Timster

And bear in mind that whilst most public sector workers will get a pension based on their final salary, they are likely to have a lower final salary than if they were working in the private sector. And if you are on a higher salary whilst you are working you can afford to stuff a lot more away into your pension. Also, certainly in the NHS, the pensions are contributory and based on the number of years you contribute. Bear in mind that a lot of NHS workers are women who will have taken time off to have children and may have to work part-time for a number of years, and the pension payout is unlikely to be a fortune. The pensions are a good selling point for working in the NHS or other parts of the public sector - but they're not quite the golden riches that they're sometimes made out to be. I'm not sure I understand Hugeunot's point otherwise - I think the main frustration for workers in the NHS whom I know isn't the salaries but management issues, under-staffing and general abuse from the public (some of whom think they can all retire when they're 50 on whopping pensions). The lack of potential for career development can stem from a lack of funding for the more senior or other roles. And how exactly would a bonus scheme for hospital porters work?

But you can understand why anyone who works for the NHS would feel the '50% higher rate of sickies' comment was directed at them and their colleagues? People will rightly jump to the defence of something or someone they hold in high regard when they feel it is being misrepresented or unjustly attacked. But I think what really rankled was that you misrepresented the substance (if not the tone) of the Times article. The only basis you had for thinking there were more people in the NHS skiving was your own experience - which, to be fair, you've conceded may not be representative of the whole institution. There was nothing in the Times, or the report it quotes, to suggest that dishonest absenteeism was the reason for the higher average number of sick days in the NHS. Which is pretty much where I'm coming from - the whole debate was started from the false premise that dishonest absenteeism is more of a problem in the NHS than it is in the private sector and that the reason for this is that the NHS is in the public sector. The discrepancy in levels of absenteeism (honest and dishonest) between the NHS and the private sector is probably far less marked than the statistics used by the report suggest. And to the extent there is a variation, it can be objectively explained by a number of factors (the nature of the work, length and time of shifts, inability to work from home etc) which would apply equally in the private sector. You wouldn't query why a scaffolding contractor had so many people off work with back problems. There was a sense of the NHS being targeted because it is in the public sector.

I think, to be fair to MrBen, he has come close to conceding that his original post was poorly worded and so the response it had was to be expected. However, I am not certain I have witnessed an actual apology for his characterising people who work for the NHS as 'skivers' who take more 'sickies' than the rest of us (even if he was only using that language to provoke a debate). I agree that there is a place for posing provocative questions, but that must fall short of using language that is deliberately inaccurate and misleading in its denigration of the 1.5m people who work for the NHS. There is a place for that sort of behaviour - it's the Daily Express.

No that wasn't the point. At the risk of repeating myself, if you compare the average number of sick days in the private and public sectors you will get a much wider variation between the two figures than if you compared the median number of days taken off by those two groups of workers. For example, take two groups of 20 workers. In the first group, they all take 2 days off a year except for one who is off for 6 months. In the second group, they all take 2 days off a year except one who is off for 3 months. The average days off are 9.1 and 5 respectively. The median figure for both is 2. If all you had to rely on was the average figures then you would assume that there was a huge difference between the amount of time off taken by a typical worker from each group - which, in fact, isn't the case. That exaggerated variation which is caused by using averages is skewed further against the NHS because it has a much higher proportion of what are effectively manual workers compared with the private sector as a whole. Inevitably, people in a manual role are more likely to have accidents and be off for longer periods. It would be the same if you compared private sector factory workers with private sector office workers. Add into the mix the sort of stress levels that many NHS staff experience (which may be replicated in some parts of the private sector but are certainly not the norm in the private sector) and the figures are always going to come out higher for the NHS. Having said all that, the point of the post was to demonstrate that the language used by the press, and the use of average statistics in the report, all served to exaggerate what is, in all likelihood, a relatively modest variation between the number off days of sick taken by a typical private sector worker compared to a typical NHS worker. If you told me you had taken 5 days off work last year when I had only taken 3, I wouldn't assume you were a skiver or had a work attendance issue. It's likely to be pretty much the same difference between a typical nurse and a typical lawyer. Apologies if the maths is too patronising....

I know I'm arriving late in the day but I have read through a lot (if not quite all) of these posts and it is clear that people who work in the public sector are rightly protective of their reputation. The NHS (along with the BBC) is an easy target for alarmist newspaper headlines. Like the BBC it is an institution which should be the envy of the world. It would be nice if we all took a bit more pride in it. But that is not the point of this post. If you look at the original article in the Times, it throws around numbers like 45,000 workers a day off sick and 10.3 million working days lost a year. These figures are meaningless out of context. The NHS employs 1.5m people in the UK. 45,000 off work a day is equivalent to 3% of the workforce. On the article's own figures, this compares with 2% of the workforce in the private sector. In other words, a more meaningful, but less shocking headline would be: "3% of NHS workers off sick every day compared to 2% of workers in the private sector". Not very attention grabbing is it. Actually, the Telegraph makes up its own maths on this, stating "1.4 million workers in the NHS, 4.5 per cent or 45,000 call in sick per day." Well, in my day 45,000 equalled 3.2% of 1.4 million. If the numbers don't sound shocking enough, just make them up! The figures for numbers of days off are averages which means they are necessarily skewed by long-term absences. 10.7 or 6.4 sounds like quite a lot of sick days for an average person to take every year and that's because, in both the private and public sector, it will be far more sick days than are taken by the typical employee. The median figures (that is, if I am in a team of 8 and one of us is off for 3 months and the rest of us take 2 days sick a year, the average days off a year will be 9.5 whilst the median will be 2) will be lower and much closer together. So, in reality, the typical NHS employee maybe takes 2 more days off sick a year than the typical worker in the private sector. Given all the factors raised in the posts above that mitigate against NHS workers being particularly healthy specimens, this seems positively modest. Also, half of NHS absences are down to muscular/skeletal (i.e. bad backs) type injuries, which will always require more than one or two days off. More importantly, you can work at a desk with a bad back, but not if your job involves lifting patients, saving lives etc. So there are bound to be more long-term absences skewing the figures for the NHS. Anyway, I have to get out from behind my desk-jockey job (in the private sector) now. Hope this adds something to the debate.

I've just seen this and I hope I'm not repeating stuff but it made me quite angry. What on earth is disrespectful about Sean arguing against all religions?? (If that is what he is doing). If I was a Tory and a Labour supporter argued against all Tories and their policies I would not regard that as disrespectful. It's what happens in a free society where free speech and debate should be encouraged. Religious views should not have any special status. And atheism is not a religion - it is precisely the opposite. I don't believe in God in just the same way I don't believe in Father Christmas or goblins. It is the absence of a belief. The reason, I suspect, so many (though not all) people of a religious persuasion have trouble grasping this is because they don't realise that to a non-believer the concept of a divine being that hears your prayers is no more or less beleivable than Father Christmas. In short, the reason so many atheists become so intolerant of religion is because its practitioners are constantly asking for special status and immunity from being questioned or, indeed, ridiculed which cannot be justified just because their views are derived from a religious text. I am happy for people to practise whatever religion they like as long as it does not affect me and I am allowed to demonstrate a healthy disrespect for it. Apologies if I've repeated other stuff or misrepresented anyone. You should never discuss religion or politics! (At least that's what a racist (and co-incidentally hardcore happy clappy christian) colleague said to me once....)

David, you should be grateful you don't have that option - you will only get fined ?20 at the other end (whether you are an honest commuter in a hurry or not) - I know from bitter experience before the barriers were installed. The ?20 fine is for travelling without a ticket - in theory, if you are suspected of fare dodging then they will take you to Court. Of course, this would apply to all those people who slip through the ticket machines at London Bridge without a ticket (often aggressively pushing through the person in front of them). I have never seen any staff at London Bridge ever do anything about this (not sure if this is within your remit Barry?). On the subject of tickets / Oyster cards, it would be helpful for those of us with Oyster cards (and who get to the station not realising it has run out..) if there was a sign up at Peckham Rye with details of any local shops that have Oyster top-up facilities etc. I did ask a member of staff last week who tried to be helpful but only knew of one shop round the corner which was shut.

it's my era and I know what grebo music is! is this one the wonder stuff? don't let me down gently?

Thanks. That explains the buses. It does seem odd that there was a problem with ice on the rails this morning - it's not exactly mid-winter conditions out there. I'm feeling less grumpy now though.

Does anyone know why there was such chaos on the trains and buses this morning? No 12 or 197 buses going toward Peckham. Southern and SouthEastern trains severely delayed due to "adverse weather conditions" - what is adverse about a bright sunny March morning? I'm just grumpy because I got up half an hour early and ended up in the office half an hour late.

yessir

okay, from the same era - as is obvious from the geo-political references.. Holidays are dirt-cheap in the Costa del Malvinas In the Hotel Argentina they can hardly tell between us For Teresa is a waitress though she's now known as Juanita In a tango bar in Stanley or in Puerto Margarita

Boy in the Bubble?

Paul Simon - and I think Graceland, at least off that album. I'm new to this - I did think I had to own a Mott the Hoople album to join in.

Tube running from Brixton, not too far to walk from ED and lots of photo opportunities down Coldharbour Lane (which is improved greatly by a blanket of snow).

If this is happening next month, is it not a bit late to do anything about it? Sorry to be negative, but I wonder what the intention is to achieve if Southern have already made the decision to cut trains to London Bridge (presumably a decision that took no account of what their passengers thought about it). Having said that, I would have come along if I was able to finish work earlier.

Apologies for any unintended slight of British Transport Police or the excellent job I am sure they do, the point was you only ever see them at Peckham Rye station when Southern want them there to do spot-checks on whether people have a valid ticket.

It was just a bunch of teenage girls shouting at each other. I was tempted to tell them all to shut up because it was making my head hurt, but life is too short. The comment about how nice it is when the police are at Peckham Rye was, I thought, quite quaint. It is only ever the British Transport Police and their only job is to look after the ticket inspectors when they're on one of their random spot checks (our taxes pay for this because Southern are too tight to pay for oyster readers or properly manned stations). I have never in three years using Peckham Rye seen an actual Met police officer at the station or round the area, which must prove that the biggest crime problem Peckham Rye has is fare dodging! (all off topic I know...)

Most trees are on a two or three year rotation to get pruned, but there is a department at the council with specific responsibility for this sort of thing who will speed it up if you contact them. (I'll PM you the e-mail address of one of the individuals there tomorrow when I'm back in the office.) I had a similar 12 month battle with the council to get a tree removed but I did at least win in the end.

I have had quite a lot of dealings with the local council when it comes to trees being cut down. They only allow it to happen if they are left with absolutely no choice, and it is usually nothing to do with the health of the tree but that it is causing subsidence to a property close by.