Number of Sheffield Council employees on at least £50k

[Planner1 438]

I said basic salary, not total salary. Anyone who is worth over £50K a year should be perfectly capable of justifying it by performance against a target. As I've said, I'm not against high salaries in the public sector for people who deliver outstanding results, however high basic salaries and big payoffs for failure are a different matter.

What you are overlooking is that in the private sector, someone gets given a job to do and gets on with it. It is therefore generally not too difficult to objectively assess performance.

 

In the public sector there are many dependencies and externalities which have a major influence on people's "targets".

 

For example, I might be well capable of improving the income from a particular activity by whatever percentage, but, if the politicians responsible for that area of work decide they don't like some of the things I want to do, I can't take them forward, so that will badly affect my projections.

 

If there is an election, the whole political complexion of the Council can change and the thrust of their new policies might adversely affect my income figures.

 

National Government fund much of Local Government activity, changes in the way they allocate funding can have a major effect on how much money I get to carry out my work.

 

Private sector can mostly change their prices as they choose, some of mine are set by legislation or controlled by legal orders, changes to which are subject to potentially lengthy public challenge.

 

Many of my projects are delivered on a county-wide or city region basis. Performance can be dependant on a wide range of partners who all have their own agendas, politics, issues and levels of buy-in, all of which can change overnight.

 

How is anyone then supposed to accurately assess my performance?

 

In many private sector organisations, salary and benefits levels are set by individual negotiation with your manager. That is not possible in public service.

 

They tried performance related pay for senior officers a few years ago and eventually scrapped it as it didn't seem to work well.

[andygardener 10]

So you're arguing for the status quo?

No, i'm suggesting that public sector pay above a certain level, say 30k be conditional on performance.

[JFKvsNixon 11]

No, i'm suggesting that public sector pay above a certain level, say 30k be conditional on performance.

 

Why just pick on public sector pay over £30K? Especially so when you consider that it is very difficult to compare like with like performance in the public sector.

[wednesday1 10]

£50k is an obscene basic salary for anyone, let alone a public paid person. If someone in the public sector is generating revenue worth millions then pay them accordingly on bonus, if not then don't. There are a lot of targets in the public sector, let's start paying/fining managers based on those rather than rewarding failure.

 

 

I bet some of the unskilled / uneducated gardeners around S10/S11 earn not far below this figure, why shouldn't people who have the intelligence, inclination and detemination to get themselves educated be able earn £50k for undertaking a job which carries responisbilities?

[Mister M 1,625]

It's a very good school.

 

Have you been there?

[Planner1 438]

No, i'm suggesting that public sector pay above a certain level, say 30k be conditional on performance.

 

There are already facilities in place for performance management. People are assessed annually and given targets.

 

I'd say that the clear aim is to only allow those who perform to progress up the increments. However, seeing as there has been a freeze on incremental progression for the past few years which is looking like it will continue, that isn't exactly a carrot you can currently dangle in front of staff.

[the_bloke 17]

I don't actually care if someone at SCC earns over £50k, much in the same way I don't care that my MD earns over £250k.

 

However, I know what my MD does to earn that money; as a share holder I can see our company performance figures, share price, new lines of business etc and am confident that he is doing a good job.

 

My own personal chagrin with anything that goes on within SCC is the perceived lack of transparency and accountability. It probably isn't the case, but it comes across as such to Joe Public. Far too many tales of what sound like unjustified waste and amazing errors that only come to light after Freedom of Information requests, in conjunction with an announcement of 'reviewing our procedures' rather than 'the employee is no longer in their post'.

 

The lack of transparency leads us to the 'non jobs' issue - jobs that those of us in the private sector look at being advertised and scratch our heads. The press is fond of highlighting those. I'm sure they are needed but sometimes it seems very hard to justify their existence and salary when front line services are being slashed.

 

My wife works for the Council in Social Care; the latest round of redundancies and job cuts are difficult to swallow when you read that the council spent more money on sending out letters to people telling them of changes (£400k) than it would cost to keep the unit she works in running for the next three years.

[jake 10]

My own personal chagrin with anything that goes on within SCC is the perceived lack of transparency and accountability.

 

Maybe they could elect people from the local community to decide priorities and how the council could be run?

 

:/

[the_bloke 17]

Maybe they could elect people from the local community to decide priorities and how the council could be run?

 

:/

 

Haha! It doesn't matter who we elect at the local elections, it doesn't stop the day to day inefficiency and wastage at SCC as councillors have no control or involvement in the day to day workings of the behemoth.

 

They are just the tip of the iceberg, trying to paddle it in the direction that suits their own political agenda.

[jake 10]

Haha! It doesn't matter who we elect at the local elections, it doesn't stop the day to day inefficiency and wastage at SCC as councillors have no control or involvement in the day to day workings of the behemoth.

 

They are just the tip of the iceberg, trying to paddle it in the direction that suits their own political agenda.

 

Why don't you stand for election? We live in a democracy. If you wanted to stand for election on ideas you believe in - you're not going to get led off & tortured like in many countries. So why not take advantage of it?

Edited January 6, 2013 by jake

[andygardener 10]

There are already facilities in place for performance management. People are assessed annually and given targets.

 

I'd say that the clear aim is to only allow those who perform to progress up the increments. However, seeing as there has been a freeze on incremental progression for the past few years which is looking like it will continue, that isn't exactly a carrot you can currently dangle in front of staff.

 

That's a good illustration of why change is needed.

 

Take 2 managers on the same pay grade of say £50K PA, one is hardworking, inspires their staff, communicates well with their managers, always hits their targets even if it means working late to get the job done and constantly coming up with ways to eliminate waste and improve efficiency. The other is surley, lazy, hated by their staff, comes in late and finishes early, misses all their targets and is always looking for ways to explain why things can't be done and it's not their fault.

 

Under the current system the best the good manager can hope for is a pay rise of less than £20 a week, which as you point out probably won't happen due to budget cuts. Other than that he gets the same as the useless manager. What sort of message does that send? However if instead of paying them £50K, we pay them £25K with up to £25K in bonuses if they do a good job the useless manager would have a lot more incentive to buck their ideas up and the good manager would be properly rewarded for doing a good job. Some of the savings from unpaid bonuses could be held back as an additional bonus fund to reward service over and above so it could be possible for the really good manager to earn over the original £50K.

 

The targets and assessments are as you point out already in place, they are just meaninless at the moment as they are not linked to pay.

[the_bloke 17]

Why don't you stand for election? We live in a democracy. If you wanted to stand for election on ideas you believe in - you're not going to get led off & tortured like in many countries. So why not take advantage of it?

 

Because I'm not a member of the Labour party; and therefore would just be a waste of my time by standing for election?