That's because after the last 30 years of outsourcing anything you possibly can, all the low paid staff delivering public services now sit in the private sector.
Bin men, cleaners, catering staff, maintenance a lot of hospital porters since PFI, social car providers. It means the public sector payroll now has a higher proportion of professionals than it used to.
Our wages haven't soared over the last few decades it's cutting out the lowest paid staff and shunting them into the private sector that's upped the average.
When you compare professional groups, private sector pay is generally higher. Lawyers working in local authorities don't earn what those in practice do, same for accountants, and of course doctors. And I got a 30% bump in salary when I spent a few years in the private sector as a consultant.
And before some public sector hating twat starts banging on about our supposedly gold plated final salary pensions I have news ...... Final salary went a decade ago. It's still a good pension scheme in comparison to most private sectors company pensions, but the idea that all public sector workers are quids in on retirement doesn't stick up.
I'm really only prepared to listen to moans about pensions from people who:
- Joined a pension scheme at 20ish like I did
- Have been paying in ever since at a decent rate (11.6% of gross salary as you ask)
- Have been a union member whist in work (public sector pensions didn't get handed to us they were fought for, we've got them because we're way more unionised than the private sector)that's
People like my partner's brother that spent 20 minutes chewing my ear that he didn't know if he could ever retire because he didn't have the luxury of tax payers funding his pension, and then admitted that throughout his years of employment and self employment he'd never put aside a penny for his retirement can fuck right off.