We’ve just published a new review of the impacts that the recent downturn has had for women at work, and examining how proposed public sector cuts might have a heavy impact on working women and families.

I’ve written a post about the issue for Progress Online, which you can read over here.

   Filed under: Equality, Labour market, Public services, Public spending, Recession, unemployment | 1 Comment »

First it was Tessa Jowell. Now it’s George Osborne.

Suddenly everyone is feeling mutual - wanting to turn bits of public service into co-ops.

I am sure that there is much scope for the extension of mutuals and co-ops in society as a whole (and we should welcome today’s Conservative interest in mutuals - I seem to remember the last Conservative government as a time when the demutualisation of building societies was at its peak.)

And of course many think that Northern Rock should eventually be denationalised by transforming into a mutual.   

Naturally the air is thick today with Labour attacking Conservative plans, but I wonder if they don’t have more in common that the party political dogfight would concede. Read more »

   Filed under: Public services | 1 Comment »

There’s a very, very old joke about a man in a hot air balloon who runs out of fuel and suddenly has to ditch in the middle of a farm.  Unhurt, he brushes himself off and calls out to a passing rambler asking if he can enlighten him as to his whereabouts.  The rambler thinks for a few seconds and then replies, “you are situated on arable land characterised by cereal growth and  livestock husbandry which is itself located in the  countryside close to the south coast of England”.

Rolling his eyes, the balloonist asks if the man might not by any chance be an economist.  “I am”, says the rambler, “how on earth did you know?”.  “Simple”, replies the man, “what you have just told me is completely accurate and totally, bloody useless”. Read more »

   Filed under: Economics, Financial crisis, Monetary policy, Public services, Public spending | 5 Comments »

The IFS data - which I looked at yesterday - also has a useful table showing which sectors have seen growth in public sector staff since 1997, and by how much.

The small-state right would like us to think that these were all pen-pushers – somewhat oddly as I doubt that many people in either the private or public sector have a pen as their main workplace tool any more.

And of course efficient public services need their share of administrators and managers too. I suspect most people would prefer to get a renewed passport on time, rather than be told we’ve shut the passport service down as it was full of bureaucrats. Read more »

   Filed under: Labour market, Public services, Public spending | No Comments »

The Institute for Fiscal Studies published their Green Budget last week in which they look at the Chancellor’s options in the forthcoming budget. It is not exactly a bundle of laughs.

But they do have an extremely useful round up of trends in public sector pay. Richard has already drawn attention to their statement:

Overall, pay levels in the public sector are probably not significantly out of line with those of similar workers in the private sector, once you take into account factors such as their age, education and qualifications.” Read more »

   Filed under: Earnings, Public services, Public spending | 2 Comments »

Back when cuts mania was all the rage during the conference season of 2009, only the TUC, others on the left and serious commentators like Martin Wolf argued that cuts came with major economic consequences.  The TUC argued particularly strongly that to start measures to address the deficit when the economy was still fragile threatened a double dip recession.  These views were of course rejected by the small state right in the form of the Institute of Directors, the Taxpayers Alliance and the Conservative Party itself. Read more »

   Filed under: Politics, Public services, Public spending, Recession | 4 Comments »

Last week we highlighted that The Telegraph had included the earnings of employees in nationalised banks in its analysis of public sector pay. Although readers of the Guardian’s money pages may be a more sympathetic audience, it’s still unfortunate that the same mistake has been repeated. In his article on ‘public v private sector‘, David Brindle informs us that while private companies have cut jobs during the recession, the public sector has ‘added 290,000′.

Again, this is a result of the inclusion of the employees of nationalised banks in the public sector employment figures. Table 4(1), directly under the main public and private sector employment table in the ONS release, separates public sector employment by industry – and reveals that 196,000 of these ‘new’ jobs are in ‘financial corporations’. Read more »

   Filed under: Labour market, Public services | 1 Comment »

Regular readers will be following my occasional series looking at the differences between public and private sector pay, prompted by the regular attacks on the public sector by the small state right. Most of this has been a bit dull and geeky as I want to be more careful with the stats than our critics often are, though it has got quite lively. But what about gender? Read more »

   Filed under: Earnings, Equality, Public services | 1 Comment »

A number of right wing commentators and newspapers have been keen to highlight this morning that yesterday’s labour market statistics identified an ‘historic’ gap between public and private sector earnings.

What’s being mentioned is only half the story though. Nicola has a blog post up at Left Foot Forward, filling us in on the half that hasn’t been reported.

   Filed under: Earnings, Public services | 3 Comments »

Last Sunday I wrote a critique of a Sunday Times article about public versus private pay.  Frankly I do not expect very much from the Sunday Times. What really irritated me was the claim that its facts had been validated by Straight Statistics – an organisation whose aims I admire and whose work I have quoted in the past.

I assumed that they had probably been done over by the Sunday Times, so I was scrupulous in drawing my piece to the attention of Nigel Hawkes and inviting him to reply. Read more »

   Filed under: Earnings, Media, Public services | 3 Comments »