at fault for firstly putting the NHS on a high quasi religious pedestal and secondly for allowing the organisation to become top heavy with Managers/Directors and administratively unwieldy. The present Chancellor must accept much of this responsibility. The NHS should be broken into regions with an independent Management structure controlling budget and personnel. Rail fares are ridiculously expensive, small wonder they are short on passengers. It’s cheaper to fly to Europe than travel by rail from Manchester to London.
December 20, 2022
Driving seven people in a car London to Manchester return can be less than 1/20 of the cost per passenger as going by train (even including the costs of the car). Also produced less CO2 and it goes door to door so no taxis needed for the end journeys. Why do the government keep wrongly claiming/lying that public transport is more efficient? Even that Walking and Cycling produce no direct and even indirect CO2 claimed on government web sites. It is all complete B/S & lies – not that CO2 is a serious problem anyway.
Five people walking (fueled by a typical UK diet) is about the same as four small cars (that could carry 20 people) if you do the sums). Rather faster and more convenient in general too.
December 20, 2022
The NHS used to have Regional Health Authorities, which were reduced in number and then finally abolished in 1996, being replaced by 9 Area authorities.
Regarding the overall number of medical and nurse training places, one should be aware of the influence of the Royal Medical Colleges through the advice they give to governments.
December 20, 2022
SM it would be interesting to know if any of the nine area authorities have better results.
How many vacancies per area? Which grades are there outstanding and how long is the training to obtain those positions and how many training places there are currently in place.
December 20, 2022
Lived experience, diversity officers, sustainability drivel all often on pay levels 3+ times those of junior doctors. The NHS CEO is a modern history graduate who has worked all her life in the NHS and is clearly grossly incompetent (see her many statements and interviews) circa £280K PA plus huge pension etc. So about 10 times that of a junior doctor (who has about £150K of student debt plus £10K PA of interest on this and has given up 5/6 unpaid years to train. Plus likely to be rather brighter certainly than this CEO or that last one.
December 20, 2022
What does the Job Description say?
You must be alive, and lived for a minimum number of years.
Experience required?
December 20, 2022
You’re a bit out of date on the railway Franchise model. Since May they are now Concessions with a fixed annual fee of operating costs + £6m with further bonuses depending on performance.
So to give any form of payrise the DFT have to approve it through the railway delivery group. The RDG offered 4% for this year and 4% got next with strings like getting rid of the guards role.
December 20, 2022
So far as nursing goes, maybe the generous pensions have a huge disadvantage for the NHS. I know of many nurses who have ‘retired’ at 50 on very good pensions. They then do agency work as their pension is already safe and they can pick and choose when to work. Many also go into self employment as well as agency work.
Is this a case of the generous pensions directly causing early ‘retirement’?
December 21, 2022
Shirley – In that case MPs’ pensions must go too otherwise this country will resemble 18th C France.
December 21, 2022
Talking of NHS pensions, why are GP’s, private companies or partnerships allowed in the NHS pension scheme? They are paid enough to do their own.
December 20, 2022
In creating these empire building management structures of the NHS the Government has a monster on its hands. It (the NHS) delivered better more efficient outcomes when it was Clinicians at the helm.
The Government needs in return to ensure a clear Contract of purpose with these management boards, and define what they will deliver in return for receiving taxpayers money.
It is clear to all outside of these units the focus is not on the Customer receiving the ‘best-of-the-best’ in service. It is clear to all the additional money has not gone to the front end – the clinicians
It is clear to all these managers are surrounding themselves in an empire of people in their own image – primarily to surround and protect.
The NHS as it is now is just another fob off by Government that lacks the ability to manage
December 20, 2022
Shrink the NHS. Relieve it of the responsibility to treat lifestyle diseases, create workplace health policies allowing workers to opt out of NHS taking the tax element with them.
With less nurses and doctors paid from the public purse to treat genuine misfortune, they can be paid more with less impact on public finances.
December 21, 2022
Dave, what are ‘lifestyle diseases’? High-risk activities such as:
Riding a motorbike and having an accident,
Horse riding?
Drinking above five units? 80mg to drive, so how many mg to walk and function?
Drugs, what abuse ends up in A&E?
Or those high-intensity user people who just like turning up at A&E ten patients visited A&E 235 times each some of those once a day. https://telstrahealth.co.uk/insight-report-high-intensity-users-of-ae-departments/
December 20, 2022
The problem is that the Government are following a WEF agenda of making people in developed countries poorer, colder and hungrier, whilst flooding their countries with Third World migrants in order to reduce their ability to resist. Those who do resist being made poorer are excoriated as Marxists intent on bringing down the Government. Will the Net Stupid lunacy enveloping Germany, Holland and Ireland of reducing food production come to these shores, and will it be enough to make you cross the floor?
Reply No, as I have no wish to join SNP,Labour and Lib Dems who want more net zero taxes and controls and wish to damage free enterprise and Brexit.
December 20, 2022
Just listen to the Union leaders and Left wing pundits.
Talk about stirring up class envy!
Govt. has long done the same via MSM. Discrimination against middle class in working class areas is amazing!
The Middle Class that used to keep this country afloat is all but destroyed.
Major said it “ Everyone is middle class now”.
No…everyone had been dragged down to a basic level making them easy to manipulate.
Who the HELL do the strikers think will benefit from these strikes?
No one will. The jobs will just go!
December 20, 2022
On the railways we have de facto nationalisation. But the directors and the owner corporations of the TOCs are behaving as though they are still privatised and taking taxpayer subsidised bonuses and profits. THIS is what is making it impossible for Conservative workers on the railways to argue against strikes – a workforce which has readily accepted nearly three years of pay freezes to get us through the pandemic.
On that. China seems to be taking the latest Covid outbreak extremely seriously. Has another experiment gone wrong ?
Just how much PPE and anti viral are we going to need to continue trading with this country ?
December 20, 2022
There would be no strikes if government, the Treasury, and the BOE had not allowed inflation to run riot. You have inflation in the UK because we lack energy independence. We lack energy independence directly through governments Nett Zero farcical but quite deliberate policy during the time the consocialists have been in charge. They have built on a complete lack of viable energy policy for the past 20 years at least. Just to emphasise the ineptitude of government, they managed it while sitting on abundent reserves of coal oil and gas within our own borders. Energy costs impact on food transport and just about everything else we do. Hence they have impoverishsd the UK population who wish naturally to play catchup which government is reluctant to allow, hence the strikes we are experiencing. The answer to which is to bow to the populations demand in the short term. This could be done via the tax system and in effect shield the whole population not just a few vociferous unions. In the long term sort out the cost of energy and reduce government spending to pay for the tax reduction. Reducing spending is only what most of the population are being forced to accept, so why not government.
December 20, 2022
+1
The greenist policies and lockdown bills are coming home to roost. I could say Brexit too but we haven’t had Brexit. Boris lied to us about that as well.
December 20, 2022
JR “They could also invent a one off payment not consolidated into pay rates going forward to deal with one off high inflation on family budgets.”
No. They have already had this in the form of £1400 consolidated uplift and it hasn’t placated the unions; you never hear of that uplift when they say they’ve only had 2% in real terms! At the grade 2 level, there was a 9.5% lift. (grade 1 was disbanded from 2018 for new entrants but old grade 1ers they also got a consolidated uplift). The higher grades didn’t feel the lift, only 4% and that is your problem. Your government never takes into account differentials when you raise the bottom up, you are expecting the top, higher bands to just take a lower increase – it isn’t going to happen.
December 20, 2022
Nobody ever mentions to these union bosses about the blind eye by government to all the little perks that some of these organisation’s staff receive.
NHS staff can with their I’d card get 10% discount from a number of retail outlets, get a better deal on their mobile phones. Railway staff get free and subsidised travel for their family.
Are these perks taxed I wonder.
It would appear that there is a lot of taking but shy on the giving.
TBF it is management that has a lot to do with the problem. Some of it being they are not encouraged to think outside the box by those in very senior positions. A well motivated staff is invariably a loyal staff.
December 20, 2022
You are going to have to give them the % increase to the NLW/NMW I want to hear from their pay body? Who is interviewing them to ask what the higher bands got instead?
Everyone in the public sector got an extra two days’ holiday this year from their employer, i.e. in the NHS, the taxpaying national insurance levied healthcover. Aren’t the government generous? They put the self-employed out of work for two extra days. Did you top up their pay – no. All the small businesses losing two days of turnover, did you top that up – no.
Was this appreciated by the unions – no. The cost of this isn’t just an extra day of holiday pay; it is all the cancelled procedures, double pay for the few that did work those bank holidays and agency workers extra cost. They want the extra money – oh, hold on – no, they want the extra money and all the extra paid perks that cost more every year. When they compare themselves to a supermarket worker, do they tot-up the cost of those perks? I don’t hear it. Your government should give them a choice to have the extra cash today instead.
December 20, 2022
The government can do its bit by reducing tax rates and culling the waste from the public sector.
If strikers are being asked to pay less tax, their claims can be lowered accordingly
December 22, 2022
I disagree Kenneth, they don’t compare their complete packages now, they only ever talk about the lowest grade gross basic, not the shift enhancement of 30% from 8pm to 6am, someone said on here they get that 30% for the full shift even if only 1-2 hours is in this time frame, not sure I believe that. up to 60% enhancement for weekends, bank holidays. How would the % increase be calculated then when comparing this year to previous years, they just don’t do it?
December 20, 2022
Something drastic has to be done to end the strikes that are harming the public as well as wasting taxpayers’ money in funding non-operational ‘service’.
Strikes occur mainly where two factors combine – unionisation (which is mainly in the public sector) and high inflation. Without majority unionisation strikes are impractical. Without high inflation people are not seriously aggrieved by low, below inflation pay rises and anyhow people aren’t going to consider it worthwhile to lose pay while striking to achieve just 1% or 2% extra pay – 5% or more is a different matter.
If the government does nothing much or allows higher pay for strikers things will just get worse and the government will be punished at the General Election.
Therefore government has either to tackle inflation or the principle of striking. My preference is that it should ban strikes by law, at least in the public sector and if necessary imprison those organising strikes. The other alternative is economic. Government might stop funding non-operational sectors, be it railways or ambulances sending them into receivership and where retrievable into the private sector. Or it could opt for an incomes policy, banning pay increases of say more than 5% so as to bring down inflation.
Not easy but some drastic action is now necessary.
December 20, 2022
I still say these strikes are politically motivated as much as they are about paying appropriate wages. Nurses in particular have a good case for extra money, but that just falls in with the aims of Union Leaders who want to cause havoc, and if possible bring the government down – to put another nail in our democracy.
Resolution: Impose settlements, that won’t further fuel inflation, with a new contract that stipulates HMG will no longer keep wages low, and that wages will be allowed to rise in line with inflation. That will give the BoE more incentive to handle inflation effectively.
If there is to be new legislation, limit it to balancing the power of union leaders, with a clause to make strikes illegal if they are likely to cause deaths or endanger livliehoods of more than 3% of the population.
December 20, 2022
Everyone is struggling to heat their home this winter and many people ( the retired in particular ) are on fixed incomes. In my case, I have adequate private pension provision, but If I relied on my state pension as many have to, the increase, even at 10%, would only pay my extra gas bill for two weeks of the month.
When I talked to some NHS staff recently they were looking forward to foreign holidays so they were hardly on the breadline.
The answer to public sector pay demands could be to end the final salary pension scheme across the board, as has happened across the private sector. Some, but not all, of the money saved can be used to ensure that pay is brought into line with comparable groups.
December 20, 2022
Sure. So long as Tory MPs’ pensions are scrapped too.
All of it must go.
December 20, 2022
The answer to the Nurses strike is to give them more money. The government is lying when they say they cannot afford it, whilst at the same time saying they are increasing the number of doctors and nurses. Both statements cannot logically be true. If the have a budget for a full workforce and they have 130,000 vacancies, where is the money saved on those jobs? Or is it that they have budgeted for 130,000 less workers in the NHS and are relying on the staff to shoulder the extra work for less pay? Secondly, they keep saying it would cost 10 billion to pay the nurses – another blatant lie. Just work out the figures and you will conclude that it is nearer 3 billion to pay those we have. A payment in cash not consolidated in wages is not the way to go. Did MP’s do that when they got n 80 pounds a week rise recently. Also the ‘independent’ pay board is nothing of the sort. The members are appointed by Tory politicians and ministers and given parameters which suit them. Why does your government keep lying about all this, other then to try to deceive the public?
December 20, 2022
Striking should be illegal . I am shocked at the level of pay in the railway sector ; the skills and efforts required in so many of the jobs there are disproportionate . In the NHS – particularly with the nursing sector , the pay is low and a considerable revision of how the NHS is run is now an urgent necessity . The Government is not structured to deal with all the strike problems – certainly without a Margaret Thatcher in charge .
December 20, 2022
So when did you last book on at 2 or 3 am, Bert ?
When did you do an apprenticeship that took 7 years (a regional intercity driver or power signal box signaller) ?
Without looking explain a Westinghouse distributor, token block working, the effects of isolating a compressor governor, the rules on isolating air suspension, loss of ETS, the fifteen conditions for passing a signal at danger, examination of overhead line (25kv) putting a bar down on a dc rail (750v), shutting down a diesel engine that’s burnt out its Stop button electrics and is running under its own momentum… what constitutes an animal on a line, how do you deal with a swan and why ? Name all the speeds and platform lengths into ******* mainline station and why you can’t take a five care into patform six (of sixteen) on a subsidiary signal … and on and on…. a typical rules exam two solid days of quickfire questioning with quickfire answers expected.
YOU SHOULD KNOW ALL THIS ALREADY. You’ve just told us it’s not skilled work.
December 21, 2022
Why did it only take a 3 month training course to become an Elizabeth line driver?
December 21, 2022
https://www.networkrail.co.uk/careers/early-careers/application-process-and-advice/applying-for-a-graduate-scheme-or-undergraduate-placement/
I’ve tried to find the seven-year apprenticeship details do you have a link?
December 22, 2022
Three months is a long time MT. Is that someone with no previous railway experience?
December 20, 2022
Take the nominal nurse on £33,000gross. £12,751 is tax free. She pays 20% on the rest for a nett kncome of£28,91=.20.
If the zero rate allowance was £30,000 she would pay 20% on £3000 for a nett income of £32,400
28,914.2 ÷ 100 = 289.142 = 1.0%
32,400.0 ÷ 289.142 = 112.055 or 12.055%
Lets say an increase of just over 12% in real income which in current circumstances is around what everyone is paying to live. The population is paying that amount in real money, this is a way to pay them compensation. Pensioners unless privately pensioned as well and those that do or cannot earn need to be looked at separately.
December 21, 2022
Fine – what about all the other justifiable claimants out there?
December 22, 2022
There are over 1.2 million full-time equivalent staff working in NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups in England – over 31,000 more people compared to a year ago, up by over 2.5%.27 Oct 2022. You are suggesting they don’t pay tax like the rest of the work force?
The NHS workers all need medical care, their children educating, trains and buses; why should they pay less tax that pays for all these services? They call grades 1-4 nurses even when they are porters, hca’s. Who makes up the difference the rest of the people working?
December 20, 2022
I agree with many of the comments posted. Nurses should never be allowed to strike, nor should any emergency workers, but in return, they should be well paid. If there are shortages of nurses, that indicates they are underpaid, so maybe a special one-off adjustment needs to be made. But all the nonsense woke jobs & layers of management need to go so it can be funded. We now learn that the government has 476000 more Civil Servants today than in 2018. No wonder they can’t afford tax cuts!
We need a ruthless purge of all the non-jobs & a dramatic reduction in the numbers on the public payroll. Reduce the cost of government & then you can afford proper tax cuts. A 5p reduction in the basic rate of tax, from 20p to 15p, would put more money into everyone’s pocket. But it won’t come from Sunak or Hunt as they have no understanding of what it is like to live on an average wage. When you pay £110 for a haircut you live in a different world!
December 21, 2022
grade 2 nurses the starting band got a 9.5% increase this year.
Examples of roles at band 2 – domestic support worker, domestic team leader, security officer and healthcare assistant, domestic support worker, housekeeping assistant, driver and nursery assistant.
How much do you think they should be on Keith?
A fresh graduate at 21 years of age after a 3 year nursing degree starts on £27,055 basic + shift allowances and weekend allowances from 30% to 60% extra.
How much do you think they should be on?
December 21, 2022
Funny she starts on 27 grand when she has a debt of 27 grand. Seems you think they are well paid? If so how do you account for the staff shortages and the huge turnover of nurses leaving the profession after years of training and working? This is the third time I have asked this question but the people saying they are well paid never seem to answer. Perhaps you can.
December 21, 2022
I’ve already given you this answer graham on a previous thread go back and look, if you can’t find it I’ll copy and paste it later when I get home.
I’d the figures how many vacancies in each region, which grades? How many currently in training in those grades if they are over grade 5? This is a failure of the senior management of the NHS. For a massive company, the numbers per hospital are 38 vacancies.
I do think nurses should have got 7% not 4%, the lowest grade 2’s got 9.5% the unions claimed 2%?
I know a number of well paid nurses but they moved up the grades and didn’t stick, performing well and doing additional training.
December 21, 2022
Here is a reply I made on this subject a couple of days ago ‘Nursing pay is nothing like supermarket pay, supermarket workers don’t get the unsociable hours enhancements of 30% to 60%, the defined benefit pension, full sick pay, and other perks and benefits, nor do they get 33 days holiday from the start (+ extras), nor can they do bank cover for enhanced rates of pay. How many days per year does a nurse work are they contracted to work 3 days in 7 or 3 days on 3 days off? Do they for example if they work 3 12 hour shifts get 3/5 of the 33 days holiday pa? Stephen Barclay needs to step up and tell us all what we are paying and why he is standing resolute. He needs to defend the people that are paying for the service through taxation and national insurance.
All the nurses I know that have left recently have retired aged 60. They started nursing at 16 (not 21) and worked hard for their qualifications, taking career breaks to have their children and usually doing just a couple of days a week whilst the children were small. This causes dips in availability. They also get full pay whilst on maternity leave on a reducing scale so they take longer breaks. 75% are women, they need to train more men from the start, as men don’t take as long a break, men are willing to work more hours and are willing to do more unsociable hours. They need to start training from 16 again to check to see if the recruits have the basic skills required for this very demanding job and giving them care qualifications at 18 to start work straight away or that can go on to give those eligible to a degree course that opportunity and allow more vocational training qualifications; 2 days paid in hospital, 3 days in university hospitals from age 18 the course to last slightly longer four years maybe because what they learn on the wards will be as valuable as what they can learn in the class.
Nurses deserve good rewards, they do move up pay bands in the year between % grade increases to boost their pay till they reach the top of the pay band, there is an argument for the top of each pay band to get a higher % increase in line with the NLW increase. I think starting on £27,055 when a doctor starts after 5 years study on £29,500 is a good starting wage YES I do.
1 in 10 vacancies is unfulfilled I’ve just heard on GB News but no clarification asked for, we don’t know the grades that are short, where in the Country? How many jobs in each hospital? Which hospital has the biggest problem.
Barclay step up and give us the information! Proper information because at the moment you are getting walked over and made to look a fool.
December 20, 2022
Another heretical thought. Pay all pensioners £20,000 pa., still not as much as the Germans get. You can at a stroke get rid of all the hand outs for this that or the other, and the army of civil servants who administer it. For those that say we are over paying those with private pensions and wealth I say nonesense, we have a current tax regime with its hand out for anyone earning over £12,751.00 pa. Doing as I suggest ensures nobody falls by the wayside, nobody feels demeened because they have to ask for special allowances. Plus, I suspect but can’t prove it, that if you add up all the special allowances and the cost of administering it, government would be quids in.
December 20, 2022
+1
December 21, 2022
not so different to my long standing urging to increase Personal Allowance by say £2k every year, stop at whatever figure eliminates the OAP claims for benefits. The bigger question is what to do with the tens of thousands of Civil Serpents – oh I know – pay them benefits if pensions are not enough!
December 21, 2022
MT, people that don’t pay in their 35 years (it used to be 39 years) NI get pension credits which are more than basic state pension! Women who left school at 16 with the promise of a pension at 60 now have to pay work an extra 7 years before getting their state pension. A £100,000 pension pot with spousal transfer would only get you about £4000 per annum. So work, pay up and pay in and you get less reward than people that don’t. New members of the community without a full state pension get pension credits to live in retirement often combined with disability benefits because they are used to how to claim.
December 22, 2022
I must be older than you because when I started work the qualifying period was 44 years. I actually paid in 49 years, but got nothing extra for theses years. Why they knocked it down to 35 years when the population is bigger and aging, God only knows. Shows what a useless bunch of twerps sit in the Commons. Anyway the pension is the lowest in the civilised world and not enough to live on even at full whack. Woman have been treated shamefully. I had a friend who expected to retire at 60, was made to work extra years and died before getting there. That’s another govt swindle – don’t live long enough to get a pension, or your money’s worth and it just disappears, nothing to the persons estate. The whole thing is wrong and crooked. In private business the directors would be in jail.
December 21, 2022
Had the NIC contributions not been taken to pay current costs and the pension element put into proper pensions then it would already be more than your figure. I remember reading a piece by an actuary saying this about 20 years ago.
December 20, 2022
You’re reaping what you sowed when you closed down the economy for 2 years (over a bad cold); printed and squandered £millions.
Having turned full socialist, it’s hardly surprising that the Public Sector is now flexing its muscles.
The way out of it is to rediscover Conservatism but that’s not likely to happen in the Blu-Green-Socialist CON Party.
December 20, 2022
Parliament is surely giving us the two fingers as it encourages the NHS, the most widely diverse workforce in the world, and far wider than the UK population, to employ further diversity officers as nurses go on strike.
It is not simply the additional staff and associated costs (office, staff, IT etc.) it is the damage these officers cause to the NHS though wasting clinical staff’s time and destroying morale.
Much like the way Parliament is intent upon destroying our economy with king Canute energy policies.
December 21, 2022
Then of course the 219 Trusts all duplicating each other’s work thanks to the 2012 re-organisation which supposedly set hospital against hospital etc in the rubbish idea of an ‘internal market’ experiment which has failed collossally and left us where we are today.
December 20, 2022
It is no coincidence that Government-controlled monopolies provide all the services where strikes occur. Introduce proper competition into the provision of these services, and remove excessive regulations, including the national pay scales. Then let poorly run providers go bust, get taken over or privatise them. You will end up with well-run services, and the problem of strikes will go away.
December 20, 2022
Hiding behind a pay review board recommendation is not going to work for the Government if the NHS strikes continue, especially if the attributable death toll mounts.
The Government could say it will get tough with nurses, treat them as bogus asylum seekers, and at the end of each work shift place them in four star hotels at taxpayer expense. Objectors might reflect that such a measure represents better value for money than the people at present so accommodated.
Alternatively, the Government must prepare to give in, which will suit its tendency towards pusillanimity. It could do so in ways that would knife the RCN in the back by introducing a special tax and benefits reduction to provide the funds, a truly dangerous move that would leave Prime Minister Starmer in a fix. Can it be made to hurry up, whatever it is going to do please?
(As for the train operatives, who cares? Get driverless trains, meanwhile let passenger enthusiasts have ago at driving themselves.)
December 21, 2022
Edward Heath thought he could be the ‘big man’ when he faced a similar situation with union strikes and oil prices etc. in the winter and went to the country asking ‘Who governs Britain’. The prompt answer was ‘ Not you mate’ and in a second election some months later Labour became the government. This is a repeat, except Labour this time will pulverize the Tories. As people these days seem to take no interest in history, no doubt the government won’t either and will end up the very much the losers.
December 21, 2022
It is easy to understand how union leaders have persuaded members to strike in the face of sharply falling living standards that result from high inflation. Much of the inflation is due to disastrous energy policy and profligate government waste from test and trace to HS2 etc., etc., coupled to giant QE. Some of it is due to declining productivity in the NHS, railways, education and the civil service. Solve these problems and inflation can be controlled, although we face a long period of paying for past sins. The fact that mismanagement of the striking workers has contributed makes resolution more difficult.
December 21, 2022
I have no really smart ideas about how to deal with the strike issue (except to say: the nurses definitely deserve more, the railway workers don’t have much of a case IMO).
In order to fund a pay-rise for nurses, the whole NHS funding regime needs to be thought through in a radical way. Here is a “prescription” for how I would provide a remedy for the ills of the NHS.
Of course, it is all about funding. There is one simple step that needs to be taken but before I state what it is I note that many leading politicians in UK are always going on about “why can’t Britain be more like Scandinavia?” and forever extolling the virtues of the Scandinavian countries. Strange, because they don’t seem to know much about those countries and have not lived there.
I have (lived there. (“there” = Sweden and Denmark, mostly the former)) and I can tell a lot about life in those countries. There is indeed a lot that is favourable but there are also things that we should not copy. I won’t go into the latter and only talk about the favourable stuff. In particular about their “NHS”s. Because while they are far from perfect they are on the whole pretty good. Waiting times for surgery are often long however and at the present time there is a rapid rise in influensa and covid cases leading to the phenomenon of “corridor wards” (which is a not unfamiliar sight in some UK hospitals). But A&E is far, far quicker than in UK (experience from Sweden and Netherlands) and services like X-ray, mammography etc are usually very efficient.
Now for the remedy. Funding.
In Scandinavia (and Netherlands) health care is not free for the patient. It is very inexpensive but definitely not free. The amount of money that it brings in is however significant. It pays for much of the overheads of the modern well-equipped installations where the health care is carried out and goes some way towards covering the payroll costs.
So, what does the health care cost?
Here are the figures for Sweden (I have converted the Swedish crown charges at the rate 1€ = 10 Swedish crowns)
Visit to:
District nurse €20
GP €30
Specialist care on a referral €10
A&E €40
There is a “ceiling”: the maximum in a 12-month period is €120.
Prices and conditions are similar in Denmark and the Netherlands.
To go to a doctor’s surgery in the Republic of Ireland costs €50
Some system of charging, along these lines, needs to be introduced in the UK. I know this will be anathema to many who are wedded to the idea of health-care “free at the point of service” but it has to be done. The bullet has to be bitten.
If we get a Labour government in the near future it would be poetic justice for them to have to introduce this reform.
With greetings and wishes for a merry Christmas
Robert P Bywater
December 21, 2022
Why do the TOCs run the railway stations?
Why weren’t the railway stations kept in public hands and then give operating slots to run a competing service. If one company wants to send a train from Euston to Glasgow at 6am and another at 0615am then why not? If company 2 then uses better carriages a better booking system, better seat reservations, cleaner toilets and a drinks service then they succeed.
December 21, 2022
The messaging needs to be better from employers and government.
There’s a key point: inflation may be temporary, but a pay rise is alwways permanent.
They may counter with: inflation may abate, but the price rises it casues are never reversed, so we continue to need more money to buy the goods at the new price.
However, the key point is that almost no-one will get a 10% pay rise or anything like it, so these people need to realise that they are in the same boat. If such pay rises became ubiwuitous then inflation would become entrenched.
The rail workers are especially silly, since the revenue of their companies is already problematic due to the collapse of commuting. It seems unlikely that the jobs and pay they have now can be maintained, so asking for more money will simply mean more redundancies.
These points are never made by politicians, who seem afraid to say a bad word about anyone (and when they do criticise some group of people, they invariably apologise, even if they were right).
December 21, 2022
Ken Livingston, said on GB news that there are 60,000 vacancies today in the NHS, this number is going up every day the other day it was 45,000 then 48,000, can we have some clarification on this, some details please. Let’s see a website with all the 60,000 vacancies and the pay rates, terms, qualifications required in one NHS job vacancy website.
Then Ken says that NHS pay has dropped 25%, your party are just letting all these statements get repeated unchallenged. NHS was costing 8% of GDP now 12% how the heck can pay have dropped! Where is the fact checker on all these claims? Where are the governments defence? Do you have one? Have hours of work dropped for a higher pay per hour? Have more people gone part-time so the per person average pay is down?
How can people HONK for fair pay support if they don’t even know what the pay is, unions are saying that nurses only got a 2% rise the nursing websites said grade 2 (the start grade) went up 9.5% and nurses got 4% from April 2022? So what is the governments point, Barclay give us all the facts.
December 22, 2022
He actually said there were 60,000 NURSING vacancies. That’s what they were talking about, not vacancies in general which is 130,000 including doctors etc. There is your 10 per cent roughly. Percentages of GDP are what the government says and is meaningless – and it doesn’t mean any increases go to wages nor takes account of the rapid increase in population. In fact the government have held wages down against inflation for 12 years, as you well know, that’s why their real terms pay is 20 percent down, not actual pound notes. Quoting the lowest grade is also wrong. April 2022 award of 4 percent when inflation was already baked in at 10 percent. The so called ‘independent’ wage panel (they are nothing like independent) did their sums from the previous year, not 2022 on parameters set by the government, just as they are now working on next April’s figures. I don’t know how the unions get 2 per cent, but they are usually pretty expert with their figures or they could not negotiate. Maybe inflation again. You and I sitting here surmising without all the facts is not much really much use but they do need to be treated better than the government is doing. They were quite happy to bung MP’s 80 quid a week increase this year, and they are not low paid or in any way qualified.