Civil Service Year End Bonus.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am concerned and hugely disappointed because :

1. there are people in the CS who are not aware who their paymasters are. For those in the CS who are still ignorant, please refer to the IRAS website for the explanation on where government revenue come from and where tax payers money go to.

2. They take their comfortable pay for granted and spend their working time on unproductive work like boasting and whining on public forums.

3. By their lackadaisical attitude they do a great disservice to the CS and PS and their hard working colleagues and tax payers.

It is because of these devil-may-care staff that our Ministers are frequently put in a spot to answer for instances of mispending public monies.

lol. you really sound like some jobless monkey who is really pissed at either his low-income job or the fact that he cant get into civil service.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

If you guys are really Civil / Public servants, I suggest you find out from your bosses where your pay is coming from before you disgrace the CS. If he is clueless, the whole department can close down.

Taxes are collected in many forms: Individual income, businesses, ERP, COE, GST, Maid and foreign workers Levy, stamp duties and many others.

Governments get their revenues from the above taxes, borrowing (government bonds) and from investment returns to fund their operations including paying the civil servants.

Why do you think the government has to explain why Mindef paid $20K+ of public money to hire a language tutor for a foreign soldier attending a course here? Why the government has to explain the Brompton bicycle purchase processes and remove the corrupt AD? And many more

I would like to request you provide the CS or PS departments where you work in so that we can weed out the ignorant, arrogant and public-money wasting staff who spent office hours posting and boasting about their bonuses which come from the public.

Im sorry, you still havent rebutted my argument yet. If the citizen is the paymaster due to the tax he pays, then the rich(the ones who pay the most taxes), task civil servants to do their bidding and ignore the poor(the ones who dont pay any taxes).

The public servants are responsible to the government and by extension to the general public. But the citizens are not in direct control of the public service to demand things. They can do so by demanding their MPs(part of the govt) and these MPs can demand something out of the public service. But by and large, the citizens do not own the public services JUST because they pay their taxes. If this is true, then the ones who DONT pay taxes like the poor would be left out into the wild and be left unprotected. The citizen cannot be the paymaster, because if we do go by that reasoning, then we should only serve and kowtow to the rich since they pay a higher percent of the public servant's salaries.

[qwerty]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

I am concerned and hugely disappointed because :

1. there are people in the CS who are not aware who their paymasters are. For those in the CS who are still ignorant, please refer to the IRAS website for the explanation on where government revenue come from and where tax payers money go to.

2. They take their comfortable pay for granted and spend their working time on unproductive work like boasting and whining on public forums.

3. By their lackadaisical attitude they do a great disservice to the CS and PS and their hard working colleagues and tax payers.

It is because of these devil-may-care staff that our Ministers are frequently put in a spot to answer for instances of mispending public monies.

People have too high an expectation of public servants. Frankly, I think most of us simply look at it as a job, which is really no different from our peers in the private sector.

One thing the public service got right is that you get you pay for. I have never seen the pay in public service as being fantastic compared to top MNCs and I also don't think our public servants are anymore talented than their peers in the pte sector. Paying lesser wouldn't help.

One key thing when comparing salary of pte sector and public sector is that when working for the government, non-scholars generally have a much lower career ceiling compared to pte sector.

Sure you could get retrench and drive taxi when you reach your 40s in pte sector, but then you could also make executive level in a global MNC if you are good.

Contrast this to a civil servant, even if you are super fantastic in performance and CEP, you are at most going to reach senior director in your late 40s making 300k+ annual inclusive of everything. A similarly top performer in top MNC / bank would probably exceed 300k by late 20s or early 30s.

Pte sector is a winner take all high risk high return environment while public sector is a stable and steady job security place. The profile is quite different and hard to generalize which is better because a lot of times it really depends on your temperament.

My take is this: if you just want work life balance, stable job, not really that interested in money or have a realistic view that you are just average in capabilities, it is better to join the public sector. If you are young, willing to risk it all for the win, then go for the pte sector, but dun whine when you hit 40 and realise you are just another average Joe constantly under threat of being replaced by others.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

My take is this: if you just want work life balance, stable job, not really that interested in money or have a realistic view that you are just average in capabilities, it is better to join the public sector. If you are young, willing to risk it all for the win, then go for the pte sector, but dun whine when you hit 40 and realise you are just another average Joe constantly under threat of being replaced by others.

nicely said

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why does the government need to clear the air on "how this whole thing works"? The government is just another employer in the context of the civil service, and civil servants (or public servants) are like all other private sector employees. Why should their pay schemes be made public to satisfy the public's curiosity. There's a case for making the pay of politicians or MPs transparent, since they are elected officers, but civil servants (and public servants) are not elected and owe nothing to the electorate.

The government may not need to clear the air on how this whole thing works. But the way the variable bonuses are announced, some would think that these are the only bonuses that civil servants get, which is not the case, as performance bonuses form an important part of the total salary package.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

One key thing when comparing salary of pte sector and public sector is that when working for the government, non-scholars generally have a much lower career ceiling compared to pte sector.

Sure you could get retrench and drive taxi when you reach your 40s in pte sector, but then you could also make executive level in a global MNC if you are good.

Contrast this to a civil servant, even if you are super fantastic in performance and CEP, you are at most going to reach senior director in your late 40s making 300k+ annual inclusive of everything. A similarly top performer in top MNC / bank would probably exceed 300k by late 20s or early 30s.

Pte sector is a winner take all high risk high return environment while public sector is a stable and steady job security place. The profile is quite different and hard to generalize which is better because a lot of times it really depends on your temperament.

My take is this: if you just want work life balance, stable job, not really that interested in money or have a realistic view that you are just average in capabilities, it is better to join the public sector. If you are young, willing to risk it all for the win, then go for the pte sector, but dun whine when you hit 40 and realise you are just another average Joe constantly under threat of being replaced by others.

The para in bold..... I'm not FT bashing but just presenting the hard truths.

It is no secret that every MNC (including Singaporean GLCs in overseas locations) want as many of their own kind in as executives and management in the regional offices. In most countries, governments protect their citizens by requiring MNCs to implement strict localization rules after wining multi million dollar contracts. Not so in Singapore, which is reflected in the World Bank's ranking of Singapore as #1 country in Ease of Doing Business.

Hence it is not that easy to rise to those executive positions in MNCs, especially as Singaporeans have to compete with 2nd tier Indian and Pinoy PMEs for limited management positions.

You don't have that problem in the civil service.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

The para in bold..... I'm not FT bashing but just presenting the hard truths.

It is no secret that every MNC (including Singaporean GLCs in overseas locations) want as many of their own kind in as executives and management in the regional offices. In most countries, governments protect their citizens by requiring MNCs to implement strict localization rules after wining multi million dollar contracts. Not so in Singapore, which is reflected in the World Bank's ranking of Singapore as #1 country in Ease of Doing Business.

Hence it is not that easy to rise to those executive positions in MNCs, especially as Singaporeans have to compete with 2nd tier Indian and Pinoy PMEs for limited management positions.

You don't have that problem in the civil service.

If you think that civil servants have it easy, quit your job and join.

It is very competitive in civil service. Only a few get to high positions and many are identified from the onset. The rest have to slog like hell to have a chance of reaching anywhere near.

Grass is always greener on the other side. Instead of complaining, take the leap of faith if you really think civil servants has it easy. I can tell you that this is not true.

Is time of the year again... so play a guessing game 2015 yr end bonus for civil servant.

in 2014, its 0.8. (election factored in)

My take is its 0.5. due to incoming recession.