civil service

As weak signals go, recent press about the differential conditions in the public and private sectors is as good as they get. People in the private sector see their conditions worsen year on year, with pensions being hit hard over the last few years, and now the threat of widespread redundancies in every sector, bonuses slashed and real terms pay cuts. In stark constrast, the public sector has grown enormously, and with the populations in some consituencies heavily dependent on public sector jobs, government has treated them very well to maintain popularity. Doctors and nurses have seen their salaries increase enormously, as have many other roles, and many new nonsense jobs have been created to indulge political correctness of all flavours, especially in local government. People in the civil service receive an average of 4% more pay than their equivalents in the private sector, but that is on top of far better pension provision, far greater job security, far less stress,lower workloads, more tolerance of sick leave, early retirement, and virtually guaranteed career progression.

Such disparity of terms and conditioons between public and private sectors is clearly not sustainable. Government has realised this for years, and has made some feeble efforts to confront the situation, only to immediately retreat in the face of possible industrial action by civil servants wanting to keep their privileges. 

The next year will see the showdown. Oridinary people struggling hard in the face of recession will not tolerate their public service counterparts carrying on as if nothing has happened. The nature of the confrontation remains to be seen. Government might take on the unions and force through changes, but they are unlikely to do so voluntarily, so people are likely to take to the streets and demonstrate, along with media campaigns, until government is forced to act. But some sort of action to fix the disparity is inevitable, and it is hard to believe that it won't begin next year.