£15bn public sector 'efficiency savings'

Dylanwing

It's a fancy name for cutbacks. Anyone in the Public Sector could save billions by sacking all Management Consultants, no new PFI contracts, no fancy & expensive EDS computer systems, scrapping rubbish like ID cards and the ludicrously expensive road pricing, scrapping Quangos, and simplifying a lot of the rules. Where I work, the three biggest wastes apart from the above are-
1 - Ministerial indecision or headline grabbing, badly-thought out initiatives.
2 - The long chain of command - How many layers of management do we really need?
3 - Endless 'efficiency' schemes, and re-organisations that overlap, contradict, annoy and waste resources. If we could just stand still for a couple of years, we might be able to work more efficiently, and genuine inefficiencies might be highlighted.

beingjdc

The details are in the PDF at the bottom of this link. I'll refrain from comment, but here they are if you're curious.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/vfm_operational_efficiency.htm

1984ReturnsForReal_2

beingjdc wrote: »

The details are in the PDF at the bottom of this link. I'll refrain from comment, but here they are if you're curious.

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/vfm_operational_efficiency.htm

It looks like definate savings can be made on Pages 2, 6 & 8.




He has fallen at the first hurdle....


They are BLANK!!!

What a waste of paper!!

Plasticman

1984ReturnsForReal wrote: »

But seriously, if they could save £15bn, why the hell havent they done that before?

It's the usual 'efficiency' savings (i.e. savings which are not real).

They will talk about savings in Whitehall. In reality that means cuts to funding of central government departments which will just be passed on. We will see budget cuts for police, education, NHS etc. Whether that results in real efficiencies or just cuts in service will only be known over time. I suspect that it will be a mix of both.

Don't forget that this is only the first round of cuts. As soon as the economy starts to show signs of recovery the knives will be out and public sector funding will be slashed. Some public sector workers will lose their jobs, may seen their pension reduced or will have to work a bit harder. But who will really lose out? Almost certainly those of us who use public services. Maybe it's time to join BUPA and send the kids to a fee paying school if you can afford it.

ScoobyStew

Plasticman wrote: »

It's the usual 'efficiency' savings (i.e. savings which are not real).


Don't forget that this is only the first round of cuts. As soon as the economy starts to show signs of recovery the knives will be out and public sector funding will be slashed. Some public sector workers will lose their jobs, may seen their pension reduced or will have to work a bit harder. But who will really lose out? Almost certainly those of us who use public services. Maybe it's time to join BUPA and send the kids to a fee paying school if you can afford it.

try but if there are cut back everyone in the country you expect them there too. The thing is over the past few years millions of pound has been wasted on things that just aren't needed, just because they had the cash at the time, like 3000 pound office chairs at the MOD and crappy art projects that cost obscene amounts of money, which could and should have been spent where it was NEEDED rather than on luxuries.

molerat

The public sector does not know how to save money or be efficient. They are all justifying their own existence. My daughter works in a school and at the end of the FY was told by her boss to find something to spend £500 on otherwise it would be lost. Last year she was not refused anything she asked for, even frivolous purchases. Today I received a letter from a public dept. It was the same letter they gave me last week when I was in their office. 2 sheets of paper, envelope, 1st class postage and the time of someone to authorise and sign it. Multiply these by the millions of times they must be going on throughout the country.

tomterm8

You can go quite a long way simply by selling off the post office, the BBC, and the motorways... by removing the dual benefit rate whereby disabled people get more money than 'jobseekers'... and by restricting means tested job seekers allowance to 4 years maximum.

Sell of every single bit of social housing.

Beyond that, I think Crime should pay. That is, every single pence the criminal justice system costs us should be recouped from criminals, by a mixture of fines, forced labour (sold at competative rates to local firms), and if necessary by forcing Criminals to donate kidneys. We should run the criminal justice system as a profit making enterprise.

Old_Slaphead

molerat wrote: »

The public sector does not know how to save money or be efficient. They are all justifying their own existence. My daughter works in a school and at the end of the FY was told by her boss to find something to spend £500 on otherwise it would be lost. Last year she was not refused anything she asked for, even frivolous purchases. Today I received a letter from a public dept. It was the same letter they gave me last week when I was in their office. 2 sheets of paper, envelope, 1st class postage and the time of someone to authorise and sign it. Multiply these by the millions of times they must be going on throughout the country.

I've been told (by a budget holder) that in Local Authorities, if you don't spend you budget for the year, it gets reduced the following year. In Feb/March budget holders go crazy spending on anything simply to use up money so's not to lose out in the next year.

Wookster

tomterm8 wrote: »

You can go quite a long way simply by selling off the post office, the BBC, and the motorways... by removing the dual benefit rate whereby disabled people get more money than 'jobseekers'... and by restricting means tested job seekers allowance to 4 years maximum.

Definitely agree with this, though not the rest, especially the forced kidney donation bit :eek:

sammyjammy

The biggest problem with the Civil Service is the ridiculous hoops you have to jump through to sack someone, we should have an amnesty day where you can just get rid of poor performers or those that just don't do anything and think internet access and using the phone for personal use is a right of passage, in my team of 9 we could get rid of 33% just like that, its people like them that give CS a bad name. I have no doubt you could repeat that across the CS and still get the job done, probably even better as you can concentrate on your work without having to listen to their inconsequental babble all day long!!!

Sorry bad day.....