tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post759440791243583410..comments2024-03-28T07:14:01.343+00:00Comments on donpaskini: Waste not, want notdonpaskinihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05963534291677598324noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33451096.post-27345219082601938872008-06-09T12:28:00.000+00:002008-06-09T12:28:00.000+00:00Impose a three-year pay freeze on all public-secto...<I>Impose a three-year pay freeze on all public-sector employees earning more than £50,000 a year, tax their retirement lump sums and introduce a special pensions savings tax to make their generous pensions self-financing rather than paid for out of our taxes - about £2.5bn</I><BR/><BR/>Free-marketeers do seem to suspend their belief in market forces when talking about pay in the public sector. 50K really isn't a big pay packet in middle/senior management or professional careers. It is undoubtedly below what a competent person could earn in the private sector. I know this as a fact, having worked in both public and private sectors over the past 20 years. Attacking their pension provision, which makes the relatively poor pay a bit more acceptable, just means that he is incentivising its best senior people to leave. I do not see how that is not going to have a negative effect on the provision of service or on the efficent spending on public money. It would add extra complexity to the tax system, with special codes for public employees. It would be tied up in the courts for years as it faced legal challenge. It's just totally barking.<BR/><BR/>He is of course completely right about cancelling the ID Cards programme. But just like stopped clocks can tell the right time twice a day so nutty libertarians can occasionally be right.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com