Have Public Sector cuts now gone to far?

Faust

Regarding the NHS.  There is so much smoke and mirrors taking place regarding budgets that even the architect for NHS reform Simon Stevens has fallen out with his masters (the government) over what amounts of money are actually being put in.

Quite a bit of the money is promised for future years whilst other monies announced has simply been recycled from other areas of the NHS.

The fact remains whatever the government claims they are doing, many of our services are at breaking point and have become dysfunctional.

The question is - what is going to be done about putting these services on a proper footing.  It's already been announced that many departments have been told to make yet further savings up to 2020.  All the low hanging fruit has already been taken and we're now cutting into the bone of the services themselves.

Faust

The government aren't about to upset those they rely on day to day though are they.

domtheone

Nope.  Even the so called nasty Tories are too soft on PS pay (and welfare/pensions etc etc).  

Much preferring to pay for things on the never never.

Hard to see things getting any better for the youth of today.

Can't afford a house.  Work till 70 .

Faust

I accept what you say about the young.  However, a far more pressing issue is the current crisis with social care for the elderly.  People are literally dying through lack of care.

The working until 70  issue has far more to do with the fact we are all living longer with a decent proportion of the population expected to live to 100  years.  If we had kept the retirement age at 65 that would mean many people would be drawing a pension for almost as long as they had been working.  Clearly unaffordable.

When the retirement age was set at 65 life expectancy after the war was around 5 to 7 years following retirement.  You don't need to be a mathematician to see the problem.

On housing the simple fact is that successive governments haven't built enough houses and social housing has almost dried up.  There are hundreds of thousands of acres of brown field sites that are crying out for redevelopment, but the large house builders would prefer to keep taking chunks out of the green belt.

Rasczak

Are either of these really so bad? We have got ourselves in a situation where everyone simply expects to buy - or rather gets the bank to buy it for them - but traditionally renting was the way forward for those on lesser incomes.

nheather

Okay, so just double checking here.

If those employees were to show me their payslips from now and from 2010, the salary before any deductions, or additions would be identical to the penny.

I remain to be convinced.

The reason is that I have seen too much 'crying wolf' over the years.

I'm not stupid, I know that a public sector worker's salary increases in two ways, an increment due to progression up the ladder, and an increment to cover inflation.

I do appreciate that a worker can ge to the top of an ladder and is unable or doesn't want o bepromoted to the net ladder - in which case their increments stop - but these ladders have lots of rungs so it does take a good few years to get to that point.

But so many times I have heard that there is a pay freeze when actually most people are still getting a progression related salary increase.

And I have also heard "in real terms the salary is frozen" which really means that the salary is increasing but only in line with inflation.

So if someone wants to show me 2010 and 2017 payslips with identical salaries I will stand corrected but I will be very surprised if anyone can.

Cheers,

Nigel

nheather

If you read I did admit that there were problems - the point I was making that it was not for the want of pumping in money.  Your analogy doesn't quite work, because the money being pumped into the NHS is outstripping inflation by a long way.  But I do understand what you mean.  The problem is that the increasing costs are becoming unsustainable - unless something drastic happens it needs more money but we are already pumping money in at ever increasing rates an it simply can't keeping increasing indefinitely.  Throwing more money at it is not the answer.

Cheers,

Nigel

Toko Black

I agree it is unsustainable at the current rate of investment and the way it is managed - but we are not 'pumping in' enough money, the government has reduced the amount it increases the NHS budget by for the last 6 or 7yrs.

Going of the data in that report:
- from 1955 - 1978 the avg yearly increase in NHS budget = 4.2%
- from 1979 - 1996 the avg yearly increase in NHS budget = 3.2%
- from 1997 - 2009 the avg yearly increase in NHS budget = 5.9%
- from 2010 - now the avg yearly increase in NHS budget = 1.1%

Faust

I can assure you that what I write is correct as I have had direct involvement regarding pay and conditions with those organisations I refer to.  Other than that I cannot reveal further details for obvious issues of privacy and security.

Many workers who have been either at the bottom or mid-span are entitled to pay progression increments but the departments  have not been allowed to honour those commitments. Some new members of staff i.e. at the bottom of the pile did receive a whopping 1% pay award last year whilst for many they got nothing.

In 2013 in recognition of the fact that staff had not receive any increase in pay for a number of years got a one off non-consolidated £250 payment.

Do you not listen to the Chancellors budget statements?  George Osbourne said for year after year that the public sector pay freeze would have to continue.  The latest one is supposed to last until 2019.

Instead of believing what you read in the newspaper or in the media generally a little digging will get you to the real story.

Faust

The real story here is that the government despite what they would have us believe have slashed social care budgets since 2010.  This means local authorities do not have the money to carry out their obligations e.g. home care packages etc.  

This has led to a massive problem with bed blocking and has pushed the NHS to breaking point.

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