Budget 2010: EU calls for faster UK deficit cuts

Sir_Humphrey

Kohoutek wrote: »

But it's not just an anecdote.

The ONS have calculated that public sector productivity declined by 3.4% from 1997 to 2007, and private sector productivity rose by 28%. And yet the average retirement age in the public sector is 58, compared with around 65 in the private sector. Average annual earnings and average annual wage increases are higher in the public sector.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6974029.ece

Surely rising wages with falling productivity is indicative of waste? Obviously it's an average across the whole public sector, but there must be some departments that are performing particularly badly to produce those productivity figures.

Well you could double the productivity of teachers by increasing class sizes to 60. Is that what you would want?

Kohoutek

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Well you could double the productivity of teachers by increasing class sizes to 60. Is that what you would want?

No, because that's a stupid, flippant statement.

The Department of Education is just one department within the public sector and teachers are not the only people employed in the Department of Education. Why would you target them?

If I was looking for areas to make productivity improvements, it would be by redundancies in non-frontline staff. Look at the National Audit Office's latest report on bureaucracy - they acknowledge at there is a lot of scope for reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and they even say that it is hampering the productivity of frontline staff.

Old_Slaphead

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Well you could double the productivity of teachers by increasing class sizes to 60. Is that what you would want?

That's a rather flippant answer.

Maybe some teachers could work after 3:00pm and take a few less holidays (that's after all the inset days, times off due to bad weather and all that stress leave).

Let's face it, althought the exam results show a superficial improvement, education standards have fallen alarmingly in the last few decades and it's not all down unruly kids.

Kohoutek

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Let's face it, althought the exam results show a superficial improvement, education standards have fallen alarmingly in the last few decades and it's not all down unruly kids.

Of course they have. I once compared the current GCSE science curriculum of a young relative to the one I did just over ten years ago, pretty scary stuff. Less hard science, more healthy eating, 'scientific ethics' and wishy-washy stuff about global warming.

I have some friends that work at universities, and they tell me that the amount of remedial work required for subjects like Maths and Physics increases every year.

The devaluation of hard subjects and the 'prizes for all' policies certainly explains the nominal increase in educational achievement by grades.

StevieJ

Kohoutek wrote: »

Of course they have. I once compared the current GCSE science curriculum of a young relative to the one I did just over ten years ago, pretty scary stuff. Less hard science, more healthy eating, 'scientific ethics' and wishy-washy stuff about global warming.

.

Actually I had you down for about 26/27 due to your name.

baileysbattlebus

StevieJ wrote: »

Actually I had you down for about 26/27 due to your name.

I thought he was a bit older (quite a lot) due to the name



Comet Kahoutek -

It must be an age thing.............

StevieJ

baileysbattlebus wrote: »

I thought he was a bit older (quite a lot) due to the name



Comet Kahoutek -

It must be an age thing.............

Either 27, (I gave him the benefit of the doubt) or 150,000, he would have been a rarity with the human race reduced to few thousand sharing the planet, spooky as that is what the doomers appear to be predicting now :eek:

Clues from genetics, archaeology and geology suggest our ancestors were nearly wiped out by one or more environmental catastrophes in the Late Pleistocene period. At one point, the numbers of modern humans living in the world may have dwindled to as few as 10,000 people.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/prehistoric_life/human/human_evolution/new_batch1.shtml

Butterfly_Brain

Cost to uk for staying in Europe is currently 6.4 billion pounds per year a rise of 2.3 billion! surely it is time we got out of Europe because the reckoning is that by 2013 it will probably cost a lot more . That would cut a big hole in the deficit so going by this average :
2010 6.4 billion
2011 8.7 billion
2012 11 billion
2013 12.3 billion
= 38.4 billion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8219344.stm

aelitaman

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Cost to uk for staying in Europe is currently 6.4 billion pounds per year a rise of 2.3 billion! surely it is time we got out of Europe because the reckoning is that by 2013 it will probably cost a lot more . That would cut a big hole in the deficit so going by this average :
2010 6.4 billion
2011 8.7 billion
2012 11 billion
2013 12.3 billion
= 38.4 billion

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8219344.stm

I am very surprised that no polititian has called the EU bluff and said "Right you EU lot you can do your bit, all EU staff to cut wages, expenses and pension rights by 20% cut EU commision pensioners pensions by 20% and save some money. We have just unilaterally cut the amount we are contributing to the EU by 30% to reduce our defiecit and get out borrowing down to less than 3% of GDP."

It seems that they tell all countries to cut spending whilst they think they can increase spending ad infinitum. Strange.

Emy1501

The Suns take on it reminded me of a fair few people I know. They compared the Uk to a person on 30K a year with 15k of credit card debt and continuing to borrow daily.

No wonder Labours ratings keep rising. I suspect a fair few of the adult population fits into to the Suns 30K type.