Tuesday, 20 March 2012

IF YOU PAYS PEANUTS, GIDEON, WHAT DO YOU GET?

Has it occurred to George Osborne that if he pays civil servants more in those parts of the country where people are well off, and less in those where they are poor, he's likely to find that all the good civil servants will want to go where the money is, and the poor one (and yes, there are undoubtedly poor ones) will end up in the poverty zones?


Thought not!


This will be particularly counter productive in the departments that deal with social security. In, for example, Bath, where people are relatively well off, and there is a relatively low unemployment rate, there will be huge demand for positions in the Jobcentre. Those who are unemployed are less likely to be saddled with a string of criminal convictions and drug and alcohol issues, so the job will be easier... and the pay will be reasonable. 


But in the likes of Liverpool, no one will want to work in the Jobcentre. The pay will be low and so the least capable civil servants will end up there, just where really good people are needed to meet the real challenges of the mass of unemployed.


Still, as long as it saves money, eh George?
I chose two English areas, although clearly there is abysmal poverty in some areas of Scotland, and a fair amount of money too. But you see, by the time he gets all this stuff organised (and past the trades unions who are going to fight it tooth and nail), he won't have squat to do with our civil service!

14 comments:

  1. Actually, what you have is the unproductive public sector paying up to 8% more on average for an equivalent job in the (wealth creating) private sector in some regions. That's not sustainable and Osborne knows it.
    Leave things to the market to balance out.

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  2. QM

    Leave things to the market to balance out.

    When can i vote for them if they are so wonderful?

    The private sector does not provide wealth never has and never will in a million years. People and natural resources create wealth for all not the privileged few.

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  3. None the less QM, where the country needs the best civil servants is where it will get the dregs. Everyone will want a job in Cheltenham, Bath, South Devon, Wiltshire and the likes.

    No one is going to want to work in the dumps where the good people's ability is needed to try to do something with the almost unemployable. Now, I know, because I've done it, some of them can be found work... but only with a huge amount of effort, and a mindset that says, "if at first you don't succeed.... blah....".

    Hey ho. Hopefully that will be your problem not ours. The sooner this bunch of sociopaths (they have all the classic signs) gets their stinking, amateur, incompetent, money grubbbing hands off my country, which didn't vote for them and doesn't bloody want them, the better.

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  4. CH: We've heard about the market so often from the likes of Thatcher, Blair, Brown and this latest useless lump of over privileged candly floss.

    But the market doesn't work for everything. It doesn't work for electricity and gas; it doesn't work for trains or buses; it doesn't work for telecommunications; it won't work in the English health service and it won't work in the civil service.

    In the end the market cares about making a profit. End of narrative. Nothing else matters.

    And the trouble with letting the market in is that companies sold by the government today to small shareholders are soon bought up by the big boys who then sell it off to France or Spain or China.

    As for a market in wages... yep, that's a great way of driving wages down.

    I'm no fan of the civil service. but I've seen the kind of work that Jobcentre people have to do in a run down area like Dundee. You need the best you can get. Because the job is harder.

    Paying by the area may be OK if you're making biscuits. But not if you're trying to get ex drug addict, ex prisoners with the social graces of swamp crocodiles into work.

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  5. PSW... off topic, but what the hell...Has anyone read about Cameron bragging about Obama tucking him up in bed on board Air Force One... and how the president personally went back to his private secretary to tell him that he (the president) had put him (Camergoon) to bed.

    It's like he's saying "So beat that Frau Merkel... or President Sarkozy.

    How nauseating is that?

    Upchuck or what!

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  6. Must have taken him back to his days at boarding school!

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  7. I was listening to someone justifying this wage difference thing and it just didn't make sense.

    In rural areas civil service jobs brings wealth surely? Same with run down areas.

    I don't remember his name, he was a journo with a beard and was on telly last night too. He was basically saying, civil service jobs sook up all the good people in rural areas so in a triumph of stupidity over logic, if you lower the wages being offered for the civil service job to that being offered by the private sector job, by the magic of society by lowest common denominator, all flaws will evaporate.

    Except, there will be less money circulating in that community and lets face it, there are no jobs any where anyway so the decrease in wages will be for nought.

    It's such a stupid idea that misses the point entirely. Same with this daft 50p rate, of course they should keep it, scrapping it won't encourage people earning big bucks to come here to do business, lowering corporation tax might and the myriad of other taxes you could fiddle with to enthuse and empower budding entrepreneurs.

    They think we're all stupid. Labour mithering on about dropping VAT, they raised it thinking it would encourage people to spend. It didn't, it made no difference at all. Lowering it will also make no difference.

    They haven't got a clue, I may as well be in charge.

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  8. I'm not much liking the direction your mind is travelling there, John.

    I can't see Obama as Matron. or at least I don't want to!

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  9. Yea Pa. That's no justification at all.

    If you paid them nothing at all it would mean that business could have the choice of everybody... but it's still not a good idea.

    Anyone who would be really good in business wouldn't work for the civil service with all its lack of incentives for individualism and initiative anyway.

    I did 8 or 9 months with Jobcentre and came out with my head reeling. There was a rule for everything and a form to fill in. You were never allowed to think for yourself, and do something better. Most companies are very wary about employing ex-public servants, for obvious reasons.

    As usual they are talking rubbish.


    My granny's cat might as well be running the country... and it's dead!

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  10. Jobcentre plus (minus if you prefer) is really very poorly named, it should be called Social Services minus.

    You work in a job centre you need to be a social worker. If you are a social worker, all the legislation and guidace is about protecting your own backside, it has nothing to do with getting people jobs or improving their existence.

    I think many people go into these jobs hoping to make a difference but they end up like you, thoroughly pissed off with all the bureaucracy and form filling you have to do just to remain in place. It's not even their fault, I'm not even sure who's fault it is, should we blame a litigious society?

    The end result is nobody gains anything.

    I used to feel like a social worker when I ran the amusement arcade at Setons Sands Holiday Park (its in East Lothian.) It was always rammed with nobbers from all over the place, they'd leave there kids in the arcade with a pound and hide in the bar. Obviously the quid would last less than a New York Minute and the lovely children would spend the rest of the night at best claiming money they'd put in to machines hadn't registered or at worst, just breaking into the machines.

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  11. Yes well regional pay is a jolly good thing u says so we can expect MPs from the poorer regions being paid a lot less than those from the south east.he he


    Payment by results so when the MPs lift the wealth etc in the regions they live they can have more cash..brill idea

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  12. God, that sounds like a nightmare, Pa. These kids have to be pretty streetwise of course, otherwise they would never eat.

    Warning: Politically incorrect statement coming.

    There are, I fear, some people who would make the world a better place by refraining from reproducing, given that the father thinks his part in the affair has ended 9 months before the child is born, and the mother, very shortly after the "happy" event.

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  13. Brilliant Niko. Of course the likes of Camergoon and Osborne would still rake in the money.

    But yes. If a Lord comes from Burnley, reduce his expenses to £150 a day instead of £300.

    That would cause a bit of an old stir. but these people are, after all, public servants.

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  14. I'll call your politically incorrect statement and raise you mine: I think everybody should be rendered unable to produce children until they have proven they have the financial, spiritual and mental where-with-all to support them.

    Who gets to decide if they have the afore-mentioned qualities?

    The blogosphere does.

    ;-)

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