Luke Johnson penned a great piece in the Sunday Times this weekend making the point that public sector pay rises have not been justified by any increase in productivity. For instance there are several million fewer kids in secondary schools today than there were in the 1970s. It would be hard to claim that output - in terms of skills in RR&R or other key subjects - has improved yet pay for teachers has gone through the roof.
So there are fewer kids, getting worse results and pay has gone through the roof. In the private sector if you shift fewer goods of a lower quality you go bust/lose your job or face pay cuts. And so the yawning chasm between those in safe public sector jobs who have got big pay rises but want more and those of us in the private sector grows. we might not mind the pay rises if they were merited by results. They are not.
Today's scandal concerns the Police, you know the service riddled by chronic obesity among officers who spend minimal time on the beat or solving real crimes but most of their day on diversity awareness courses or doing 90 MPH in cop cars and killing civilians. I suspect that never before has public regard for the rozzers been so low.
And that will not be helped by revelations in today's Mail that all officers above the rank of chief superintendent with more than ten years’ experience are entitled to ‘not less than 48 days’ of holiday a year – and can effectively decide how much holiday they want. So folks like Gloucestershire Police's Chief Constable Suzette Davenport, who earns more than £179,000 a year took 64 days of holiday in 2013/15 and 59 days last year. The force seems confused as to how many days Suzette was actually working but it could well be that she will have "worked" for 190 days last year and sat on her pert and well tanned arse for 175 days. Meanwhile Gloucester Old Bill had to make £290 million of cuts.
Over at the Kent boys in blue - where they arrest folks for showing a burning poppy on twitter - Chief Constable Alan Pughsley took 56 days’ holiday last year.. Ken rozzers say that he needs the holiday as he regularly works more than 50 hours a week. God almighty these folks would not last a month in the private sector. If I had a week where I worked less than 65 hours I'd regard it as a miracle.
The divide between them and us grows bigger by the day. Thirty years ago most of us respected those in the professions: senior rozzers, doctors, teachers, lawyers and lecturers. But their greed, laziness and failure to grasp how very different and difficult life is in the private sector which pays for this largesse has changed all of that. And the public sector fat cats still do not realise it. As they demand ever more money they still think we think they are saints. Au contraire.