car said:Conduct your own benchmarking. Ring 10 departments at random at 4:30pm on a friday afternoon and see how many calls are answered.
Report of the Public Service Benchmarking Body
It covers all the major groups in the public service (apart from top posts which are dealt with by the Review Body on Higher Remuneration in the Public Sector), including administrative/clerical grades, the Gardai, teachers, nurses, other health professionals and the Defence forces. The pay of approximately 230,000 public servants will be affected by the Report.
The public service is a sub-set of the total public sector. It does not include the commercial semi-state bodies such as the ESB, who act like other commercial companies and whose Payroll is not funded by the Government.
There are significant differences between the culture and employment characteristics of the public service and private sector. These include pay determination systems, non-pay benefits, career structures and pay progression. In comparing the public service and private sector, a number of other differences are apparent e.g.
• Public Service as Employer: The public service is the largest employer in the country employing around 235,000 people, approximately 20% of the working population.
• Levels of Educational Attainment: A substantially higher proportion of public service employees hold a third level qualification as compared with private sector employees.
• Occupational Profile: A higher proportion of public servants are employed in professional, associated professional or technical occupations than is the case in the private sector.
• Age Structure: Two-thirds of public servants are aged over 35 compared with less than half of those employed in the private sector.
And that is what it really comes down to, the market will effectively reduce private sector wages if/when there is an economic downturn. The same will not happen in the public sector. Even if it were glaringly obvious that it was in the national interest the public sector unions would stop it from happening. So as the economy contracts the public sector wage bill becomes a bigger and bigger proportion of the governments budget spend and pulls the economy down further. I don’t think this scenario is very far away either.The whole area of financing the public sector wage and pension bill will be a huge issue in years to come, particularly in an economic downturn. Interesting times ahead I think
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