"Eskimo Will" wrote in message ...

That will not solve the problem of years of below inflation pay rises in the
Met Office and a staff that mostly are thoroughly fed up and de-motivated.
If everyone jumped ship there would be no Met Office.
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But 'everyone jumping ship' is not how it works is it? It doesn't all have
to happen at once - once the rate of attrition becomes significant and it's
also difficult/impossible to replace those leaving with suitably-qualified
newcomers (especially if poor starting salary is cited as a key reason for
failing to attract good candidates) then it's clear that pay scales need
revision. But until you reach that point then there's no good argument that
pay is too low (after all, we're not talking about minimum/living wage
situations here). The whole concept of regular annual pay rises is foreign
to many in the private sector especially given the current climate of low
inflation, so why should the public sector not live under that same reality.

The brutal truth is that if you don't feel that your overall remuneration
package and general conditions of work are competitive then take your
expertise elsewhere and enjoy a better-paid albeit perhaps less academically
comfortable life.

All of this may sound unsympathetic but it's not intended to be. But there's
no God-given right for anyone to receive a certain rate of pay and have that
automatically inflation-protected and more, irrespective of what's happening
in the outside world. It seems entirely proper to me that many
government-funded bodies (of which UKMO is just one example) should have
their budget frozen (or eg allowed to rise by just 1% pa) until the country
is starting to get back on its feet - which looks like taking another 5
years or so, far as I can see. If pay scales are sufficiently out of line
that UKMO cannot 'attract and retain' then the obvious alternative answer is
to pay more to fewer staff.