Contracting Out

[drplokta]

Looks like any remaining in-house cleaning contracts in the Civil Service and NHS are getting contracted out, pronto. David Cameron plans to pay managers more if they can get all of their low-paid staff off their organisation's payroll and onto someone else's.

Comments

[incy.livejournal.com]

While it makes a good headline I am not sure how much of a big deal it is:
The minimum wage is 5.80 an hour multiple that by 20 and you 116.00 hour, on a 40 hour week/52 week a year you get 241,280. Of course if they find limited by that amount of money or they do is offer there services on a contractor/consultant basis.

In fact IIRC the Tories said any public servant being paid more then the PM would have to be signed off by the Chancellor.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

I can't parse this comment. Any contractor would also have to pay at least minimum wage, unless that is abolished as a separate policy measures.

[incy.livejournal.com]

say for example the chief exec of an NHS trust works on a contractor basis, he would no longer be an employee of the NHS trust but of a private company and thus outside the NHS. Even then he is likely to be the only employee of his own company so would not have the problem (plus escaping playing a load of tax at the time). Since the trust is paying a company for services it is no longer bound by the rules either.

[evil-mogwai.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Not only that the costs of cleaning may actually rise as service fees and taxes are placed on the bill. Yes, the trust may be able to claim the taxes back (which they can do as long as it is still acceptable - government VAT reclaim rules are ridiculously complicated.) but its still money moving round for no reason when they could simply employ staff on Minimum wage instead.