Appreciate all the replies, links and superb responses.
kiashi, very interesting, clear, apposite and constructive outlook on this matter.
patrick4n6, I read the .pdf document from your link (thanks). Why do public servants appear to be paid a higher travel allowance? My questions goes to the heart of the matter what travel arrangements (train/car/bike etc) do public servants use, that ordinary Aus witnesses do not, in order to be paid more?
I think I moved to the wrong Northern Hemisphere country Tony, I should have gone stateside instead! Either that or I go back to Aus and join the rest of the others in Federal Government! Haha oh well. Good on you for making good for yourself over there! D
Jaclaz, (love the upside down writing wink ) as Tony said we were not paid above the odds in our LE jobs. My wage was at the basic university graduate level point for all public service workers within the entire State Government in Queensland. I would have been receiving the exact same wage if I'd stayed working for the Department of the Arts on the IT helpdesk where I had been previous to that.
I think a lot of it has to do with the economy of different countries, now I don't know the first thing about economics but even I can see the differences between the UK, US and Aus are quite vast. I think the general levels of salary in the UK are lower than in Aus, but then the cost of living is probably still that little bit lower in the UK (outside London certainly) and probably lower again in the US (on average).
Adam10541, That is interesting what you say about the gap that still exists for defence work at least in WA. I know the New South Wales Police outsourced their entire CF operation for a time some years ago, to I think it was KPMG but they brought it back in-house with a fancy new lab etc. etc. so I think there is also a lack of outsourced work in Aus which many of the smaller CF firms here in the UK rely on from the Police. Which is of course being squeezed and squeezed, particularly by Government austerity cuts as Jonathan mentioned before.
The corporate and civil litigation work definitely seems to be where the money is at but it still takes time to filter down to the front line analysts after it has lined the pockets of the directors, managers and salesmen etc.
trewmte, I can't see why public servants should get more travel allowance, they should just pay members of the public the same rate….strange! It's probably just a union thing, they would rather pay everyone less but the public sector union has fought for higher rates for public sector workers across the board, but they are not bound by those rules when paying other members of the public so they can just get away with paying them less.
Why do public servants appear to be paid a higher travel allowance? My questions goes to the heart of the matter what travel arrangements (train/car/bike etc) do public servants use, that ordinary Aus witnesses do not, in order to be paid more?
It was a surprise to me also. It's possible that the unions negotiated a higher travel allowance as part of the package, but there have been one or two negotiation cycles since I was a public servant.
A NON-scoop, but possibly relevant for our US friends
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Also state by state
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(and each state has a breakdown for the main locations).
The data is not properly referenced (for time/date) but it seems like coming by using the relevant job offers on "job sites".
I would take them with more than a pinch of salt, but they are better than nothing.
jaclaz
P.s.@kiashi, in case of need, the text was generated with this
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I don't want to go OT oops , but your note
I think a lot of it has to do with the economy of different countries, now I don't know the first thing about economics but even I can see the differences between the UK, US and Aus are quite vast. I think the general levels of salary in the UK are lower than in Aus, but then the cost of living is probably still that little bit lower in the UK (outside London certainly) and probably lower again in the US (on average).
makes me wonder.
I stayed briefly in Brisbane (a loooong time ago) and at the time (talking of - please take a seat if you are standing) some 30 years ago and I had a feeling of a particularly "easy" and "low cost" place to live in, certainly cheaper than the UK (leaving London aside, that - I believe like New York, Milan and more generally "economic capitals") is not at all representative of the country when it comes to cost of living.
Jaclaz, if only Brisbane was so cheap and easy to live in now, they used to call it "The big country town" but it is most definitely a city these days. The cost of living seems to have risen quite drammatically even since I left there five years ago. The other thing about Australia is that because the country so large but the population so small you are not going to find ANY computer forensics or other kinds of niche business or even large business (aside from mining) occuring outside of the capital cities in each state so that gives you a total of 8 locations you can find this work being done in the whole country! Here's a little population distribution map for you because I know you like figures wink , quite interesting
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Anyway, I've deviated off topic now, my apologies.
Cost of living in Brisbane…?!?! you are kidding aren't you?
With the exception of parking in the CBD Brisbane is cheap as chips, quite literally.
Perth is by far the most expensive place to live in Australia, but luckily we have the highest wages so it sort of evens out )
Good to see the Aussies adding to the knowledge bank.
I know we may need alot more info from around the global but I am wondering whether it would be useful and possible to produce a table of hourly fees/charges from a range of international sources for publication here at Forensic Focus? If so, we need more input from people in other countries.
Ignoring negative issues, e.g. how quickly it would be out of date, completeness and absolute accuracy etc, surely an at-a-glance comparison chart would be helpful to beginners and seasoned individuals alike?
There is a possibility that employer may use that as a guide. However, what I am also mulling over is the idea of actually identifying the variety of skillsets examiners can possess. By that I mean there are literally, in their tens, varieties of mobile phone investigations. Many examiners are taken on merely for data recovery and then find themselves exploited to provide addtional tasks from existing skillsets in the price (which the employer neither pays extra to him/her for that or avoids employing a further cost a person for the skillset).
I am not suggesting a layer cake approach to limiting employees work or their futures in a defined area or, alternatively, burdening companies with crippling debt. What I am suggesting is that the current method of tricking employees to provide additional skills without reward is unreasonable (leaving fairness to one side for the moment). To trick an employee to provide something and then when things go wrong to blame that employee cannot be right. Another trick I am seeing is to imply everything is on shifting sands, so one day it is (a) type of work and on another day it is (b) type of work; but there is not enough to reward the employee for the extra work. Well there is, but the extra goes elsewhere.
Two principles at the heart of this is "establishing worth" and "establishing value". Using a forumla may produce the answer; Jaclaz has illustrated a few in this forum discussion. However, a formula needs components to be identified at first instance in order to formulate the structure of the formula. So we need to consider those components in order that a pserson, at least, is enabled to negotiate (promote one's wares, so to speak).
Quite often we see "value" given by an employer by allowing days off in lieu for working on another day. That in itself is only dealing with existing revenue streams and company services. How "value" takes on a completely new meaning if new business is enticed into a business. Let's use the examples of SIM/handset data recovery but cell site analysis is added as a new business stream? The computer examiner/investigator adds network investigation as a business stream?
Both examples still mean the employee has brought something to the job without "worth" or "value" being given by the business to the employee. Not everything is about money or greed. I listened to Toni Morrison's (Nobel Prize Winner 1993) interview on BBC HardTalk. She mentioned, amongst other things, there is nothing wrong with being a 'capitalist' it is 'capitalistic greed' that is the problem. The mind immediately races to the thought of money. Capitalistic greed is worse than that though. It sucks out the "value" of a human being with little or no return to him or her.
Establishing rates of pay perhaps requires the word "pay" to combine worth and value to balance the books, maybe?
"The secret to a higher salary is to ask for nothing at all"
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It is not clear whether the author is tendering for a contract or been head hunted and is therefore in a far better position to negotiate.
Based upon the proposed negotiating stance in the article is it saying the applicant seeing a job advertised asks for nothing and the intending employer thinks "ok I will guess at offering the prospective employee more than the amount in the job advertisement or less?
I remember back in the 1980s Baroness Thatcher (then PM Margaret Thatcher) talking about fiscal proportionality (she didn't use those exact words) but applying a philosophy to comprehend 'proportionality' she illustrated wealth at a (theoretical) table and naturally 'crumbs' of wealth will fall from the top to bottom.
So if there are only 'crumbs' is there a crumb for each and everyone?
And if you are at the theoretical floor level, as to opposed to maybe mid-range or towards the top of this theoretical table, does the crumb get even smaller y the tim eit gets to the bottom?
Quite off putting the term 'crumb', isn't it? It is like someone defining your destiny not theirs. The use of the term 'crumb' reminded me (before my teen years) when at school we had to go to church on a sunday. I was 12 years of age when I decided not to go back to church after sitting and listening one sunday to a man of God standing in the palpit and reading from the Bible. He said "we are not worthy to eat crumbs under God's table." I thought then if this God, this man speaks about, thinks I am not worthy to eat crumbs then his God couldn't think vey much of me and I could see no reason come to church.
In all of the above three instances it seems to me, at any rate, some people in life are determined to fashion your destiny in terms of small or crumb-like existence. I am not entirely convinced asking for nothing is a positive approach to dealing with the sticky issue in life of "asks don't get, don't ask don't want", as is often used. I was not convinced, whatever the good intention, by Margaret Thatcher, that using the term 'crumb' would encourage people to develop, improve and attain based upon if you want more than a crumb then psychologically it can be construed that you are somehow greedy. Moreover, I do not now believe God ever thought of any of you as not being worthy to eat crumbs, in a spiritual sense, under the table of the great creator. I think the great creator would more likely want and think the best for you.
It seems to me like the cited article is more about "moral integrity" than actual money, and additionally "moral integrity in a perfect world".
I have some experience in a "parallel" field, bids for private (building) contracts.
The theory - for a public contract - is that everyone participating to the tender makes a "best offer" along the "Rules" of the tender, and whomever bids lower - provided that the offer fulfills all the requirements gets the contract.
If everyone plays along the rules everything is "linear" and "consequent".
When you do the same for private tenders, things become a little muddier.
Once there was a "leader" in the private corporation, be him/her the owner, the CEO or majority partner, the tender was given to the one that besides making a valid offer, also made that a "convincing" offer and provided good references on previous similar works and all in all showed to be "suitable" to carry on that contract successfully, on time and on the budget.
If you prefer, besides the actual validity of the offer, the final awarding the contract was also connected with the overall "good impression" that the bidder, the proposed project or schedule, the past experience, etc. made to the one(s) taking the decision.
Nowadays (and since quite a few years) there is noone evaluating anything but the offered price (and trying any possible way to have it lowered, at least at "face value").
So after you have submitted your offer (which by definition is your best offer, made through your own calculations with the data available at time of tender) you are called (if you are among the first three bidders) and asked to better your bid.
In order to convince you to do so, a number of arguments are usually brought before you, like the fact that the contract paper actually says that payments will be due after 90 days, but that is just the paperwork, in reality you will be payed in thirty days or less, that the clause that allows a penalty of 0.5% per day in case of delay won't actually be applied, etc. etc..
Then it starts what I call the "cattle market", you are told that bidder "B" has offered a much lower price for concrete (but you are not allowed to see his bid, where the concrete is much lower but formwork and steel is much higher) and that bidder "C" has offered a much lower price for steel (but you are not allowed to see his bid, where the steel is much lower but concrete is much higher).
When this happens (always) I tend to react saying (as nicely as I can) that I see no point in discussing the matter at all, if not for very marginal/trifling details, they already have what was asked, i.e. a "best" offer and that by definition I cannot better in any way a "best" offer, and that I am open to re-discuss everything, and that I have quite a few ideas in how to save money or decrease construction time, etc. but then the object of the talks has to be "everything", not just the price, and this can happen only once the current offer, "as is" is considered the right one and the work is awarded to the firm I represent.
Obviously this means that - on average - I get less contracts than most of my competitors, as this "morally integral" approach is not considered much favourably by these people that are only after showing their boss how much they saved by negotiating with the contractor.
Should anything go wrong with the "more flexible at negotiation time" other contractor, by the time the building will either not be finished on schedule, or built under-standards or anyway cause a several years long civil cause, these guys will have cashed their bonus and changed company, BTW.
jaclaz
It does seem the article is geared towards a negotiation tactic which a propsective employee really has limited opportunity to put into practice.
This may not relevant to you jaclaz but BBC television programme 'Question Time' last night I listened to Nigel Farage UKIP talking on pay and that it had been noticed cases of less than the national minimum wage being paid, but equally pay of 'skilled work' was down too. Which on the face of it seems to follow the general trend of what others have noticed about conditions and pay in the marketplace.