People working for private companies are sometimes surprised to hear that when bosses in the public sector ask their employees how they are, they usually mean it.

There is a great gulf between the two sectors that has widened since the Second World War.

Despite laws designed to temper its worst excesses, the private sector is a wealth-creating product of rampant capitalism. Ruthless and competitive, it ensures only the fittest survive.

By contrast, the public sector spends the wealth capitalism creates. Efforts are made to ensure it is efficient but, given the slightest chance, it tends to burgeon and become bloated because it cannot go bust.

If a private firm fails, it goes into liquidation and investors suffer. If a council, Government department or health trust faces financial problems, we all pay through income or council tax.

There are constant changes in the public services these days as regimes are put into place to make it more efficient.

But the same Government which espouses the idea of best value and meeting targets also produces a host of bureaucratic regulations which its own departments and other public authorities have to meet.

Under this protective cloak, waste and inefficiency flourish.

You only have to read the Society section of The Guardian, bible of the chattering classes, to see the amazing range of jobs being advertised.

Frequently, this volume weighs more than a pound and has at least 100 pages. For anyone in the private sector, it is like a glimpse into a fantasy world.

For every job dealing with essentials ranging from processing planning applications to cleaning the streets, there are five extraordinary jobs, mostly pretty well-paid, and nearly all non-essential.

Examples yesterday included community relations officers in Calderdale, receiving more than £30,000 a year, and a transforming grot-spots programme manager in St Helen's being paid £24,000 part-time.

You hear of a few redundancies every now and again in the public services but they are nothing compared with the butchery in private firms.

Public servants on average take huge amounts of sick leave knowing they will not be sacked.

The Dickensian conditions that still exist in far too many hidden sweatshops are not replicated in the public services.

Unions rage about poor pay but there are many working in shops and factories who would love to be paid even the basic minimum wage and have the security of a public job.

Paradoxically, it is at the upper end where managers and officers are most criticised that salaries fall well below those paid in private companies.

There was criticism this week of the pay rise proposed for the Lord Chancellor but Lord Irvine earns far less than any captain of industry.

Hospital managers are much reviled and you would think from some criticism the health services should exist without them but their salaries are a pittance compared with those of company managing directors with the same number of staff.

The chief executive of Kent County Council earns £180,000 a year and is the highest-paid person in local government but that is probably only the annual pay rise for the national newspaper editors who slammed his salary.

Some of the compassion often shown in the public sector needs to be transplanted into private firms while the public sector badly needs to be more competitive and efficient.

If or when that happens, managers of these slimmed-down authorities can be paid decent wages without being condemned for it.