Comparing private sector jobs with public sector jobs is futile as each offer quite different career paths, according to Dean Shoesmith, head of HR at the London Boroughs of Sutton and Merton and vice-president of the Public Sector People Managers Association.

Shoesmith’s comments follow a report from think tank The Policy Exchange which says that public sector productivity fell almost 4% in the 10 years after 1997, whereas private sector productivity grew 28%, although public sector pay has increased by 15% more than private sector pay.

Shoesmith told Recruiter: “At a senior management level, private sector people tend to get paid more for a similar sized scale of opportunity. In the public sector a chief executive of a local authority may have 10,000 employees, 250,000 residents and vastly complex different services. Some jobs such as accounting and HR are the same but for social work and teachers, you are not really comparing like with like.”