Darling ..... out of ideas. Bring them on.

Jimuth

Invade Iceland! Send the bailiffs in for our money in the form of the SAS. Final Demand letter in the shape of a Polaris missile!

chewmylegoff

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

People who soak up money and do not work are called the unemployed, dumbkoff.

i bet it would be cheaper to stick them on benefits than pay them stupid salaries for doing nothing. plus most of them would be able to find new jobs better suited to their skills such as working in macdonalds.

and also, on a more constructive note, a huge amount of waste is caused by the public sector employing temporary staff to cover what should be permanent positions. because they are not allowed to increase their headcount and their salary budget is capped, they use money out of different budgets to pay temps (much more) to do the job, or worse draft in professional staff in return for payment of a chargeout rate.

furthermore look at the way that contracts are negotiated and tendered (and the experience of the people employed to do it), resulting in huge overpayments. the lack of a proper financial control system resulting in costs being authorised by people at a low grade with a lack of understanding of what they are doing, the "use it or lose it" budgeting systems which encourage people to spend any surplus at the end of a financial year.

you don't have to actually make people redundant to make huge savings from the public sector. money is wasted hand over fist and no-one does anything to address it.

Sir_Humphrey

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i bet it would be cheaper to stick them on benefits than pay them stupid salaries for doing nothing. plus most of them would be able to find new jobs better suited to their skills such as working in macdonalds.

Actually look at public sector salaries (and not chief executives or finance managers whose salaries should be compared to CEOs and CFOs.) The Daily Mail and Daily Express printed "Jackson Pollocks" about house prices and print mostly "Jackson Pollocks" about everything else.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

and also, on a more constructive note, a huge amount of waste is caused by the public sector employing temporary staff to cover what should be permanent positions. because they are not allowed to increase their headcount and their salary budget is capped, they use money out of different budgets to pay temps (much more) to do the job, or worse draft in professional staff in return for payment of a chargeout rate.

This is a fair point. One of the reason that contractors are used is because normal public sector pay rates will not attract the people to the job. In my Department, we recently tried to recruit a statistician and had exactly no applicants. Again, the point about meeting headcounts is also true, but that again is to persuade the Daily Mail reading morons that you can have public services without the state actually employing people.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

furthermore look at the way that contracts are negotiated and tendered (and the experience of the people employed to do it), resulting in huge overpayments. the lack of a proper financial control system resulting in costs being authorised by people at a low grade with a lack of understanding of what they are doing, the "use it or lose it" budgeting systems which encourage people to spend any surplus at the end of a financial year..

For the first point, see above. For the second point, ALL organisational departments, public or private try to spend all their budget.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

you don't have to actually make people redundant to make huge savings from the public sector. money is wasted hand over fist and no-one does anything to address it.

This is because the public sector has been forced by the neoliberals to act this way - "to learn from the private sector :rolleyes:". You should not think that rank and file Civil Servants would work in a certain way out of choice. Now the neoliberal system is discredited, hopefully we can return to doing things in a more sensible way, without the Daily Hatemail moaning about nationalisation or statism.

zappahey

Jimuth wrote: »

Final Demand letter in the shape of a Polaris missile!

<in my usual pedantic mode>

You'll have a hard job finding one these days.

chewmylegoff

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Actually look at public sector salaries (and not chief executives or finance managers whose slaries should be compared to CEOs and CFOs.) The Daily Mail and Daily Express printed "Jackson Pollocks" about house prices and print mostly "Jackson Pollocks" about everything else.

i am an ex-civil servant so i have a fair idea of what people are paid and what jobs people are doing. where i was there were bundles of people earning 25-30k a year who just have no clue what they are doing. there is literally no way they could have ever earned that sort of money working outside the civil service.

case in point was my old department had the same number of staff as a private sector organisation i have worked for, but 8 times more people working in HR. if they had just forked out a bit more cash to attract qualified staff there could have been a huge cost saving. their hands were tied on this by the budgeting system.

there is also the fascinating concept of job sharing, which really needs to be stamped out. it is quite frankly the stupidest idea ever, because instead of having one person who knows what going on, you pay a bit more than employing one person to employ two people who are never in the office at the same time and haven't got a clue what the other is doing.

This is a fair point. One of the reason that contractors are used is because normal public sector pay rates will not attract the people to the job. In my Department, we recently tried to recruit a statistician and had exactly no applicants. Again, the point about meeting headcounts is also true, but that again is to persuade the Daily Mail reading morons that you can have public services without the state actually employing people.

i understand the point of difficulty employing experienced people to do technical jobs because of the low pay, but the way to deal with that is to reform the rigid payscale system and give local management the flexibility to pay what a job requires to attract applicants, not to waste money on temps, obviously this would require reform. with that flexibility they could actually pay people with proper experience to look after the money, rather than having the finance function being seem as pretty much the least important support role.

but temps are used extensively across the board and mainly at low levels in my experience. in my department we had temps overing about half of the low grade positions, they were all useless, didn't care and probably took home less than the permanent staff after the agency's 30% cut, but they cost more to employ. it would have been better for all concerned to have them on the payroll.

ALL organisational departments, public or private try to spend all their budget.

possibly, but that doesn't mean it's acceptable when taxpayers are funding the end of year splurge.

This is because the public sector has been forced by the neoliberals to act this way - "to learn from the private sector :rolleyes:". You should not think that rank and file Civil Servants would work in a certain way out of choice. Now the neoliberal system is discredited, hopefully we can return to doing things in a more sensible way, without the Daily Hatemail moaning about nationalisation or statism.

i really don't think the daily mail is to blame for the way that public sector budgets work. the government could easily reform the failings of the system, the press wouldn't have much to work with if it was clear how much money it would save, and how much taxes could be cut as a result.

MissMoneypenny

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i bet it would be cheaper to stick them on benefits than pay them stupid salaries for doing nothing. plus most of them would be able to find new jobs better suited to their skills such as working in macdonalds.

and also, on a more constructive note, a huge amount of waste is caused by the public sector employing temporary staff to cover what should be permanent positions. because they are not allowed to increase their headcount and their salary budget is capped, they use money out of different budgets to pay temps (much more) to do the job, or worse draft in professional staff in return for payment of a chargeout rate.

furthermore look at the way that contracts are negotiated and tendered (and the experience of the people employed to do it), resulting in huge overpayments. the lack of a proper financial control system resulting in costs being authorised by people at a low grade with a lack of understanding of what they are doing, the "use it or lose it" budgeting systems which encourage people to spend any surplus at the end of a financial year.

you don't have to actually make people redundant to make huge savings from the public sector. money is wasted hand over fist and no-one does anything to address it.

Looking at those payments to public sector "workers" who have received early pensions and payoffs for their bad backs, burn out and stress could save the country a bit too.

Sir_Humphrey

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i am an ex-civil servant so i have a fair idea of what people are paid and what jobs people are doing. where i was there were bundles of people earning 25-30k a year who just have no clue what they are doing. there is literally no way they could have ever earned that sort of money working outside the civil service.

case in point was my old department had the same number of staff as a private sector organisation i have worked for, but 8 times more people working in HR. if they had just forked out a bit more cash to attract qualified staff there could have been a huge cost saving. their hands were tied on this by the budgeting system.

there is also the fascinating concept of job sharing, which really needs to be stamped out. it is quite frankly the stupidest idea ever, because instead of having one person who knows what going on, you pay a bit more than employing one person to employ two people who are never in the office at the same time and haven't got a clue what the other is doing.

i understand the point of difficulty employing experienced people to do technical jobs because of the low pay, but the way to deal with that is to reform the rigid payscale system and give local management the flexibility to pay what a job requires to attract applicants, not to waste money on temps, obviously this would require reform. with that flexibility they could actually pay people with proper experience to look after the money, rather than having the finance function being seem as pretty much the least important support role.

but temps are used extensively across the board and mainly at low levels in my experience. in my department we had temps overing about half of the low grade positions, they were all useless, didn't care and probably took home less than the permanent staff after the agency's 30% cut, but they cost more to employ. it would have been better for all concerned to have them on the payroll.

Job sharing is not something I have had first hand experience of. Working in a stats/policy area, useless staff seem not to be an issue*. In fact, most people I have worked with have been very able and bright.

As for HR, there have been big cuts in HR in most government departments via shared services. I can say no more that it has been pretty disastrous. I think your view may be out of date now. I am not a fan of civil service HR.

Most of what you said above makes a lot of sense. I underestimated you earlier for which I apologise.

*Edit with the odd exception and compared to my previous private sector experience.

GDB2222

an agreement between lender and creditor countries running current account surpluses and borrowing and debtor countries running current account deficits to maintain an orderly financing of deficits and a recycling of the surpluses of creditors to avoid a disorderly adjustment of such imbalances.

At what point do the debtor countries (UK included) need to get round to not running a deficit long term?

WTF?_2

GDB2222 wrote: »

At what point do the debtor countries (UK included) need to get round to not running a deficit long term?

When people stop lending to them.

PasturesNew

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

This is a fair point. One of the reason that contractors are used is because normal public sector pay rates will not attract the people to the job.

The public sector has a reputation for employing friends/family of existing staff members first, then inhouse staff get a go. Other people are then next.

It has a reputation for jobs being spoken for when the adverts are put in the papers.

People with no connection to local government/whatever, no friends/family in there, will not even read their adverts because it is considered by many that the job's already spoken for and you're wasting your money and time (booking a valuable day off work for any interview), just to not be offered the job.

I don't even read their adverts.

Also, I've read many stories where the recruiting process is often long-winded and totally disproportionate to the role's importance.

If I were to see an advert in the paper I'd think: they have somebody lined up, it will go to an internal candidate, I will waste a day's holiday from work to get to an interview (and the cost of it), there will be at least a month before any interview (if desperately looking for work), there might be 2-3 interviews etc before being told I haven't got it as they recruited from within.