Government to reverse some Public Secor Pay cuts

barneystinson wrote: »

You said "most of them" were retirements onto generous pensions; I'm wondering how you know that?

Because What they would have contributed over the years would not have matched what they received considering how much salary rates increased the last 10 - 15 years

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

The government, who are able to understand the difference between the general pay level and individuals who accrue higher pay owing to greater experience, are are good deal sharper than those who lack the capacity to understand this difference.

Being in the job longer does not necessarily make you a better employee..infact it could be said if you guys are not progressing up the ladder then you are more than likely to get bored after a certain period and become unproductive. So there should be a removal of all increments and a proper mechanism introduced to review employees pay rises..Also there needs to be some adherence to the debt and how much borrowing that the government need aswell which should also feed into it.

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

You can suggest the design of an alternative system to increments, which would require actual work of course. But until such a system is devised there is no reason not to pay increments.

There is no evidence to suggest that anyone deserves increments in the ps until a proper system is put in. So your theory is not correct. Paying someone a payrise for length of service is not a valid performance review. So there is no reason to pay increments. The government should tell the PS and unions no more increments we are switching away from it and putting in some other performance measures..That way people on here banging on about how hard they work and not getting pay rises would be recognised and those ps workers clock watching earns no more and in fact should be under pressure to keep their job

Godge wrote: »

Read the links and you will learn what is working, why it is working, why other bits are not working, what are the alternatives and how would they work, sometimes better, but sometimes not.

a new Competency Framework, setting out the qualities and behaviours required for job performance
a revised system of ratings – Evaluation of Performance – with improved descriptions of performance levels, including competency evaluation
Ratings will be decided by Calibration review, to be introduced on a phased basis, commencing with the grades of Assistant Secretary and Principal, prior to rollout to all grades. Under Calibration, managers at the same grade who are responsible for conducting performance evaluations meet to discuss staff performance with the aim of making sure that managers apply similar standards for all staff members and eliminate bias to the greatest possible extent.
Internal review of ratings up to Head of Division level will be available
Independent External Review of ratings will be available
A rating of ‘Fully Achieved Expectations’ will be required for the award of an increment.

All of that was supposed to have been done under the benchmarking PS ATM scheme.

Status Quo Ante it is then.

Godge wrote: »

Look at the way "Employee of the week" type awards are lampooned in popular culture for an idea of how they are discredited.

Articles like these ones (behind paywall but accessible in university libraries) show how performance pay often doesn't work particularly in public service type organisations.

http://rop.sagepub.com/content/30/1/70

http://rop.sagepub.com/content/7/1/57.short

Have a read here of this one, especially the section on "Unintended effects of incentives":

http://annals.org/article.aspx?articleid=727450&issueno=4&atab=10


Even in an academic article such as this one which supports performance pay in the public sector has the following:

http://www.mfa.gov.tr/making-performance-pay-more-successful-in-public-sector.tr.mfa

"It must be understood from the start that instituting a successful pay-for-performance scheme in the public sector is not inexpensive or easy to achieve. A good amount of time and money, for training as well as for incentive pay, must be allocated."

Essentially, performance pay won't save you any money in pay but it might get you a better service if implemented properly.


As for the private sector, look at this:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/519/519.pdf

"it is clear that bonus-driven remuneration structures prevalent in the City of London as well as in other financial centres, especially in investment banking, led to reckless and excessive risk-taking"


This one is a really good study on why performance pay fails in the public sector:

http://sites.duke.edu/niou/files/2011/05/Perry-Engbers-and-Jun-Back-to-the-Future.pdf

Jesus Godge, using the folly of banker peformance bonus culture to try and justify your positon of the status-quo with regards the PMDS and other employee evaluation systems within the wider Public Service is really sensationalist bull*****.

Godge wrote: »

http://hr.per.gov.ie/pmds-2013/


Have a look here lads for the information you need on pmds. There is also plenty of research on pay, grading and pmds if you look around. The article below is a particularly interesting one as it outlines the problems with both types of pay determination. Ultimately, there is no perfect system.


http://www.cpmr.gov.ie/Documents/A%20Review%20of%20Civil%20Service%20Grading%20and%20Pay%20Scales.pdf

Informed opinions are always worth hearing.

Godge when 99% of people get an increment there is something wrong. There may be no perfect system but give a pay rise for length of service is robbing the tax payer pure and simple

Godge wrote: »

You obviously read the material carefully:rolleyes:

Before you go making statements like that, read the stuff and counter with an intelligent critique.

Godge wrote: »

As for the private sector, look at this:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmtreasy/519/519.pdf

"it is clear that bonus-driven remuneration structures prevalent in the City of London as well as in other financial centres, especially in investment banking, led to reckless and excessive risk-taking"

Once more your comparisons are incredibly misleading and forced.

Vizzy wrote: »

They don't !! Simples.

I have not gotten any increment since Sept 2008.- Nothing !!

Even if you were to take people who were approaching the maximum of their grade in 2007 or 2008, they would no longer be getting increments.

99% of workers eligable if they pass an evaluation then.

Genuine question: what country's PS pay model do the PS bashers think we should be following? Can Fliball or Noodler or any of the others who are galled by our incremental pay scales, point at some country or countries whose lead we should be following?

Godge wrote: »

Once again public service critics use out-of-date data. If you are so au fait with government reports, maybe you could provide us with a more up-to-date report than 2012

Well seeing as there is no end of year figures for 2014 that leaves "1" whole year missing and you are going to try to use that as an excuse to ignore everything else in the post. That sounds about right

Godge wrote: »

Thank you for this information, whether you are reading it properly or not, it clearly proides that public service numbers and pay have been reduced consideraly. What is your problem with this?

I notice you just mention pay when my post clearly mentions Pay and Pensions. Pension costs have doubled in 6 years and they are going to keep increasing so how about you take your head out of the sand and stop trying to avoid the truth, you really do swallow everything the govt tells you to

Godge wrote: »

A contract can be improved through acts of legislation e.g. improving the minimum wage. That is well established.

A contract cannot be disimproved through acts of legislation except in the case of a temporary financial emergency. This is not fully tested by Irish law but the unions haven't challenged it.

What are you on about? I'll ask you again can you provide us with the exact legislation that states this temporary financial emergency tripe will take precedence over the legislation that states the govt can change employment contracts as they do and have done at budget time.

ardmacha wrote: »

We are not talking about increments, but about pay rises.

In the bust the government imposed temporary measures on one group of people, the PS, to a much greater extent than other citizens. If the finances have improved then the proper thing to do is to sort this out first, both on practical and moral grounds, although I suspect the latter are of little interest to many here.

Here ye go again pretending that it was only ye that suffered, eveybody paid more PAYE, USC, Pension (if they had one) etc and they could all be classed as temporary as they may be reduced if things improve. But no, here we have the PS entitlement culture bleating again

Geuze wrote: »

The third cut was the HRA in 2013.

Peter Flynt wrote: »

In both the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements there are basically fourth and fifth cuts as both agreements have demands for unpaid work for the public servant that were not there prior to these "agreements"

Could the two of ye tell us what actual financial cuts were imposed on your payslips/salary scale as per these agreements, I won't hold my breadth as I know I won't be getting an answer.

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

The government, who are able to understand the difference between the general pay level and individuals who accrue higher pay owing to greater experience, are are good deal sharper than those who lack the capacity to understand this difference.

If people are always getting more experience the longer they work why then are there limits to salary scales within the PS, surely they should keep getting increases as they keep learning. What happens when you hit your limit in your role, according to you staff are always gaining experience but the fact the govt stops increments at a certain level kinda contradicts what you are saying.

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

You can suggest the design of an alternative system to increments, which would require actual work of course. But until such a system is devised there is no reason not to pay increments.

Really, how about the fact that the govt was broke for starters. Maybe that evaded your reality

garancafan wrote: »

There are two ways to view increments: the jaundiced view that they are payrises and the rational view that they are steps on the road to the rate for the job.

What is this rate for the job crap that gets parroted on here so often. When a person starts as a clerical officer they get the going rate for a clerical officer who is in their first year, they are not working towards their rate of €35k or whatever, what they get is their rate. As they get increments that is "their" rate for that particular role based on their "so called" experience gained. Although we know that basically everyone always got an increment so this claim of gaining of experience as a justification is a joke

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

Do you accept that the total of pay and pensions has declined? Yes or no.

Dropped is a very loose term, if it has dropped €5 then yes you are correct, it's all about how much it has dropped in relation to overall govt finances and is the drop seen to be an realistic "tightening of the belt".

Govt estimates expected 146,000 PS pensioners at the end of 2013 which is a large jump from the 86,000 that there were in 2007. Net Pay and pensions has dropped 2.1 Billion since 2008 which is not a lot considering that it increased 37.5% from 2001-2006 and this percentage is for existing positions in the PS not new starters

So yes it has dropped, do I and others think it has dropped enough? No

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

Do you accept that the aggregate PS had bigger pay cuts and the aggregate private sector. One again yes or no and please don't distract with sorry tales of individuals, I refer to the average figure. Do you accept that the PS also pay USC, property charge and whatever?

That's because "YOUR" employer was in the sh1t and couldn't afford to pay it's bills. Your employer made the choices it did in relation to salaries and in the Private sector companies made their choices on how to deal with the situation, there's more than way to deal with financial issues and if you don't like the way that your employer has dealt with it then leave

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

I'm sure the posters will not respond to your question which is against the charter as it is an attempt to identify them. Once again do you accept that most in the PS have had reductions their pay of 15%+. Yes or No without whataboutery, please.

Where did I say I want to identify them, I asked them to show me the agreement/legislation that caused their salary to be reduced. This proof is there in the budget documentation so if they are speaking the truth they should be able to prove it

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

It doesn't contradict what I said in the minds of reasonable people.

PS workers expect increments regardless of performance does not equate to all reasonable people. Maybe you should change that to people that agree with your stupid viewpoint

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

The govt is not especially broke, every politician is musing about tax cuts.

Really, so €215 Billion is not classed as being especially broke

Government Finance Statistics Quarterly Results Q1 2014

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

Do you ever read what you post?

Yes I do, it's not my fault if you can't understand