Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 2:48 pm  

Dally wrote:

Typically pensions generate 2/3rds final salary for long serving people in the private sector and at least that in the public. there are alot of public sector staff earning £75,000 plus. Several thousand earn £100,000+

The LA is no different to any other employer, there will be high earners, but for every one on 100k there will a few thousand on the breadline with a tiny pension to look forward to.

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 2:49 pm  

Dally wrote:

Typically pensions generate 2/3rds final salary for long serving people in the private sector and at least that in the public. there are alot of public sector staff earning £75,000 plus. Several thousand earn £100,000+

And the majority don't. The majority don't even earn a quater of that. There are around 6million employed in the public sector, the majority on the average UK wage or below. Several thousand (if your figures are correct) out of 6million earning top whack isn't going to make the public pension scheme collapse.

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 2:54 pm  

John_D wrote:

This is predominantly down to government cuts, such as scrapping the schools building programme. This is Osborne's recession.

Nope, Igglepiggle (name courtesy of his former fan club at gobbyhousewifes.com or whatever they are called) insisted today in the commons that it was because of what they'd inherited from Labour.

So thats alright then.


In the real world it doesn't matter why there is a nail in the tyre, just that the Kwikfit fitter has the ability to fix it and if he doesn't then call someone else in to do the job.

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:07 pm  

Dally wrote:

My wife (not partner please) is applying on behalf of my daughter. Not sure if my income counts towards my daughter? In any event its just a case of applying so one arm of the public services can get the money from another. In other words, waste and beaurocracy to see whose budget it comes out of.

My understanding Dally is if your daughter has worked previously and paid enough NI contributions then she will be entitled to contributory ESA. If she is placed in the support group on contributory ESA then she will continue to receive it continiously (or until she is re- assessed and told otherwise ie to be placed in the WRAG or found fit for work). If she is placed in the Work Related Activity Group and lives with you and your wife, both your incomes are classed as "household" and she will be on ESA for one year then the "household" will be expected to support her after the year if the household income is above £7,500 combined. If she is on Income Based ESA no matter if she lives at home with you or independantley then she will continue to receive the benefit continuously (or again until she is re-assessed and told otherwise ie fit for work).

If you think after the assesment that the decision is wrong, you have one month from the decision date to appeal.

Good luck with it all, it really is a minefield and imo deliberately confusing.

[DaveO]

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:15 pm  

Dally wrote: 1. To reduce the debate to the fact we are apparently in recession today is silly. As I said, we have major problems which will take years to, hopefully, resolve. The fact is there will be ups and downs in headline figures along the way. It's only silly if you don't want to admit you were wrong in your original post. There is now plenty of analysis coming out from various economists and they are dismissing Osborne's stance it was all down to the Eurozone and even the ONS is saying its down to the purely domestic issues mainly constructiopn that is is suffering from the governments cuts. The ONS said output of the production industries decreased by 0.4%, construction decreased by 3% and output of the service sector increased by 0.1%. It added that a fall in government spending had contributed to the particularly large fall in the construction sector. "The huge cuts to public spending - 25% in public sector housing and 24% in public non-housing and with a further 10% cuts to both anticipated for 2013 - have left a hole too big for other sectors to fill," said Judy Lowe, deputy chairman of industry body CITB-ConstructionSkills, said." From here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624 2. Resources will be reallocated into profitable areas if the public sector shrinks, just as they were after Thatcher's era. It just takes time. Is China more propserous now than during the days of Mao? What profitable areas? And how do you do this? Is the government to do as I suggested its strategy is, to cut corporation tax and cross its fingers it will work? If not just what do you mean by "Resources will be reallocated into profitable areas if the public sector shrinks"? What does this mean and what magic wand will do this? What happened after Thatcher was we became a service led economy and guess what? The only thing that is pinning up at the moment is the service sector and what little retail activity their is. The stuff we really need to do it isn't. 3. If a public sector manager gets a pension of say £50,000 pa that would be equivalent to saving a capital sum of ca. £1,000,000 (or £25,000 pa for 40 years - how many people can do that in the rest of the economy)? A public sector middle manager (your original words) will never be on a pension of £50K. You don't have a point. The handful of council CEO's who earn 6 figure salaries might be. But then I guess the old argument we have to pay the going rate to get the best man for the job so often trotted out to justify high salaries in the private sector doesn't apply in the public sector. 4. Just like you, I have no idea whether outsourcing has been cost-effective or not. If it has not been then there has been mismanagement. It probably has been because even if it cost 10% more to collect the bins than the Council doing it through its employees the back offf savings in payroll, personnel management, training, pensions, holidays, etc would be saved. My wife sees the cost (not savings) associated with using private companies. I have lost count of the number of stories she tells me of how the attitude is charge for everything. And councils pay it because they no longer have the old ethos of being custodians of the local finances. Most of them involved in the finance departments are overworked and the level of scrutiny is quite shocking. At her school to give one example Biffa turned up when they shouldn't have to collect the refuse. Could not gain access so then proceed to charge the council for return visit. Invoice lands on my wife's desk - she refuses to pay it. Or should I say she tries to. The effort involved to sort this out was huge. She got it sorted in the end but there are plenty of other small amounts of money incorrectly billed that the attitude is (because it has to be) that it is not worth the effort to chase up. The books balance, there is money in the budget so stuff the effort. My wife hates this attitude and has saved the school a small fortune over the years but how many people do you think are like this? Not many is my guess and if this is replicated across the country the costs will be huge overall. And this would not be happening anything like this if the money stayed where it was, within the local authority.

Dally wrote: 1. To reduce the debate to the fact we are apparently in recession today is silly. As I said, we have major problems which will take years to, hopefully, resolve. The fact is there will be ups and downs in headline figures along the way. It's only silly if you don't want to admit you were wrong in your original post. There is now plenty of analysis coming out from various economists and they are dismissing Osborne's stance it was all down to the Eurozone and even the ONS is saying its down to the purely domestic issues mainly constructiopn that is is suffering from the governments cuts. The ONS said output of the production industries decreased by 0.4%, construction decreased by 3% and output of the service sector increased by 0.1%. It added that a fall in government spending had contributed to the particularly large fall in the construction sector. "The huge cuts to public spending - 25% in public sector housing and 24% in public non-housing and with a further 10% cuts to both anticipated for 2013 - have left a hole too big for other sectors to fill," said Judy Lowe, deputy chairman of industry body CITB-ConstructionSkills, said." From here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17836624 2. Resources will be reallocated into profitable areas if the public sector shrinks, just as they were after Thatcher's era. It just takes time. Is China more propserous now than during the days of Mao? What profitable areas? And how do you do this? Is the government to do as I suggested its strategy is, to cut corporation tax and cross its fingers it will work? If not just what do you mean by "Resources will be reallocated into profitable areas if the public sector shrinks"? What does this mean and what magic wand will do this? What happened after Thatcher was we became a service led economy and guess what? The only thing that is pinning up at the moment is the service sector and what little retail activity their is. The stuff we really need to do it isn't. 3. If a public sector manager gets a pension of say £50,000 pa that would be equivalent to saving a capital sum of ca. £1,000,000 (or £25,000 pa for 40 years - how many people can do that in the rest of the economy)? A public sector middle manager (your original words) will never be on a pension of £50K. You don't have a point. The handful of council CEO's who earn 6 figure salaries might be. But then I guess the old argument we have to pay the going rate to get the best man for the job so often trotted out to justify high salaries in the private sector doesn't apply in the public sector. 4. Just like you, I have no idea whether outsourcing has been cost-effective or not. If it has not been then there has been mismanagement. It probably has been because even if it cost 10% more to collect the bins than the Council doing it through its employees the back offf savings in payroll, personnel management, training, pensions, holidays, etc would be saved. My wife sees the cost (not savings) associated with using private companies. I have lost count of the number of stories she tells me of how the attitude is charge for everything. And councils pay it because they no longer have the old ethos of being custodians of the local finances. Most of them involved in the finance departments are overworked and the level of scrutiny is quite shocking. At her school to give one example Biffa turned up when they shouldn't have to collect the refuse. Could not gain access so then proceed to charge the council for return visit. Invoice lands on my wife's desk - she refuses to pay it. Or should I say she tries to. The effort involved to sort this out was huge. She got it sorted in the end but there are plenty of other small amounts of money incorrectly billed that the attitude is (because it has to be) that it is not worth the effort to chase up. The books balance, there is money in the budget so stuff the effort. My wife hates this attitude and has saved the school a small fortune over the years but how many people do you think are like this? Not many is my guess and if this is replicated across the country the costs will be huge overall. And this would not be happening anything like this if the money stayed where it was, within the local authority.

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:30 pm  

Hull White Star wrote:

My understanding Dally is if your daughter has worked previously and paid enough NI contributions then she will be entitled to contributory ESA. If she is placed in the support group on contributory ESA then she will continue to receive it continiously (or until she is re- assessed and told otherwise ie to be placed in the WRAG or found fit for work). If she is placed in the Work Related Activity Group and lives with you and your wife, both your incomes are classed as "household" and she will be on ESA for one year then the "household" will be expected to support her after the year if the household income is above £7,500 combined. If she is on Income Based ESA no matter if she lives at home with you or independantley then she will continue to receive the benefit continuously (or again until she is re-assessed and told otherwise ie fit for work).

If you think after the assesment that the decision is wrong, you have one month from the decision date to appeal.

Good luck with it all, it really is a minefield and imo deliberately confusing.

My Mrs has just been placed in the Support Group - what a huge relief.

Had the assessment only last week and after weeks of worrying it went well. She'd spent weeks reading horror stories of CCTV and trick questions and we'd prepared for most eventualities, but she was still very stressed.

Actually, when I say 'it went well', what I mean is they left her sitting in a crappy chair too long so she ended up in agony. Oddly, as soon as I asked for somewhere for her to lie down they were immediately ready for us. She then had to carry out the assessment lying on the examination table (a first for our assessor, apparently) and they didn't carry out the physical assessment as she was in no state. The sheer effort and stress caused a bit of a panic/stress attack as she was barely able to walk, floods of tears ensued and she had to spend time recovering in a side room. All in all, a lovely morning!

However, all that has gone in her favour as far as the assessment was concerned. She got her letter this morning and is - correctly - in the Support Group. Amazed by such a rapid response but it was pretty clear she's not faking.

[John_D]

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:36 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

In the real world it doesn't matter why there is a nail in the tyre, just that the Kwikfit fitter has the ability to fix it and if he doesn't then call someone else in to do the job.

Undoubtedly. But how does that affect poll ratings?

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 3:38 pm  

As for public sector pensions, it's likely they'll be offering some generous packages right now as jobs being are shed.

My dad took voluntary redundancy at the age of 50 back in 1991 after Bury Council lost about £6.5M in the BCCI collapse. He was a senior bod on about £30k (about £55-60k in today's shekels). I don't recall the exact details but I think the terms were a generous pay-off, a full salary pension for 10 years and 50% after that.

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:00 pm  

rover49 wrote:

The LA is no different to any other employer, there will be high earners, but for every one on 100k there will a few thousand on the breadline with a tiny pension to look forward to.

No one is disputing that.

Re: It's a Double dip : Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:05 pm  

Hull White Star wrote:

And the majority don't. The majority don't even earn a quater of that. There are around 6million employed in the public sector, the majority on the average UK wage or below. Several thousand (if your figures are correct) out of 6million earning top whack isn't going to make the public pension scheme collapse.

Not disputing the majority position. That's obvious. The several thousand figure is correct. The issue I was raising was nothing to do with the the pension funds but simply the economic reality that if significant numbers of people are given risk-free jobs with such security then will not engage in more entrepreneurial activity and hence stifle the long-term economic well-being of the country (and its ability to maintain strong public services).