Public service spending cuts.

[Alfie22]

I'm a civil servant - we are currently consolidating our footprint in Croydon in terms of buildings occupied. Also offering early departure schemes and vol deps. Have to make 3% efficiency savings every year for the next 3.

 

[drew]

Lets nail this one,i for believe there is scoop for cuts in public spending and without hitting frontline services. How often do we read of councils wasting money on I/T projects,endless traffic calming most of which is a waste of time. It is not the big capital projects that cost the money it is the endless drain of a 100K here,50K. THAT IS THE REAL PROBLEM I/E how often have you driven up a zebra crossing to find it made out in coloured lines/bricks etc even raised,what for ? All of us on NSC can relate to waste of money projects. Stopping that sort of spending is not Tory it is just commonsense.

Well, firstly, let's make damn sure they don't cut spending on schools because people need to understand grammar and spelling if they are to be an asset in the job market!!!!!

"An example of this was Tony Blair giving Police forces more money and telling commissioners that it must be spent on new bobbies to go on the beat. Sir Ian reconed that more bobbies would atually have got on the beat had the money instead been spent on low-level administrators to take the paperwork of the existing bobbies."

Therein lies the problem. What you are asking for is beurocracy to take away the paperwork away from the bobby so that he/she can patrol the street. Similar to having adminsitrators in NHS so as to free up time for nurses etc.

However, people want to cut public service beurocracy as well.

Spelling again!

You have to ask why do we need so much bureaucracy. There is far more paperwork in all walks of life and most of it is to provide a audit trail when things go wrong. We don't want some felon to get off a crime on a technicality. In the NHS, you have to check everything that is done to avoid action against you.

Agree with your first two points but with many organisations, not just the NHS, many users don't know what is and isn't possible and the NHS has a whole lot of staff at all levels with little or no IT knowledge. I have spoken to quite a few who will not use email including a couple of senior consultants. Given the fact that you have to deal with this sort of mentality in an organisation that does just about every thing by computer you wonder how these people still have employment.

Ask yourself the question. Do I want a consultant that can save my life or one that can send an email? Having said that, I doubt whether those coming into the NHS these days are computer illiterate and those relics from the old days that are will eventually retire.

Don't even joke about it!

Their changes to wards, and the little areas of control they have tried to built up by creating "The Welsh Assembly", "The Scottish Parliament" (oh sorry they f***ed that one up! ) and "The Mayor of London" (oh sorry they f***ed that one up! ) will mean that it will take years to completely eradicate their control over some areas of our society.

When you say changes to wards, what are you referring to? District wards or NHS wards and if the latter, what changes are you referring to?

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Drew,i am not suggesting frontline cuts,but if you read many of the 'posts' we all know there is endless red tape and waste. As a country you cannot simply 'tax and spend'

 

[User removed 4]

I'm a civil servant - we are currently consolidating our footprint in Croydon in terms of buildings occupied. Also offering early departure schemes and vol deps. Have to make 3% efficiency savings every year for the next 3.

Can you explain what ' consolidating our footprint ' means ?

 

[drew]

Drew,i am not suggesting frontline cuts,but if you read many of the 'posts' we all know there is endless red tape and waste. As a country you cannot simply 'tax and spend'

The first part of my post was really just a comment on your spelling and lack of capitalisation of the 'i'.

It's a bit simple to say we just tax and spend. The Government announced in 2007 that they would find £35b of savings in the public sector. According to the BBC, as at August last year they had achieved £10.8b although Labour are saying that is now up to £20b. They are committed to another £15b over the next year. The Tories £12b of cuts is on top of this £35b. In effect, the Tories are therefore suggesting there will be £27b of savings in the public sector (the £15b left from the Labour target plus their new £12b). That equates to half the expenditure on education!

I hear today that an advisor to the Tories is suggesting that unfilled posts in the public sector should remain unfilled and that would save money. So who then does the work of those unfilled posts. In the NHS, nursing shortages are covered by agency staff at higher costs. Would there be increased overtime for those that remain. It's all pie in the sky from the Tories at the moment.

 

[Alfie22]

Can you explain what ' consolidating our footprint ' means ?

Giving up the leases that are due to expire shortly and shoe-horning all the people into the ones we're keeping.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Real current NHS jobs and salaries:

Head of Human Resources - £60, 671 - £73,351
Director of quality (chief nurse) - 90k
Associate Director of Commissioning X2 - £68,809 - £83,287
Chief Information officer - £68,833 - £79,031
Head of finance - 80k
Director of resources - 90k
Director of commissioning - 90k
Director of community services (solihull) - 90k

Qualified nurse - £21,176 to £27,534 !!!

Which of those is adding value to the NHS??

Possibly ... just possibly ... the Head of Finance, or the Director of Resources, or the Director of Commissioning.

If it turns out that the people appointed have the skills to contribute towards achieving a cut in public spending of £6 billion, without affecting front-line services.

... which is, of course, what CMD is promising will happen.

 

[Freddie Goodwin.]

A lot of the current cuts are just about getting rid of experinced staff. The has been little recrutment in the last few years (except at Senior management level) so most Civil Servants are now in their 40's so their could be problems in the future.

Also, the current thinking is that everything can be found online so staff down south can be replaced by contact centres up north and contact centres have a huge turnover of staff. This is not value for money.

 

[beorhthelm]

I hear today that an advisor to the Tories is suggesting that unfilled posts in the public sector should remain unfilled and that would save money. So who then does the work of those unfilled posts.

all too often these unfilled posts are "nice to have" jobs. who is doing them currently if they are unfilled? its not as if theres full employment. they are for projects where noone has got round to starting up or the budget is allocated but not really, or even where its just in a projection of intended budget if the project goes ahead. you draw on the emotive NHS nurses, but really this isnt the objective (thats due to not enough trained people, or stupid pay structures that make nurses work for an agency rather than directly), its in bureaucratic departments like the Cabinet office, DTI, Environment agency that dont actually do anything, then the back office areas of things like Home office where they have an "initative" to do x, before you get to the admin sections of education and health. in my department of my mid size company, despite "restucturing" there are projects floating around that have allocated head counts. the projects arent important, when the economy turns they will be recuited for, probably half dozen people. scale that up to government deptarment and you have 10's of thousands of jobs allocated in budgets that simply arent needed right now.

case in point, the ID card scheme has a £10billion+ budget. if it is binned, no one lose a job, just a lot of currently non-existant jobs wont appear. (a relative few in existing proto-department will be reallocated to new projects, or see out the remains of what ever has been done so far as its merged into somthing else). £10billion that hasnt been spent is removed from the budget. surprised more hasnt been made of this unpopulr cut actually, either they've already used it up or...

 

[wellquickwoody]

I'm a civil servant - we are currently consolidating our footprint in Croydon in terms of buildings occupied. Also offering early departure schemes and vol deps. Have to make 3% efficiency savings every year for the next 3.

This perfectly demonstrates one of the many things that are wrong with public sector bureacracy.

Please use 'normal' English language , not 'look-how-far-up-my-f**king-arse-my-job-title-makes-me-appear' language.

 

[Alfie22]

This perfectly demonstrates one of the many things that are wrong with public sector bureacracy.

Please use 'normal' English language , not 'look-how-far-up-my-f**king-arse-my-job-title-makes-me-appear' language.

Sorry, I didn't realise "consolidating" or perhaps "footprint" were such confusing terms.

I never mentioned my job title, for all you know I could be the home secretary or an admin temp. I just used terms that I thought people would understand. Oh, and bureaucracy has a "u" in it, u idiot.

 

[bhaexpress]

Ask yourself the question. Do I want a consultant that can save my life or one that can send an email? Having said that, I doubt whether those coming into the NHS these days are computer illiterate and those relics from the old days that are will eventually retire.

In this day and age not being able to use a computer makes you just about illiterate. Computers are integral to the NHS (as with most organisations )now, not being able to use actually could cost you your life. I have seen a few near misses.

 

[drew]

In this day and age not being able to use a computer makes you just about illiterate. Computers are integral to the NHS (as with most organisations )now, not being able to use actually could cost you your life. I have seen a few near misses.

What utter crap. Half the people on here are illiterate and they use a computer daily! Computers are not integral to diagnosis and surgery, at least not yet.

Also, if you read my post properly, you would have realised that the older consultants will eventually be replaced by those coming through the system now who are used to computers and the like.

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

1) Scrap Regional Assemblies. What on earth is the point of these things?
2) Scrap Diversity training in public services. What an utter waste of money. I had to attend a day long course in 2005, in which they used Eastenders actors to act out scenarios. We then all had to do Diversity e-learning again last year. All of it was stuff that was blindingly obvious.

 

[Psychobilly freakout]

Close all the libaries, save a fortune everyone has tinternet these days init

 

[West Hoathly Seagull]

Giving up the leases that are due to expire shortly and shoe-horning all the people into the ones we're keeping.

Marsham Street was half empty when I left last summer, after the Ministry of Justice staff moved out. And HR across the Civil Service is way overstaffed. Apparently the ratio of HR staff to other staff is 1:100 in the private sector. In the Civil Service it is 1:50. Not filling most HR vacancies would save a large number of posts.

 

[simonsimon]

"Instead of printing money, put the unemployed, assylum seekers and black people to work in a massive public works initiative."
Quoted by granny weathermax

Racist?

 

[Guy Fawkes]

A return to a centralised finance department for organisations rather than having each department with their own budgets - Whereas before, when they had just a central finance department, the different departments got what they needed as and when they needed it. This would also save money by employing less people but getting the same benefit to the organisations.

Also currently they have to spend all they get in otherwise they don't get as much the following year, so spend it on any old thing just to use the money up, then the following year ask for a budget increase. - where is the incentive to the save money for another time / year when they may actually need it more? This has to change

 

[Greyrun]

Cut the public sector back to the size when Nu- Labour came to power.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

1) Scrap Regional Assemblies. What on earth is the point of these things?
2) Scrap Diversity training in public services. What an utter waste of money. I had to attend a day long course in 2005, in which they used Eastenders actors to act out scenarios. We then all had to do Diversity e-learning again last year. All of it was stuff that was blindingly obvious.

Agreed, but also cut the number of staff in HR, This department has become too big and powerful - Is it all really needed?

There are a number of people who come up with initiatives and schemes, changing things that have worked fine for years, (but fail to consult the people directly affected properly in the process) - the only reason they do this is to justify their jobs, there is no need to change things, but it is done to show that they are actually doing something.