The cost of power with no liability
Thursday 23rd April 2009, 2:23PM BST.
ONE of the persistent criticisms of the way the States negotiates with its employees via the Public Sector Remuneration Committee is that PSRC members have all the power but no responsibility.
In other words, whatever settlement it brokers, its politicians and officers simply walk away from the consequences.
With the island’s cost of living figure entering negative territory for the first time since records began in 1965, the evidence supporting the criticism is clear to see.
When the PSRC was negotiating with civil service representatives about this year’s pay rise, it heard them say that they recognised the need for restraint. Yet the deal that was finally concluded means that those same people weeping crocodile tears of restraint will actually trouser an increase in real terms of 4.2%.
At a time when some other islanders are getting no rise or possibly facing pay cuts or even redundancy, that is an affront.
Worse, the committee does not care that its actions will cost the taxpayer literally millions. No attempt will be made to renegotiate the settlement, no effort will be made to hold the employee side to its claim – clearly false – that it understood the need for restraint.
There is something bordering on the repugnant about that.
It will not have escaped islanders that elements of the public sector will be getting an extremely generous rise from a government running a structural deficit and one that has already warned taxpayers that it is coming after them for an additional £52m. in new taxation.
All deals are open to renegotiation and PSRC has a duty to taxpayers to make the effort – if only to let everyone know what response they receive from the very civil servants who claim to support the need for cutting back.
It won’t, of course, because while it has the negotiating power, it does not have to find the money to pay for the increases or cut departmental services to make savings.
The staff side could offer to renegotiate, but hasn’t because, well, it’s only the taxpayer.
Today, islanders have all the proof they need that when it comes to squandering their money, the States is in a class of its own.
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I’m sure the Press will give as much space, each and every day, over this issue as it did to the clinical Block contract.
After all the cost to the taxpayer will be much more than Fallagate and unlike Fallagate will not be a one off.
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Come off it Mr Editor
Do you believe your own staff would volunteer to re-negotiate in the same circumstances or would you risk a mutiny by demanding a re-negotiation ?
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Again the Press is grinding its axe. This is peanuts compared to the millions lost through appeasing the rich and the foreign multinationals. In what sane world does a bank pay 0% on profits referred from abroad?
It is quite clear that the Press has an unnatural bias towards certain leading politicians and to the salespeople of the finance industry.
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Thank goodness the Press does say what the majority of us are thinking. It provides the only ‘opposition’ to this ridiculous group of deputies. We are quite right to question the right of the States to squander our money. To those who criticise the private sector and the wealthy in the island, remember who supplies the money to pay the Civil servants.
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