The IFS calculates that a typical public sector worker earns around 9% less in real terms than they did in 2010. That is sixteen years of effective pay cuts. For nurses, teachers, police officers, civil servants. For the people who stepped up during the pandemic and were repaid with below-inflation settlements for a decade.
The consequences are visible. Nursing vacancies at record levels. Teacher recruitment below target for the ninth consecutive year. Police officers leaving the force within three years of training. You cannot run public services with staff who feel the job is no longer worth it.
Commit to restoring public sector pay to 2010 real-terms levels over five years. That is roughly 2% above inflation each year, cumulatively. Fund it by reversing corporation tax cuts that delivered no investment boost, and by closing the non-dom loophole properly. The numbers work. The political will has been missing.
Someone will say we cannot afford it. We are already paying for it - in vacancy rates, agency costs, and the slow erosion of services. The cost of not doing this is higher.
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Mock the policy. Not the person. Community principles →
Some do a BLOODY GOOD JOB. Some are passengers. Nurses YES. Fourteenth deputy assistant diversity outcomes manager at the council? Absolutely not.
Nurses YES. Teachers YES. Fourteenth assistant diversity manager at the council, not so much.
The "some are coasting" framing tars all public sector workers with the same brush, which doesn't survive contact with anyone who's actually worked alongside them.