‘Efficiency savings’ in the private sector have always meant job losses, and they mean exactly the same now in the public sector – Darling just hasn’t got the guts to admit it.

Making government more efficient and cost effective is a good thing, why on Earth would anyone oppose it? Obviously, the people whose jobs are at risk would be against it, but that’s no more than naked self-interest on their part – turkeys voting against Christmas.

Cheaper to have a few thousand more people on JSA than being paid more to change the copy toner. And less government debt will mean a faster recovery and more real jobs in the future.

“Making government more efficient and cost effective is a good thing, why on Earth would anyone oppose it?”

You forget that, for certain people, the idea of the government doing more with less money is almost as terrifying as the idea of it doing more with more money. Or, in other words, ‘efficient’ is a euphemism for ‘smaller’.

Just a reminder that the scale of the savings (which are to be made across the public sector, not just in the Civil Service) equate to 600,000 job losses or 10% of the public sector payroll.

I suspect the only people that will believe people are being paid solely to change the copy toner will be the people who already believed it anyway.

I don’t have any objection to genuine efficiency savings. The problem is the phrase tends to mean cuts to services that leave remaining staff unable to do their jobs properly because of increased workload.

Remind me of the results of under-staffing in social services, or in Staffordshire Hospital again, someone.

The Treasury will establish a “value for money review group”; each department will have a minister responsible for “championing value for money”; there will be operational reviews, systems reviews and six-monthly asset management and sales reviews.

Christ, that sounds expensive……..

Printers – sounds stupid doesn’t it? (especially, perhaps if you work in a small organisation).

We had a system where we did it ourselves team by team, but now we have two people who do the lot. That’s two people servicing 80 printers – which is more efficient than untrained/incompetent people a) wasting time trying to service them or b) breaking them and incurring a call out charge…

Nick:

Cheaper to have a few thousand more people on JSA than being paid more to change the copy toner. And less government debt will mean a faster recovery and more real jobs in the future.

Hmmm…reminds me of what happened in the 1980s: better to have three million people the Tories could scapegoat as dole cheats (or could make disappear by fiddling the figures), than pursue full employment.

It looks like the argument will now shift to what gets the chop, and when

Here’s a suggestion.

As a small businessman I am bombarded with help, support and advice from various Government agencies. It is all a complete waste of time, money and energy.

The point about people who start small businesses is that they are generally fairly independent and resourceful individuals who, if they need help, are capable of finding the best person to give that information or advice.

Further. they recognise that, in most cases, the public servants clogging up the DTI, the Regional Development Authorities and the Local Authority Business Development Departments have either no experience in the private sector or are working in the public sector because they, themselves, have failed to be successful in business.

So how valuable is their support likely to be?

Chop the lot. Now.

Nobody would notice.

“better to have three million people the Tories could scapegoat as dole cheats (or could make disappear by fiddling the figures), than pursue full employment.”

Pursue full employment by all means, just not in the public sector. Non-jobs paid for by making everyone else poorer are a problem not a solution.

tim f #6

Correct. I once worked for a (now defunct) large American computer company. In their large open plan offices, they had very whizzy high-speed printers that could print both sides, collate etc.etc.

They had a couple of guys whose sole job was to keep these printers going, filling them with ink, paper, unjamming, fixing printer communication and so on.

It was fairly obvious, even whilst I worked there, that the company was going down the tubes. So, as a cost saving effort, the company got rid of the printer guys. Now we had to refill the printer paper ourselves. As it was a bit of a walk to the printer, it rarely got filled with paper anymore, especially as there would be a dozen jobs queued ahead of yours and you’d have to wait 20-30 minutes for your printout to appear. You were filling the printer up for those other ‘lazy bastards’ who couldn’t be bothered.

So, requests for local printers began to be made. These were smaller and cheaper. They could not print both sides of the paper. More paper began to be used, the ink was more expensive too as it was in smaller containers. The system guys had more work to do because there were more printers to attach, more print queues to maintain, more calls to take when the printer failed. All in all, it ended up costing more…

I doubt whether this initiative will save much despite what ministers will say. I’ve seen how horrendously inefficient our government departments are having worked for the DWP and suffered immigration depts for my (then non-EU) partner to be able to live and work here.

Compared to the continent (Germany, Switzerland and Holland in my visa/id card experience), our departments are positively mediaeval – and it’s not the fault of the front line staff. From an efficiency point of view, the government could do worse than get in an experienced German or Swiss manager to run the show…

Of course there are efficiency savings possible. That’s how productivity goes up, that we become over time more efficient in our use of labour to perform tasks.

However, anyone who is actually serious about cutting the cost of government would have to go rather further than that. They’d need to to cut the things that government does.

Say, the unelected regional assemblies, the dept for Business, some of the siller quangoes and so on. Take a few tens of billions off the top, pour encourager les autres, if nothing else.

It isn’t as if we get anything useful from these arms of government, is it?

It’s a crass generalisation to say “that’s how productivity goes up”. Sometimes it’s how productivity goes up. Sometimes productivity goes up through technological advancement or through exploiting workforces to a greater extent (including those overseas). Of course, you can characterise any of these things as efficiency savings, but that’s not the sense in which the term is used politically by any mainstream party.

Oh yes, I remember at an office I was working at, we were fending off calls from “Train to Gain” or something that were bordering on being nuisance or harrasment (I was told I would be in trouble with my manager later if I didn’t put them through to them). The callers must have had a weird target or something as they sounded pretty agitated to tell my bosses how they should be training their staff. So I’d say cut that right out.

In general, agreed. We want less unemployment, but we need it in productive gainful work, rather than make-work projects. One condition of achieving that is not going bankrupt.

“It’s a crass generalisation to say “that’s how productivity goes up”.”

Umm,. no, it ain’t.

“That’s how productivity goes up, that we become over time more efficient in our use of labour to perform tasks.”

With the proviso that we’re talking about labour productivity (which is the important thing that determines living standards and is thus the thing we are concerned about) that’s actually the definition, not a crass generalisation.