Would you want my job cut?

carolt

bendix wrote: »

carolt wrote: »

Apples and oranges pal. Apples and oranges. Even Sir H, to his credit sees that.

I - frankly - don't care what the public sector pays its external lawyers. I don't WANT them or force them to pay a private law firm's rates - they choose to do that of their own free will. They make those choices; other choices would be to hire their own lawyers and put them on the payroll.

I would like to think the public sector managers are savvy enough to work out what is best for the public purse - use high cost law firms now and again, or hire cheaper internal resources fulltime - but that's up to them.

Here is the crux of it. Noone forces them to pay Slaughter and May rates. Noone sticks a gun to their heads. They can simply make their own arrangements. I assume they chose to pay because they perceive value somewhere.

Again, it's market forces.

But to do what you are suggesting and FORCING private companies to lower rates solely because the government wants them to is plain daft. And workable. What are you going to do - make them work at gunpoint? Dont the law firms have the right to refuse your lower terms?

Utter nonsense.

Can you not see thew total lack of logic in your post above?

So you're happy to trust civil servants when they spend taxpayers' money on private sector lawyers, and assume that it's in taxpayers' best interests to do so - but when they employ civil servants like Sir Humph, you automatically assume it's a waste of money - even though he's far cheaper.

As far as I'm concerned, the spending of public money should be tightly controlled, whether it's paying for civil servants or outside consultants at several times the cost - that's what bodies like the National Audit Office are supposed to do. (Yet more civil servants, though.... ).

I would totally agree with you that there is plenty of taxpayers' money being wasted - where I'd disagree with you is where we think the chief areas of waste are.

Private Eye's successful campaign against the ex-head of the NAO was absolutely shocking - that level of gravy train at the highest reaches is appalling.

But I don't think the problem is with the Sir Humphs of this world - it's the real (ie Yes Minister original!) Sir Humphreys, leant on heavily by dodgy politicians, aiding their cronies in the banks, minor oligarchs etc etc etc that are the real problem.

To blame our little Sir Humph is just buck-passing and deeply unfair.

Generali

carolt wrote: »

To be fair, Generali, civil servants don't make decisions on priorities, or decide on levels of govt spending - ministers do. Elected officials - chosen by us.

We get the spending priorities (roughly, anyway) that we, the public, vote for.

Civil servants just implement whatever they're told to implement, to the best of their ability.

No point shooting the messenger - or the 'implementer' (sorry, there must be more elegant way of saying that). I'm sure lots of civil servants feel frustration at some of the nonsense they're asked to implement, but if you dislike the nonsense, then you need to (a) vote better and (b) persuade others to vote better.

Or take up lobbying.

I don't think Sir Humph did his own cause much good with the OP - his work may or may not be valuable, but the level of secrecy he employs (Official Secrets Act etc, say no more, say no more) makes it rather difficult to tell.

That said, I know plenty of very useful public servants and the odd bit of dead wood - much like any organisation, I'm afraid.

The real problem may be that the biggest dead wood is at the top of the tree - the pants ministers with pants ideas, which change as often as the ministers do, just so they can be seen to have been 'making their mark'.

You are right in theory of course. In practice however, most Government spending is done on the basis of what Civil Servants recommend. How much do you think Geoff Hoon* knows about the state of the roads in your local area for example?




*PS Hooning around is behaving like a hooligan, especially in a car - skidding and doing wheel spins and all that. Oh the irony!

carolt

Yes - but spending money repairing the roads isn't your gripe is it? Presumably you think that's money well-spent. (Well, maybe not - you live in Australia, so don't really care about our roads - but that's not really the point...)

The really big wastes of money aren't put forward by civil servants, who actually work in the area and know what they're talking about - they're devised by ministers and overpaid 'advisers' eg consultants, parachuted in over the heads of the civil servants who actually know the policy area well. They are the loons who come up with all the really stupid 'ego' projects - and the lowly civil servants are powerless to stop them.

kabayiri

carolt wrote: »

The really big wastes of money aren't put forward by civil servants, who actually work in the area and know what they're talking about - they're devised by ministers and overpaid 'advisers' eg consultants, parachuted in over the heads of the civil servants who actually know the policy area well. They are the loons who come up with all the really stupid 'ego' projects - and the lowly civil servants are powerless to stop them.

Absolutely, and doubly so in IT.

At best the government were easily seduced by the swish consultants promising much, but delivering little in reality.

Take Working Tax Credits :- 7.3bn overpayment since it's inception. Oh, and running costs 3 times what was originally predicted.

You can pay for a lot of Humphs/nurses/civil servant 'do-ers' with that.