Worthy or wasteful?

The Conservatives were making efficiency savings and New Labour has apparently been making efficience savings every year they have been in power. So either

1) they both weren't very good at it or

2) there won't be real savings merely a shuffling of the pack of cards.

How many savings will re appear as extra investments elsewhere or some other form of new imrpovement.

Sorry but it all smacks of moving deckchairs on the Titanic to me.

The problem with this approach is that to achieve the efficiency savings, one normally has to spend a bit to get a bit... cost either in ascertaining where the efficiency savings actually are or in the obtaining of them. For instance, savings could result in better technology (=cost to implement and obtain) or people cutting (=redundancy cost) or both, plus an element of management of change, usually in the form of consultants.

So the question is therefore, is this £15bn savings a net reduction or gross (ie excluding the cost attributed to obtinng the benefit) reduction?

Either way, it is a drop in the water compared to what is needed, and who would trust this lot to deliver it anyway. They couldn't be trusted to deliver a pizza!

If Wednesday's budget is the same as all the others, there will be a load of headline-grabbing announcements. On closer examination the money will have been announced elsewhere, the measures will be for 2012, at a time when Labour are in opposition and someone else is cleaning up their mess.

And there will be no accurate analysis of the state of our economy. No telling of the off-balance sheet liabilities, of the true size of the public debt.

Selling off the family silver, that is disposing of assets, is neither a cut or making efficiency savings. It is just raising money. All right if the asset really isn't required any longer. The Treasury doesn't have a decent track record with regard to disposals. Gold comes to mind?

I'm intrigued as to how they are going to "cut the cost of computer technology... considering how many outsourcing deals there are in place already, considering how many PFI deals are in place already to supply the services for this technology... does this mean that they'll actually start enforcing penalty clauses and service credits in these deals rather than pussyfooting around with the suppliers?

The "Back Office" side will be interesting as well... quite how they expect to achieve it is going to be interesting.

I have a feeling it is going to be by chopping IT contractors, which will make things VERY interesting... most of the civil service dont have the nous or the discipline to run these services 24/7... So, it'll hardly result in "efficiencies"... expect to see significantly more instances of lost data, services slowing down, things taking significantly longer to get done...

Unless I've got the wrong end of the stick.

Much more information needed please Nicholas. Otherwise it's a ten minute soundbite which sounds good and will then disappear under the 14 day test.

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I am always a bit perplexed by the public view of Civil Servants. It would be an interesting research project for some psychologist who sees any value in measuring IQ to compare the average senior Civil Servant with senior managers in the private sector. There is no evidence so far as I know, but based on the fact that the CS creams off the best graduates each year, and on my own unscientific experience, I would imagine that the much maligned Civil Servants are on average probably considerably brighter than the rest of us. Perhaps they feel the need to use management consultants because they don't have time to do the work themselves, or perhaps they think that by employing people who also advise the private sector they somehow protect themselves from at least some of the brickbats that always come their way. It seems to me that there may well be much more to be saved by reducing the serried ranks of lawyers both in the government's direct employ, and from the self-employed sector. But again, it seems that being able to say that you have taken legal advice is seen as some sort of 'get out of jail free' card by the juduciary, so it may be a worthwhile form of protection money.

As for paperclips, I always found them very worthwhile.

It seems that both Nick and I are at a disadvantage about the e-mail affair. Coming to it late, it seems that McBride (sp?) got a very deserved come-uppance, though that view is based entirely on hearsay of his bullying I have to admit. What intrigues me is: how did anybody get hold of a private email exchange, especially when one of the correspondents was in Downing Street (what sort of security do they have, for goodness sake); who decided not to go public with the dirt (I think the e-mails were sent in January?); and who decided to put the dirt out in the public domain? Is anybody being sued? Perhaps Nick could investigate?

The key facts here are: this waste has been going on for a decade.

Until the depression hit us, Labour were quite happy with this. Why, one asks?

Because they can then brag about their spending levels, it does not matter one jot to them what the money is spent on. It has to be seen to be spent.

If you as a voter cannot equate this with the dire financial situation we find ourselves in now, where we failed to fix the roof while the sun was shining, and were guilty of profligate waste of billions of taxpayers' money, then your vote will doubtless go to Labour.

For our economy to recover, and our nation to compete with other national economies, we need massive reform in this country.

And there is no better place to start than at the BBC - an essentially private media company that takes NO input from the taxpayer, yet receives millions of our money each year. Guido, Iain Dale, et al have proven that this portion of the BBC site can be replaced at minimal cost, with access to all to leave their comments (democracy for the shareholders, you and I). Nick Robinson and the other "bloggers" (read "commentators") here will not afford you that luxury.

" When is a cut not a cut " When it is referred to by a member of the Labour party prior to an election.There is no way that this dishonest government will actually cut spending on it's growing army of dependents and employees ; this could cause the unions to pretend to withdraw funding if redundencies were in the offing and might lose some votes from the benefit army. This budget will be extremely painless and may even reward the few remaining Labour voters in the hope that they will be conned into voting Labour again.No doubt we will be again well placed to take advantage of the coming boom that Brown is convinced will save his bacon. Meanwhile the faithful cabinet ministers ( who would gladly consign Brown to the dustbin ) will continue to spout their platitudes, soundbites and undying loyalty to Brown while filling their pockets from the expences trough to stave of hunger when their jobs disappear after the election. No doubt there will be a dramatic rise in the expence accounts as the fateful day draws ever closer and no doubt also a gradual distancing of loyalties from Brown in the forlorn hope of saving something from the ashes when Labour burns.

Nick, please read "Systems thinking in the public sector" by John Seddon, meet the man and report on it. The methods he outlines save money and improve service using ideas based on Toyota's production system and the teachings of W. Edwards Deming.

Any country adopting these ideas on a large scale will save billions and improve the quality of services received. John and his team have implemented these ideas in various public sector areas, and had very good results - this is real, tried and tested methodolgy.

Scrap ID cards
Scrap trident for now
Use the north sea oil revenue to create a sovereign fund to invest in green energy for when the oil runs out.
Cut salaries in the public sector to a max of £100k per year across the board - everyone and I mean everyone. Have a minimum public sector wage of say £15k - a living wage!

I'm not running for PM but I think some of that would get a few votes. All this proves is we have wasted one hell of a lot over the last few years to not much improvement. Shame on Labour

Efficiency savings of 15 Billion!!

I think that says it ALL? WASTE WASTE WASTE!

If we needed any further evidence of the cleft-stick in which the Chancellor finds hislef (the markets demanding prudence and the voters demanding spending) the sudden cry that they will save £15bn through "Whitehall Efficiencies" is it.

The fact is that central Government spending on administration as such doesn't even add up to £15bn so the idea that the savings could come from "Whitehall" doesn't stack up at all. The tired old "efficiencies" argument is simply a voter-friendly name for a spending cut.

Where will this cut come from? The answer lies in the timing. The proposal implies saving an additional £5bn a year over each of the next three years - and this can be done by the simple expedient of downward pressure on public sector pay. Is that an "efficiency"? It depends on your definitions - but logically, yes it is.

If we assume that inflation stays at or about 3% over the next three years then current spending would increase (in line with current projections) to about £500bn by 2012. However, the £15bn "saving" could be made by increasing public sector pay by only 2%. Then spending would onyl rise to about £485bn.

Magic! We have made a £15bn saving by spending £30bn more.

This sort of sleight of hand should fool nobody. It leaves unanswered the question, where will the money come from?

Nick, I'm not quite sure why you, along with seemingly everyone else, automatically puts "schools" as an extreme of "worthy spending". Judging by the endless building work which goes on every holiday at my nearby Primary School, putting in new railings, slides, resurfacing every bit of playground, etc.etc. they seem to be running out of ideas as to how to spend the "education" budget. Meanwhile the breaks seem to be longer and the finishing time earlier.Has anyone ever looked into the hours actually spent at school these days? And if anyone seriously thinks that all this spending is leading to a cultured, intellectually inquiring youth... just look around.

5 fubar

making organisations more efficient, or in most cases efficient is problematical.

My wife has been involved in helping local government organisations - councils, etc - do this. Particularly font office/back office. And it isn't the operational aspects that are difficult (these are the theoretical ones Darling will be talking about) but the cultural ones - management of change.

The politics of change are very deep within government departments, both at the local level and particularly national. The higher up you are the bigger the egos and reluctance to change and lose power/empires. It really will be Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister as everyone fights their corner.

In the end, as you say it is all a trade off with little real difference being made in operation or budgets, but it will grab the headlines for a day or so until the fine print exposes the sham.

Having spent over 30 years in private industry in my experience the only way to achieve actual cuts in spending is simply to tell the departments concerned "Your budget is cut by 10%, no arguments, - so please get on with it".

Efficiency is a red herring as almost all the outputs of the public sector are subjective.

However, actual cost reductions are clearly desperately needed to avert potential national bankruptcy and I feel facing up to the reality of the situation would go down well with the public.

Any other approach will immediately generate endless debate and with the embedded interests so obviously in play in the public sector generate no savintgs at all.

Of course they could always get rid of the quangos? I seem to remember that these run into huge numbers, and Gordo created many of them to put someone to blame between himself and the end-users.

Old government trick!!!

I thought that disclosing Budget information before announcement to the House of Commons was a sacking or resignation offence... Then I remembered that there are no longer any ecent standards in government.

Selling state owned property or assets is NOT making efficiency savings. It is a means to raise capital.

Stupid thing is that the state owns swathes of land (sometimes with existing buildings) entirely suitable for development of housing. This administration has not delivered a surge in house building. It could - rather than going for a quick "cash-in" approach - retain the land, contract builders who are desperate for work to provide the development muscle and nouse and sell housing at a suitable price.

Instead, things are flogged off and the cash wasted on overambitious and ill-thought "projects".

Time for some reality.

PS: Parliament will take an 84 day summer break because "there's not enough legislation to oversee". NONSENSE. I (once again) say that there is so much stuff pouring out of Whitehall and Brussels that most of it is simply not examined in detail before hitting the statute book.

If every MP were obliged to legally atest they had read, digested and understood the implications of every new law/regulation dumped on the population, they wouldn't get a summer break and probably only get half an hour off for Christmas lunch every couple of years...

Come on Nick. Where is your proof reader? 'There are a number of problems' not 'There is a number of problems.' Grandantidote would be proud of you.

Isn't this the same Labour party that lambasted the Tories for proposing similar cuts and warning that front line services would be hit?

I agree that the cuts have to be made and no doubt a rise in taxes is necessary if we are to get the Country's economy on a better footing. However I would much prefer a party with an instinct for small government and long term low taxes to deliver what is needed. All that GB and his crew will achieve is ever growing taxes and more and more waste.

Its a crying shame that the Government cannot do the decent thing and put its record to the only vote of confidence that counts - a General Election. Instead it will limp along until next summer by which time we will be in a worse position than now!

Nick:
When is a cut not a cut? When it's an efficiency saving, of course.
Also, when it benefits someone or not, also, when the government knows that they need to find money for another pet project....

~Dennis Junior~

Wait a minute.

Surely the headline should be " Labour slash Public Spending"

Oh no, thats when the Tories suggest it.

The statement they can make 15Bn in cuts says to me that they were not in control of finances anyhow.

I just dont believe a word the chancellor says,his forecasts and remedies are as worthless as the end to boom and bust boasts .

For the good of our Country we need a General Election and let the people decide who is capable of getting us back on the right track.

"In the past, the National Audit Office has cast doubts on claimed government efficiency savings."

Under John Bourn the NAO, and anything it claimed, was fatally undermined by his antics.

As for savings, how about:

1) Kill the quangos
2) Stop funding the fake charities
3) Kill stupid things like the ID cards farrago
4) Cull middle management across all departments
5) Cull upper management wages across all departments
6) Get a handle on the level of contractors, hired as taking on permanent staff is fraught with difficulty - such as getting rid if they start getting lazy.

Also need looking at are ringfenced services, and certain operations - such as reversing the snip - need to stop being free.

And that's *before* you look at actual efficiencies in provision.

Amazing when so many Labour MP's jobs are at risk they manage to come up with savings by cutting front line jobs within the public sector yet no MP ever considers cutting costs at Westminster.

We need an election asap.

7#

Gawd, if the Civil Service creams off the best, the brightest, I shudder to think what the likes of Goldmans etc, pick up from the Milk Round.. They must get the REAL plums.

No wonder the further education system has gone to rats.

If these are the kind of chumps who we're producing, God help us.

I can definately speak with some authority in a certain central government department as to what the civil service are like... theres an awful lot of fudging, decision avoiding, keeping your head down, protect your pension, follow the process (if you've got one, if you havent, get a management consultant in to write one for you) and in the meantime, in the absence of any real substance and reform, write a set of procedures/guidelines for procurement that a) you dont always follow, b) take about 20 people to administer and keep on top of, (most of them contractors, because your own staff dont have the gumption or the dedication and are frightened of doing anything wrong and jeopardising their pensions), then create a promotion system involving assessment centres that keeps the lower downs in their place and involves no judging of your professional ability at all - just your ability to answer standard questions which hardly ever change...

And, from my last recollection, about 47% of new recruits to the civil service leave within the first 12 months...

Having said that, the private sector is chock-a-block full of its own idiot quota as well... the public sector doesnt have a monopoly on dingbat managers. However, a badly managed private sector business doesnt tend to last too long before it fails, or requires a government bail out if it is a bank... those run by the public sector... you would not beleive how incredibly difficult it is to sack someone in the public sector. Its quite tricky in the private sector, but in the public... and also, it is staggering to find out just how bad you have to be to be given the push. Staggeringly bad, is the answer.

Most Government "savings" are usually the product of spin ( ie propaganda ).

Selling off buildings surplus to requirements is not a saving, it is simply good housekeeping.

The way Government must create savings is buy cutting borrowing, not just the emergency borrowing of late, but the deliberate borrowing to fund more services which we are unable to pay for directly. Such practices MUST STOP !

7 probablynogod

"I am always a bit perplexed by the public view of Civil Servants. It would be an interesting research project for some psychologist who sees any value in measuring IQ to compare the average senior Civil Servant with senior managers in the private sector. There is no evidence so far as I know, but based on the fact that the CS creams off the best graduates each year, and on my own unscientific experience, I would imagine that the much maligned Civil Servants are on average probably considerably brighter than the rest of us."


Many people are, however, not perplexed by the view of civil servants, and many of them arrive at this view as a result of their experiences in dealing with them.

As for "measuring IQ to compare the average senior Civil Servant with senior managers in the private sector" what would that actually prove? A high IQ is not a surefire way of indicating ability, experience, aptitude or attitude required to do a good job - whatever the job maybe. In fact their are probably civil servants funded by the taxpayer investigation this point as we speak, and guess who's paying for them to do so.

The civil service may cream off the best graduates (I have no idea if this is true but never mind) but many of the civil servant are no graduates.

Regarding "Civil Servants are on average probably considerably brighter than the rest of us" I can only suggest that you speak for yourself on that one. Clearly you have never had to deal with many of the governments departments and have no clear idea of how utterly disfucntional our country has become. I would rate the CSA (or now CMEC) as the worst of them all. They lack nearly all of the operational skills required to run a business. From losing their own post, to losing records, to simply failing to sort out basic problems, they are hopeless, but still the staff manage to earm performance bonuses. Laughable ! Many of the staff I come into contact with could not possibly work in the private sector, where a companys income is not guarenteed by threat of legal action.

I have my own view of them, and it is well deserved in my opinion.

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Well Mr. Robinson, you pose more questions than answers. Are we to discover the answers tomorrow or wait for the Budget on Wednesday?

Frankly I look to you to provide the answers as a political commentator, I do hope that I wiil not be disappointed.

As I have heard (during your absence), most things supplied by the government have "spin" on them to attempt to hide the reality. Four or five examples of this have emerged recently. Please provide some answers.

They could have cut the IT budget by 90% if they knew what they were doing, purely by forcing open-source code to be used, and by allowing tenders from outside the biggest corporations, and by employing people who have a bit of intelligence/common-sense to look over the IT contracts from the government side.

But, as someone else mentioned above, the government have spent so long signing off hopelessly anti-taxpayer IT contracts that it's now too late, because the government have locked themselves into hideously expensive contracts for years on end that they can't get out of. Same logic applies to all PFI projects.

It's not just about "efficiency", it's also about "negligence" when it comes to how the government procure services from the private sector, and it's about not bothering to even think of efficiency for public workers for over 12 years.

#22 Well said.

Whenever the Tories suggest cutting public spending through efficiency savings, the BBC rounds on them with scary headlines about putting nurses and doctors out of work, and rubbish the notion that there is any money to be made in savings.

However, when a desperate Labour government, universally despised by the voters in this country who are not in the actual Labour party, suggests it, up pops Nick with some cogitation and pensive analysis.

BBC - Brown's Broadcasting Corporation. Perhaps the Labour party can take over the TV tax from the taxpayers, cause we're getting a pretty raw deal at the moment.

Sack a few MORE Downing Street ADVISORS who make up nasty little TALES

FOR GORDY. . . . .

Hope you had a nice holiday Nick. I wont be writing to these blogs so often now, because frankly the political scene disgusts me. There is a rather strong whiff of corruption and decay emitting from all parties, and I find it healthier to read good books. It's a pity, since I enjoyed debating with some of the old regulars here, but I have a feeling that they too, irrespective of political leanings, find they need a break. Above all, the BBC has become censorous towards us adult bloggers, yet allows the grossly overpaid and ignorant Jonathan Ross to stride around spewing his filth and saying whatever rubbish comes out of his mouth. Once again, trust you had a good holiday and have returned in good form.

"few politicians want to spell out what exactly government should stop spending money on - "

Easy

Gaza, ID cards, enforcing smoking ban, anti-drinking and other campaigns to name a few

If it were the Tories proposing efficiency savings or god forbid spending cuts the BBC would be immediatly publishing headlines about "Tory cuts" and delightful pictures of sacked nurses crying. When it's Labour's turn, it's all sagely nodding heads as if Darling's Budget fiction to disguise the collapse of government finance is actualy serious

There's only one way to cut spending and that's to cut posts. "Efficiency" is a mirage - just look at the total number of civil servents employed goes up and up every year no matter what the government say. By all means protect front line services - I want to see a ruthless cull in the appartently limitless non-jobs on offer then lets hit the 3,000 quango's. Look in the Guardian public sector job's list - a commedian's joke store that is now beyond parody. No job title and "responsibility" is too outrageous. "dog walking co-ordinator", "playground enjoyment officer" Virtually every post is totally expendable - it's almost a shopping guide to which posts offer zero value yet cost us millions.

To cut, or not to cut that is the question? Whether it is wiser to cut now or later. Or if there are to be cut is it wisest to get the cuts over with quickly? Oh hell, let's call it a negative increase!

Personally, I would cut entire projects rather than staving many. Trident, ID Cards, the Olympics, Afghanistan, aircraft carriers and their planes all come immediately to mind. I think it is essential to cancel the Olympics - it will not save much money but it will convince people that we are serious and set a proper serious tone.

Of course pay reductions for all employees, public and private sector alike - say 10 percent below 50,000 and 15 percent over 50,000 and up to 100,000 and 30 percent above. Cuts to stay in place for five years minimum and no pay increases. A real hair shirt policy. Nothing less will prevent the destruction of the Nation.

The gigantic hole in the public finances that the Government and the Bank of England is still digging requires really drastic action or inflation and sterling depreciation will destroy the country for half a century.

Oh and of course, get interest rates up to 4 percent now, and then progressively up to 6 percent in a couple of years. The economy must be rebalanced towards investment in productive capacity and trade in goods and away from 'financial services' as the latter is the cause of our destruction.

None of this will happen of course, and the wrong decisions will still be made for the fools who gave us this recession are still running the asylum! There will be no tightening in regulation - it is a smokescreen to hide the return to business as usual! (Has anyone actually seen any real improvement in the regulatory regime yet? It is a con job!)

Fire the Governor (of the BoE) and the Permanent Secretary (of HM Treasury and indeed his predecessor) as their understanding of economics is fundamentally flawed they got us here - all they think of doing is to attempt to return the country to the situation which relies on re-inflating the property bubble as a 'solution' - which is insane, illogical and doomed.

getridofgodonnow.

The problem with open source is the techies - people geeky enough to care about windows/microsoft are generally obsessed with nerdy internal details that make no difference to anyone other than the techie him/herself.

Licence/Asset costs vs Salary/Operating costs - licencing costs are less risky than operating costs.

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This is just the start – Baby face Brown and his moll Darling will need to make many more daring raids if they are to pay for their big bank job.

And Tax is all they know how to do!

Unless they change the culture of the public sector they will never deliver savings on the scale needed. The question is have they ever delivered savings identified, such as those identified in the Gershon review and then agreed in the last spending review SR07 and we are already on the next review. I would suggest that they did not.

Turkeys voting for Christmas comes into mind.

There's an interesting little parallel debate on the other side of the Atlantic:
https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/20/100-million-here-100-million-there/

#38 The problem with open source is the techies - people geeky enough to care about windows/microsoft are generally obsessed with nerdy internal details that make no difference to anyone other than the techie him/herself.

Or they might want just to save money, like the many university departments who use linux.

My objection to M$ is paying monopoly prices for substandard products. I run linux because it's secure, versatile, stable and it works. I've built computers for my friends and installed it. They're happy. I keep an eye on their systems and they reward me with wine occasionally: much cheaper than the expensive helplines of retailers who peddle Windoze and Office.

It's just a little hobby for me, but there's potentially loads of public and private money to be saved - not to speak of the balance of payments benefits.

I think that some bare-faced honesty is what is required now. The Government should not hide behind efficiency savings as the way ahead and be honest if they are genuinely seeking to cut costs- the public sector is the way to go and say where they will cut, because cut them they will have to do. I really like the idea of cutting the size of parlaiment (for starters).

Equally, the Tories will need to flesh out where their cuts will come and what they will affect, but it would seem that there is some low hanging fruit in the context of ID cards, cutting salaries in the Public Sector etc.

The real concern has to be around the hidden obligations, PFI, public sector pensions etc. These obligations are real pain and building for the future. I don't understand why journos are not picking this up.

#28 StrictlyPickled:

Thanks for a reasonably sensible response. It makes a change on here.

Just to respond briefly:

- I did start out by specifying that I was referring to senior Civil Servants, and it's a pity that I didn't continue to make that distinction later in my post. Those I have dealt with have been very bright and on the ball, and I recognise (it's my opinion, I mean) that they have to deal with issues of a much greater complexity than most of us. Once you get down to the foot soldiers the situation is very different, I accept.

- I think we probably agree that measurements of IQ do not measure aptitude, adaptability, creativity, or many of the other things that are necessary in good management; I don't think myself that it even measures anything much to do with 'intelligence'. However, it is perhaps the best measure we have got - along with getting first class degrees at 'real' universities. And senior Civil Servants are recruited from that source, with the rest (generalising pretty wildly I admit) going into either the City or the Law. One of our perennial problems as a nation is that they don't go into the dirty world of business, and our business sector (especially manufacturing) has struggled for decades as a result.

-finally, I don't share your rather rosy view of people in the private sector doing jobs like those of the Civil Cervice footsoldier. In my experience they are just as capable of "losing their own post, .. losing records, (and) simply failing to sort out basic problems" as any Civil Servant!

we can make these savings by denying the guilty men who got us all into this mess their fat cat and fat rat pensions.......crash Gordon and fred the shred!

why not just save a bit of time and sell the country to Shadow banks, oops i meant China there we can then rent it back for 30 years and pay a lump sum at the end of it , mmm where have i heard that scheme before

I did chortle at " selling of government property" that will be public paid for property in normal speak then.

Its easy to start making cuts (or efficiency savings as you euphamistically call them). I've got loads of ideas:

Stop work immediately on any projects that don't contribute to net growth. So ID cards and the numerous snooping databases can be put on indefinate hold. Similarly any projects we are living without... we should continue to live without. Scrap them.

We can stop supplying funds to faux charites: you know, those "charities" that get generous grants from the government and are always available to provide a pro-government comment whenever a new policy is touted.

The same can go for the majority of quangos. We don't need them.

ACPO, the private company that runs the Police can lose its grants because if its a company, it can run itself from its own profits.

MPs allowances have scope to be tightened by a huge margin. Lets get them down to something like you'd get in the private sector. With no pay rise as compensation either.

Hows about scrapping tax credits and rather than pay a government department to administer the money you've paid in taxes and pay it back to you, why not just cut out the middleman and reduce income tax?

Solution: cancel the Trident missile and submarine replacements (£70bn) and ID cards (£20bn). Voila, £90bn of public money saved without harming public services one bit.

47. MrCynical

Yes cancel ID cards, more than just the fact that they are a violation of our fundamental civil liberty, or even for the sake of efficiency savngs- but because no government can trully be trusted to hold such vast information in such a confined data format without loosing the data, and besides criminals can fake ID cards (or wil be once they become operational) its a waiste of our monies at a time of hard recession. Brought on by political objectives defining economic policy (and that is always a course destined for the rocks).

And I'd like to see a WMD free UK, but unilateralism is not the way to make the WORLD a safer place, with all due respect. We need to coordinate a global WMD reduction; as a step to intranational disarmament, and to have a gravitas in pushing such an agenda we need to have trident. With Obama, and the recient rebuilding of the Russia-US relationship the time has never been better to push a global agenda; as I want international disarmament, not merely UK WMD disarmament. That ought to be our joint goal.

However, given the economic recession I'd agree that trident in its currently proposed form is simply too costly, what I'd like to see is a smaller trident (and therefore efficiency savings friendly), and that could entice other nations; and help Obama in his attempts to seek other nuclear states to reduce their Nuke stockpile. We have a real opportunity to push an international agenda here, and it shouldnt be missed. Afterall the French have in the recient past already reduced the scale and size of their arsonal (for economic as muc has moral reasons), so given that and Obama- its possible, just possible and ought not be missed.

Brown plans to invest his way out of the problem with even more of our "not earned it yet" taxes.

The major problem Brown cannot see or except yet is that the overall majority of the electorate has lost confidence in his government and until we have a new government people will not move back to normal spending patterns.


47. At 01:18am on 21 Apr 2009, MrCynical wrote:
Solution: cancel the Trident missile and submarine replacements (?70bn) and ID cards (?20bn). Voila, ?90bn of public money saved without harming public services one bit.


I agree with you that trident is too expensive but what about decimating the welfare state and making people start and take care of their own personal futures instead of wanting the state to take care of them and paying for them to stay at home, (and I don't include pensioners, physically & mentally disabled people either) welfare state approx £100 billion at present.

oh please ... I'm so so tired of hearing politicians say they are going to save public money by cutting waste - it's the political equivalent of "no darling, it's not you, it's me" - the fact is that they will NOT cut waste - when massive sums of money are spent, then large sums get wasted - that's the nature of the beast and we should accept it

we need a proper debate about public spending or, if we can't manage that, let's just stop talking about it - if we're serious about cuts, we have to be prepared to tackle the Sacred Cow that is the NHS - it's easily the biggest piece of the spending pie and it consumes cash like there's no tomorrow - it's had so much moolah thrown at it over the last few years, they have real difficulty in spending it all

but politicians are too SCARED to tackle this - for Labour, it's understandable since it's part of their core constituency we're talking about - with the Clowns though, it's very disappointing - to me it is, anyway - their failure to address this issue is akin to New Labour's failure to reform the tax system when they came to power and could have done so

it's nothing but cowardice - as Labour were frightened of Middle England, so the Clowns (or in this case ... Chickens) are terrified of a different slice of the self same thing!

the whole debate is a phoney - one day, somebody (Lab, Lib or Clown) will stand up and say we have to slash government spending on Health but until that day ... sorry I'm not interested

Debt Counsellor: Mr Bankrupt, you really need to cut your spending to suit your income.

Mr G Bankrupt: What can you suggest I do then?

DC: Let's have a look round, this enormous fridge looks great but, oh dear, it's full of champagne, caviar and the like.
This cooker is also the best on the market but looks as though it has never been used.
And it looks like you are throwing a party almost every night.

Mr GB: So this is where I can make some efficiency savings?

DC: Yes, Sir!

Action later by Mr GB; he sells the fridge and cooker and has his champagne and caviar delivered in, already chilled, for himself and his mates.

47. At 01:18am on 21 Apr 2009, MrCynical wrote:
Solution: cancel the Trident missile and submarine replacements (?70bn) and ID cards (?20bn). Voila, ?90bn of public money saved without harming public services one bit.

Do you really believe that this lot have been clever enough to put get-out clauses in the contracts for these?

The suppliers will have clauses on their side, but Gordon and his 'special advisers' won't have thought of it.

We're in for the full costs, no matter who is in charge now!!

Cuts rather then savings will be necessary. The UK will be running a 12% deficit in the next 2 years, of which half is strutural, i.e. not direclty caused by the turndown. It is therefore very likely that the UK will see say 3 years with an average defitic of 10% and then 5 years with deficits of 5%, lifting the debt-toGDP ratio to ....

.... 100%.

This is by no means an exaggerated bearish scenario.

24 Frank Castle

I agree with all of your measures to to reduce costs and make department more efficient.

But that is not the culture. They have no-one who is capable of doing it.

What it needs is a Tesco or even big private equity group who will take an axe to over-staffing, inefficient practices and flawed thinking.

What we have is hundreds of years of the same culture and inefficiency.

As I have said before, if Great Britain plc were a company it would have fallen years ago because the management aren't up to the job - from top to bottom.

Some local authorities have improved greatly by taking a commercial approach to strategy, contracts, finance, etc.

That needs to done in national government, where I understand some departments don't even have the equivalent of a finance director.

As I commented on an earlier blog too many of this governments projects start off proposing cost savings but turn into vast liabilities. A recent transport project audited by the Public Accounts Committee in December started off with a cost budget of £55 million and projected gross savings of £112 million ie a net benefit to the taxpayer of £57 million. Three years later the project costs more than doubled to £121 Million and the benefits fell by a similar ratio to £40 million. The net liability of this "efficiency saving" is over £80 million- on a project that should only have cost £55 million in the first place.

The only thing you can be sure of when the chancellor speaks is that no-one believes the numbers will actually mean anything in practice because there is neither the will nor ability in this administration to deliver anything on budget or on time.

The only credible cost saving is to get rid of this administration as quickly as possible

I have been a Production Manager in manufacturing for 20 years and the only way we have stayed in business is by embracing technology and more importantly reducing costs both in efficiency savings and in real budget cuts.
So where is the waste that could be cut?
1 - I have a child at school, the amount of waste that is so obvious even to someone not within the school is staggering. Education education education, has become spend spend spend.
2 - I have contacts that work on a major PFI scheme in the health sector. On many occasions they have attended meetings where the Health department representative has failed to turn up and the meeting has to be rescheduled, but the costs of the original meeting is fully paid for including the costs of the consultants (not cheap).
3 - Government purchasing policy? Olympics, Health computer scheme...any computer scheme!!! Completely unrealistic costings and lack of control during the implimentation leading to massive overspend.
4 - And then there's the cost of Government itself, need to discuss further? I guess not.
So Gordon the question is what happened to Prudence then? I guess it's in the same place as the promise to be whiter than white...and that's been in the gutter for many years.

Whichever way you spin it, £15 billion of efficiency gains is going to be somewhere around £15 billion of job cuts because the low-hanging efficiency gains have already been identified. At an average employee annual cost of £40k all in, thats more or less 400,000 jobs going in 2010/2011. We should revise 2011 peak unemployment up from 3.2 million to 3.6 million. And in any case, if the government was run as a business the first thing an investor would be asking is why they're not finding ways of cutting costs faster and quicker because if global markets take a turn this year, there'll be nowhere to borrow £150bn+ from.

Phoenixarisenq 34

I think there is a lot truth in the things you are saying here. I too feel a little jaded myself, as though nothing we the public say or do will change a thing. The Government will not even consider doing the right thing for the country or tackle the growing problems. So we will limp along for another year without the necessary reforms.

In this budget we will see any money saved by cuts, if there is any which I doubt, not used for paying down Government debt, but for worthless schemes to fool the public. All in order to keep this Government in for another term. Power certainly corrupts. You would think the decent people in the Labour Party would start to revolt a little bit to save our country from disaster. 15 billion of cuts will not even touch the amount we owe as a country, and as I have said I do not think it will be spent on reducing debt. The Government debt will continue to rise through increased unemployment and useless schemes introduced by this Government, debt stored up for future generations to pay for.

Sagamix is also right when he says unless we are prepared to deal with the big issues like the NHS then we may as well just shut up about public sector reform and accept we will go bankrupt.

Taxation is already high in Britain for business and indiviuals, with direct and stealth taxation and although the Government would like people to think that the burden of this Government debt will be paid for by the rich 10% of this country, this will be peanuts for the amount we need. Business and the rich will move abroad anyway to lower taxation countries of which there are now many.

Its deep cuts in the public sector that we need but Labour will not do this, indeed they have had 12 years to deal with our bloated public sector. In the meantime our private sector is shrinking and more and more people are depending on this small amount of taxpayers for their existence. A frightening prospect.

It is not Brown who will pay for his 12 years of profligacy, he will most probably retire with a good pension, become a Lord and write books on how he saved the world, it is the ordinary people of this country. These same ordinary people who will be made to pay, do not even have the power in their hands to be able to get rid of a failing Government. There is obviously no power to the people in this country, why can we not hold these leaders and others to account?

At last, clear air between the parties. I have seen the light. When the opposition parties raise the subject of cuts; hospitals will be closed and the three policeman who actually patrol the streets of Britain will be sacked.

When labour announces cuts, none of the frontline services will be affected.

Phew, what a relief.

And as Grimm liked to end .. "and they all lived happily ever after"

Labour must think we are all daft.

Saga,

I'm in agreement (in part) with you here. Governments will allways waste large sums of money - it is the nature of the beast, and I can't see this changing any time soon

There are areas where savings can be made though. You must admit that there are a large number of non-jobs that could go without affecting front line services. How many needless quangos and think tanks are paid for from the public purse?

Certainly some money can be saved with an efficiency drive but we need to be honest here: Cuts will have to be made, it's as simple as that

I do agree that the NHS is by far the most wastefull department that uses public cash. I'm not talking about front line troops here (dotctors, nurses etc) but the endless middle management and beaurocracy that abounds in the NHS, making it nigh on impossible to actually get anything done in a reasonable time frame

No political party wants to admit this though - you are correct in that. We need a leader who will stand up and tell us what we don't want to hear. Someone who will just get on with the job in hand - regardless

We don't have one of those at them moment though. And the competition doesn't look all that good either

"There is a lot of money and a lot of people's jobs that exist between those two extremes. "

Nick that is the sort of comment to be expected from someone who has never had to work at the sharp end. In particular, of someone who has never had to worry about having the money at the end of the month to pay staff wages - a problem many owners of businesses are having to face just now.

In the nearest city to where I live there are three blue-chip companies each of which has had wave after wave of efficiency savings, or cost cutting if you prefer, over the past couple of decades. They instigated those savings to remain competitive and to ensure that they could offer their products/services at a price their customers are able to pay. Yes, it was tough and some people lost their jobs but the companies concerned survived and have money available to invest for the future.

Unfortunately, in the public sector, the same "brakes" do not apply. There it is not a question of ensuring products/services can be supplied at a price the "customers" can pay. Indeed it often seems to be a case of building empires and sending the bill to the "customers" [ie the taxpayers] no matter how steep they are.

If you want proof, look at some of the job titles of the public sector vacancies advertised in the Guardian. Then look at the vocabularly used to boost the esteem of the job holder [or more likely his/her boss] and, of course, push the salary up to match.

It really is time the public sector learned to cut coats according to the cloth. In other words, to provide the service we can afford. Once we have sorted that out we can begin to look at the horizon again - though let's hope there will then be slightly more balance between affordability and aspirations than there has been during NuLabour's time in office.

sagamix @50

I totally agree with you that it is time to slaughter the decrepit holy cow known as the NHS.

We should also remember that these touted 15 Billion 'cuts' are nothing of the kind. It is just a reduction in the rate of increased spending. As usual, politicians say one thing and mean another.

Frank Castle @24 has made some good suggestions on where to start with meaningful cuts (though I don't think he is radical enough ;-).

#59

You mean we have 3 policemen on the streets! Wow - you get spoiled in London :-)

I do half remember seeing a PCSO last year in Lancaster but it could have been a trick of the light. As for the mythical being that is a bobby on the beat......my grandad saw one once!

We need proper spending cuts. There's not much point in trying to find efficiencies, it usually costs more to find them than you save. We just need to take an axe to upcoming and ongoing projects, just cancel them and pay down debt. Then tell all departments they are getting a budget cut - no ifs or buts, just get on with the job for less

Identifying cost savings in the public sector is easy, implementing them far more difficult.

The simplest and biggest cut to make is to stop providing guaranteed final salary pensions to public sector workers, ie bring them into line with the bulk of the private sector where virtually all such schemes are closed to new entrants. Do the same now with the public sector. Given that current public sector schemes are not funded, but are simply paid out of current tax revenues, there's a large and growing saving versus currently anticipated costs of providing these pensions. Of course there is no chance of Brown/Darling doing this, given that they are evermore dependent on Union funding and public sector workers are just about the only people still remotely considering voting Labour in 2010.

If we want REAL public sector reform, we need a total political change. Remember that all politicians, including Conservatives, are part of the public sector that many of us wish to reform rather radically. Basically, we need to significantly reduce the influence of politicians if we want a radically smaller public sector. This requires a shift from representative to participatory democracy, something eminently possible in an era of multiple channels for disseminating ideas and stimulating discussion (eg BBC blogs, YouTube clips to name but two). Switzerland is a decent example of how a complex modern country can be run with less interference from a political class: weak central government, extensive devolution/delegation to local bodies, significant number of major decisions taken via national or local referenda.

The current political class (irrespective of party) won't take this route. How can electors force the issue? Only, I suggest, by mass abstention from voting. Any government will have no legitimacy if nobody has voted for it.

As an example of a major cahnge that we ought to be forcing through right now, how about hypothecation of all taxes, ie we decide how our tax gets allocated across departments/activities, not the Chancellor? The present system is a bit like walking into Tesco, handing over £100, and letting the store manager decide what to buy with it. Why can't taxpayers individually opt in or out of paying for various services? If we don't want to pay for a Police Force, for instance, that appears incapable of anything other than beating up people on the streets, then we don't pay for it. We can debate the possible risks, and make informed decisons about how to spend our money. The system becomes far less open to abuse by lobbying groups.

OK, rant over. None of it will happen. We've allowed the slow systemic creep of big governement to overwhelm us to the point that it's probably impossible for us to reverse. However, I'm quite happy to acknowledge that I don't have any time or respect for any mainstream politician. They're all corrupt (eg all parties have abused the expenses regime). If I was still in the UK, I'd vote BNP in 2010, not because I agree with them. I'm totally opposed. Voting for them, though, would provide a major wake up call to the mainstream parties about just how out of touch with normal people they are.

Hi Nick and wellcome back

A good article/post, however Gordon Brown has form here. We are supposed to be in the middle of an efficiency drive to reduce civil servants.

The most apposite question would be , how has that gone?

Otherwise he will just churn out more spin and make a few more announcements......

Nick - they are same thing in reality.

Take the NHS. They will pretend the savings come from reducing bureaucrats but the reality is that if you take away an administrator without radical changes to procedures then it will just end with a clinician (usually a nurse) doing the paperwork. At a later point they will re-employ a bureaucrat, often the same person, perhaps under a different job title.

Real savings? Just abolish structures like 'Strategic Health Authorities' or the 'Care Quality Commission' etc. Millions of pounds spent on organisations that don't treat a single patient. You could just shut them tomorrow and most NHS staff would applaud. Nothing would stop working. Give the money direct from the government to hospitals/clinics/surgeries and let the clinicians get on with their jobs.

But that takes radical changes to structures, not just demands to save a few percent by 'efficiency'

#24 Frank-Castle

All good ideas but I'd like to add that we should get rid of special advisers either that or get rid of the politicians.... surely you still only need one brain to be a politician.

One problem with cutting wages is that in the case of the inland revenue, they'll go to the private sector and help them formulate clever tax avoidance strategies potentially denying the Treasury billions.

Trouble is everyone wants to look at this as simply a public sector issue, however, it's essential to approach public/private as connected otherwise it's a catch 22.

Sounds like someone has leaked another budget secret. A leak from HM Treasury is clearly very significant and important (remember a certain G Brown made a career boasting about the info he was being leaked before 1997?). In such circumstances, where information from the heart of government is being bandied around by the press, surely the Met should be striding in, searching houses, offices, computers and taking some names? Surely Ministers and their advsiers will be livid that such secret information is in the public domain? Why the silence?

Hi Nick,
I'm intrigued to know why and when the traditional ban on discussing the budget was abandoned? It used to be that nobody but the Chancellor, and his trusted team of budget trolls, knew what was in it. This was certainly true when El Gordo was in charge. Now we have the Beeb, and others, confidently stating what will be announced. We also have the Libbie Dems announcing their budget proposals in advance. What they gonna do when they get their turn at the end of the news on Friday? They've shot their bolt.

OK, so we all know that El Gordo is still calling the shots, and he's used up all his ammo, and creepy Mandelson is all over the place giving us his wonky grin and telling us to be upbeat, but isn't it a bit unedifying to hear of cuts (or efficiency savings) being openly planned and El Gordo is still exhorting us to spend (sorry, invest) our way out of recession. Obviously he's still got an unused platinum credit card somewhere, otherwise where does he expect to find the money?

Roll over and give the others a chance to get us out of the mire you've got us in Gordie.

I can't help thinking of the Marks and Spencer Food adverts.

"This is not a cut this is a New Labour efficiency saving exercise".

As others have pointed out New Labour gave the impression the NHS would collapse if the Tories made efficiency savings, so either they have been lying to us all along (which I think most of us will believe is likely) OR the NHS really will collapse.

Be interesting to see what happens, although at present it seems like New Labour have borrowed another idea from the Tories.

The trouble with politicians is that most of them have not had to manage anything and when they get the chance to run dept's find themselves out of their depth.
They ask the civil servants and some highly paid personal advisers and nearly always manage to make the wrong decision. Whether it's a pet project they always wanted to realise or a headline grabber to make them look good, and the unbelievable corruption of New Labour is pretty barefaced to say the least.

A drastic reduction in the civil service would be worthwhile, look at the millions "soaked up" by the management that has been "introduced" to help make the NHS more "efficient", A good deal less looking over other's shoulders would be good too.

The country needs an entirely new direction, and New Labour needs sending into the wilderness for a few years to have a good hard think about the sub-standard job they've done in "running" the country for the last 12 years.

Efficiency savings - here we go again. I remember when Gershon came up with his last batch of gubbins - oh how the Council Directors of Finance laughed. One wise man said "it's not as if we have a barrow load of cash to spend every year - we'll just go over how we balanced the budget, write it down, and call it efficiency".
I worked at a local authority that made the 3 year target in the first year, and they didn't change a thing from the previous year. In fact, I would argue that the Gershon review cost money. Here's why:

1. As soon it was announced, all of NL's management consultancy pals came up with high falluting programmes that cost the earth and delivered nothing.
2. The Audit Commission introduced a Use of Resources inspection that they charged Councils for doing - get rid of this and the country wil1 save millions - top rated Councils investing in Icelandic banks?. In fact get rid of the whole inspection system - Haringey showed it doesn't work and it will save billions.
3. All back office IT systems are subject to contracts which cannot be easily broken, and it costs millions to implement ERP systems. The government track record on this is appalling.
4. One of the mainstays of efficiency - call centres - generates so much disatisfaction that savings never materialise as resource is directed to fixing failure demand.

As for the other stuff, its lunacy. What assets are you going to sell at the bottom of the market? Land for housing - don't make me laugh.

Its all games - like sending the civil service up north, and losing all those jobs. Didn't happen, never will happen.

Strategies, plans, targets...... what a mess!

#58 Susan-Croft

I agree with you that power corrupts, however, in the case of the budget, who is actually responsible for the mess we're in?

Yes, of course government mismanagement - it goes without saying. But what about the enormous private sector organisations that claim to serve us shareholders (directly and via our pensions), through the provision of goods and services and by employing us? These corrupt powers are totally unaccountable.

Unless this budget aims to tackle both public and private sector profligacy, we're going to hobble on in the same condition.

In a previous post I used the example that if you cap inland revenue pay, they go and work in the private sector developing clever tax avoidance methods that deny the Treasury billions and increase taxes for all of us - the whole system is a mess. We need to fix the public and private sectors if we're to move forward.

You refer to Sagamix talking about fixing the NHS and he's right. I am being treated for a serious illness and have to go hospital at least once a week (a flagship hospital where a government minister works) and it's a disaster area.

Apparently the NHS is good for hernias and heart attacks, simple cancers etc - easily targeted and easily treated conditions. Anything complicated requiring several senior consultants to work together, numerous surgerie and it's welcome to hell, keep your fingers crossed and you might survive. I am not exagerating.

Let's not beat about the bush: Big Government just does not work for the simple reason it is too big and too complex. It has become a home for fantasists, the self-deluded and beings from a parallel universe. Its only bearing on real life is parasitical.

The only useful function Big Government serves is to soak up all the available graduates with pointless degrees into employment so that they don't clutter the more functional job market in the real economy. Even that purpose could be avoided by not funding the pointless degree courses in the first place.

We don't want just a spending review that clocks a billion off here and there. We need a complete change in the function and nature of government itself. The idea of public services run from Whitehall is just bonkers. Anyone who has run a service knows you can only be effective by being close to your client base and not located hundreds of miles away in an inaccessible office block.

National government needs to be small and focussed on protecting the country from external threats.

Local government should be there along with other public agencies including the voluntary and charitable sectors to facilitate and support local intiatives to improve public well-being in the general and specific sense.

Self-serving government which polishes egos, careers and incomes - which is most of what we have today - should be abolished and those made redundant should be provided with outdoor relief until they learn another more socially valued way of making a living.

Do all of this and we would save not just ten billion but hundreds of billions; if not a couple of trillion over time.

38 the-real-truth

"The problem with open source is the techies - people geeky enough to care about windows/microsoft are generally obsessed with nerdy internal details that make no difference to anyone other than the techie him/herself."

I think you're missing the point. Open source in this instance relates to the programming and documentation/specs of the system that the government procure, not the operating system that it runs on.

For example, they could use the asp (vbscript) language which anyone who works on the programs can read, in which case you can then pass the contract to anyone else once it's written. Whereas currently the government would allow the contractor to write it in a language like C and hold back the source code so that nobody else can ever work on it, and then hold the government to ransom over maintenance.

It's a technical point, but it's at the crux of why the government's PFI contracts are so hopeless. They could save billions purely by insisting on using open source. It's that kind of total lack of understanding of the subject in hand by the government side which makes PFI contracts so horrifically bad for the tax payer; the government simply doesn't employ anyone who knows what they're doing to go through the contracts.

The contractors should be told "open source/documents, otherwise no contracts and we'll go somewhere else", but instead they're told "yes; no problem; you can keep everything we're paying you for and hold us to ransom over it going forwards."

In this case "open source" only means that it's open in relation to whoever the government wants to give the contract to (ie it's only "open" to the relevant people), rather than globally open source.

Surely with the realisation of all the posts above all of which make sense in so many ways, there must be the chance for a political party to tap into this and offer two manifesto promises only. First to be open as honest with the electorate that has deemed the these representatives worthy of running the country in which we live. Secondly to achieve value for money for the tax revenue generated by the same electorate.
Not too much to ask for as far as I'm concerned, and if none of the current parties can offer this then there must be room for one that does.
Is there a Government grant available to start up a new political party available?

How come so much of the Budget's contents has reached the media this year? Has the media not reported anyone being arrested?

Or is it a case of the irregular verb:

I brief the media
You leak to journalists
He/she should be arrested

Let's get this straight.

The latest leaked (maybe this should be 'whattheyaretellingustheywillbesaying'news'@bbc.co.uk) big budget idea is to accommodate the growing population being encouraged (how is that working out, as one doubts these folk will consume much less) is... build more council homes. Concrete. Driveways. Water for washing cars and running off to drains. Lots of extra A+, but still energy sucking devices. And as a bit of free feedback to help that multimillion ? research, I suspects bees don't thrive when the greenery is paved over. Just a thought.

It's many things (lots of lovely voters). But let's give up any pretence of it being green. And remind me, what are the fuel consequences of grinding around all (school zones for sure worthy) urban areas at 20mph? Not a problem for 'leccy motors, but then they still need washing, sadly.

I am all for efficiencies now being at the core of any waste-reduction effort, but it all does rather beg the question, and not for the first time, what the heck has been going on for the last decade? Spend, spend... spend seems to have led to bust, bust, bust, and the market rate GOATs have only now twigged and are seeking to get the public to swallow picking up their tab.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

#50 Sagamix

No, health spending is NOT 'by far the biggest' spending department. 'Social Welfare' eats up nearly as much as Health and education TOGETHER. Although I agree that how health care is provided in future needs an OPEN discussion - private, public, etc.

But the Government has billions it could cut immediately and I would guess no one would notice any difference.

Trident
ID cards
A whole host of computer systems that will costs billions and never work
Bogus 'charities' that are run on political lines
Quango's by the hundred
Child Trust Funds

And the tax and benefits system needs complete and utter overhaul. The personal tax system is ininquitous. Paying NI and income tax at over 30% on income over £130 per week is completely and utterly bonkers. And until you have a fair income tax system that makes working worthwhile for the low paid, you cannot change the benefits sytem.

And don't start me on the benefits system. It's a cancer that is destroying the host.

Will Darling do anything about it? Do pigs fly?

Re 64 and others on the question of public sector final salary pension schemes.

Restricting such rights would undoubtedly be a good thing but I have a strong suspicion that it would, in the short term, be expensive and simply add to the Government's borrowing.

I believe that future public sector pensions are unfunded, except to the extent of the small employee contributions - they are paid out of current taxation. Ceasing final salary scheme for new entrants or stopping the accrual of new rights would have to be linked to the introduction of a defined contribution scheme, with cash being paid in by both employer and employee. Any cash contribution from the employer would be larger than is currently the case, hence it would be expensive in the short term and an increase to borrowing.

Obviously in the longer term there will be a saving - but this gets to the heart of the Government borrowing spin - companies have to record and account for their unfunded pension liabilities whereas the government is able to ignore them. The public sector unfunded pension liability should be a part of the national debt.

How come so much of the Budget's contents has reached the media this year? Has the media not reported anyone being arrested?
***********************************************************

Since when has this been the case?
I can always remember details of proposed legislation, budgets etc, being reported on before the actual announcement.

It's nice to see someone has some scruples left. Sadly enough though most of the stuff that "leaks" out is disinformation, sounding out the electorate or just part of govt strategy.

extremesense 73

I am sorry to hear about your condition and I know you are not exaggerating, because my father was seriously ill in hospital not so long ago, and the level of care was awful.

I agree about the private sector, but these are the very people that Labour Government has been happy to be in bed with for 12 years. However I do not believe this is our immediate problem at the moment. We have spent over the last 12 years to a level that is unsustainable. Our debt was far too high even before the banking problems. Not only Government debt but personal debt. The public sector has been allowed to grow to unpresidented levels and is still growing. The burden of public sector pensions eats up a large proportion of our taxpayer money and should have been reformed years ago. What will anger many in the private sector is if once more the Government decides to raid private sector pensions. I can tell you although I earn a good wage, I put in long hours and am under pressure all the time to prove myself in the private sector. Your performance level is what keeps you in your job, so it is very annoying to see the public sector being able to award themselves huge bonus payments and pay for poor performance. I know top bankers did this but it is not the norm in the private sector, I can assure you. On top of that they receive a ring fenced pension which adds considerably to their salary as people in the private sector provide their own in most cases.

We either re-balance our economy by cutting the public sector and shifting the emphasis back into real jobs in the private sector, which will be difficult I know, or we sink, to me it is as simple as that. Continually taxing the private sector and business is no good. High taxation countries do not encourage business.

The other problem is immigration, we have flooded this country with unskilled workers, instead of getting our own back to work, unless we address this problem and quickly, this is a further burden on our taxpayers as unemployment rises.

Over the last 12 years plus we had substantial growth in our economy which could have been used to create business, enterprise and education to get our people back to work. Instead it has been used to enlarge the state increase handouts and dumb down education to keep votes for Labour. Unpalatable and unpopular as it may be to say, I will say it anyway.

Nick, a question:

Is a new top 45% tax rate change really going to raise 1.6bn p.a.?

Up the rate for 150k+ and you'll find the numbers affected decreasing rapidly.

Gordon's options for keeping his career afloat are now almost non-existent.

A hole the size of over ?2 trillion national debt (est.) will be hard to plug.

So, where's the journalism? If this is really an efficiency saving then doesn't that imply that we've been wasting 15 billion a year for over a decade? Where's the awkward questions? Or is it really 15 billion (or 10 billions plus 5 billion)? Surely by now we all know that you can't trust a Labour number until you've checked the small print? Is it (as would usually be inferred) this amount per year? Or is it spread over 5 years so actually only a 3 billion annual economy? Or is it a saving already announced last year which they're counting twice (again)? Or is it maybe being taken from a future planned rise in spending so this "reduction" is actually just a smaller increase? Will it take effect now, or is it deferred so nothing will happen until long after they're (hopefully) out of power?

Let's see a little journalism here please - the truth may be the only form of being economical that Labour understand, but that's no reason to let them keep getting away with it.

I echo the remark by MarkJBaker (Post #10).

Everyone should read "Systems thinking in the public sector" by John Seddon, and his other book "Freedom from Command and Control" to understand why Government targets and not only not helping, they are actually DAMAGING.

I fear that attempts to "Save" money will lead to more of the same and do even more damage.

And it is not just in Government. I have consulted for years in private industry and have seen as much (if not more, in some cases) waste there.

My latest role, in a local authority, gave me hope that things can be different. We have seen the start of a business led rather than a centrally imposed improvement process which I hope will bear fruit.

Sadly, as someone else has said, starting improvements and saving money does take investment, which is not there. There is no budget to pay for my time (although my client hopes to get me back to do some specific work).

Until the Government gets rid of its obsession with Targets and Command and Control Management, I fear the savings, which are there in abundance, will not emerge

Oh, and like the idea of a Maximum Wage for Government employment. £100k does indeed sound like a nice round number (pro rata'd down for part timers, of course). Oh and including second-home allowances too...

And those who say they could get more elsewhere, let them. I'm sure there's no shortage of applicants for £100k jobs!

sceptic @ 62

oh no! ... I'll have to stop posting that sort of thing, Max, if you're going to go around agreeing with me

What a bunch of cuts!

extreme sense @ 67

yes that's an important point you make - waste is by no means just a Public Sector problem, the waste in the Private Sector can be breathtaking too - and the impact is the same - if someone is taking out more in remuneration than the value they're adding, they make the rest us poorer - it's just that it's an easier and more direct thing to visualise if it's public sector (which is funded from the tax take)

the bankers are a particularly toxic example of waste (or negative wealth creation) in the private sector, as are the millions of Middle Managers pushing paper around - wouldn't make a blind bit of difference if they weren't there - at work I mean ... their families would miss them, obviously

btw, the main reason I highlight the NHS as a must for cutbacks (if we really DO want to save public money) is because it annoys me that it's seen as some sort of taboo - like it's a protected species or something - the same reason, in other words, that I like to criticise Steven Gerrard from time to time

sc @ 83

and dumb down education to keep votes for Labour

er, hang on Susan ... wrong way round ... education being dumbed down would surely create an army of new Clowns

No 93 - Susan-Croft

As before, I respect your views, with the possible exception of the penultimate sentence. Would you have us believe that state handouts and "dumbing down" of education cause people to vote Labour. I'd be interested in your methodology. Certainly I believe it is generally accepted in the polling industry that those of the Shameless genre are the least likely to get off their backsides and vote for anybody.

Your hopes for "real jobs in the private sector" may also be optimistic. The role of the private sector this past quarter century has been less than glorious. Let us cast our minds back to their takeove of state-owned (and therefore not particularly efficient)electric, gas and phone companies. Many "real jobs" - granted, many being performed in a not particularly efficient manner - were lost rather than gained. Ultimately the private sector depends on profit, otherwise it doesn't survive, but a significant means of achieving that profitability is by minimizing payroll. Recent history suggest that a more likely outcome of private sector involvement is redundancies, outsourcing and offshoring, not "real" jobs.

It only takes power, not genius, to go into an organization - public or private - and wipe out a quarter of the workforce while scaring the remaining three quarters to work harder. Morally questionable but operationally sound. However once the hatchet man has taken his obscene bonus, paid his consultants and replaced some of those he got rid of with agency staff at a huge markup then the figures look less rosy. In fact when some of the agency staff are taking back their old jobs while pocketing the redundancy and in many case drawing their company pension as well it's plain daft. Little wonder some of the pension funds are struggling.

Like you, I'd like to see a happy, well-ordered society with decent jobs but I don't see immediate salvation coming from the private sector. Even the much-praised but profit-sensitive hospitality industry will hire school-kids if it can get away with it.

91. At 11:53am on 21 Apr 2009, sagamix wrote:
sc @ 83

and dumb down education to keep votes for Labour

er, hang on Susan ... wrong way round ... education being dumbed down would surely create an army of new Clowns

================================================

Sorry Saga, but that is just utter garbage.

The 'uneducated' of the UK who sit at home and watch Jeremy Kyle while cashing in their giros are (with the public sector) probably the only people who keep labour in power, simply because Labour pays them so well.

Those of us who actually generate any kind of wealth knows how little the current government respects us.

If the Government could abolish greed then and only then will cuts and savings be possible. Until that day comes, at about the same time that hell freezes over all we will have is talk and fiddling around the edges.

"sagamix wrote:
sc @ 83

and dumb down education to keep votes for Labour

er, hang on Susan ... wrong way round ... education being dumbed down would surely create an army of new Clowns"

So dumbing down education would not onlt make new Labour voters (or should that be new "New Labour" voters) but also new Labour MPs?

I think that on basis that education is one of the areas which we really can't afford to make cuts.

so... we need to find 15 Billion.

Let's see...
ID Cards - that's about 5 Billions worth.
Trident - that's 20 Billion all on it's own.

There we go!

Job done and 10 billion pounds in loose change in the back pocket.

So why do I have a sinking feeling that we won't see these expensive boondongles (that most of us don't want anyway) dropped, but instead see ordinary working people losing their jobs instead...

If local councils are obliged to report the annual actual and forecast expenditures when they send out the bills for council tax, in great detail why cannot HMG Treasury also do so? Nope all we get is smoke and mirrors, and that after much obfuscation. We deserve better!

How on earth can there be informed debate when we are not allowed to see the entire picture? Oh sorry, I forgot we the electorate are too stupid to understand and cannot be trusted anyway.

"Ian Lowe wrote:
So why do I have a sinking feeling that we won't see these expensive boondongles (that most of us don't want anyway) dropped, but instead see ordinary working people losing their jobs instead..."

If the government make cuts in the public sector then it can be argued that "working" people won't be losing their jobs!

As the old joke goes:
"How many people work in the civil service?"
"Few of them"

#83 Susan-Croft

Yes, this and the last government have been overly pro-corporate with this government really going far too far. The idea of being so close to big business is a neoliberal one which essential views business as the breadwinner/provider - who they're winning 'bread' for is another issue.

Yes, government spending, with hindsight, has been far too high and one of the main effects for us now is that we'll really feel the pinch. Consumer spending goes without so and obviously the two were inextricably linked.

As you suggest, public v private sector remuneration is always going to be at conflict - in good times public sector employees resent private sector remuneration and vice versa in bad times. I think this is why the state pension should be compulsory for all.

I think the point you make about simply cutting the public sector and focussing on the private is narrow. For example, if we make further cuts to inland revenue who is going to collect our tax? Who is going to ensure that large companies and the rich don't employ those laid off to avoid paying tax - it would cost us billions.

Exactly what part of the private sector do you suggest cutting? Where are we overweight?

Public sector cuts normally just equate to a transference of manpower to the private sector and it ends-up more expensive. In part because those companies won't employ the public sector workers as a result of negative perception - the expertise is then lost. The private sector is no better at running the public sector.

You talk about immigration, surely the Borders agency would be a target for job cuts or are they special?

I could go on.

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