Do you think there is a lot of waste in the system?

The_White_Horse

ninky wrote: »

a bit of slacking is good for the soul imho.

typical public sector mentality. remember who pays you!!! slacking may be good for your soul but its bad for my wallet.

sack 50% of these leach cretins NOW!

The_White_Horse

simongregson wrote: »

There is a lot of waste in the private sector in my opinion. Where I work in the public sector I was refused a claim for a £1.80 sandwich on expenses when out of town and working until 9pm. 'No food' (the travel was paid, so it wasn't like I was just claiming a piddly amount at the same time.

When I was in the private sector, I was told I hadn't claimed enough wine in the hotel I was staying in on expenses and would make the rest of the staff look bad. It was £18 quid a pop, so I had one with a nice dinner on expenses the next day!!

It's not good to generalise I guess would be the message, there are efficient public sector and private sector organisations.

but no one cares if a private company is inefficient except the shareholders. they can spend on wine all they like. its no ones business but their own.

dacouch

avantra wrote: »

I can't help thinking that I never seen anything like it, I know it's the NHS and it is an important service but last week we were told that we MUST spend £300K on IT equipment by the end of March otherwise this money will be 'wasted' ie go back to the gov.

So without planning or long term thinking we are just buying buying and buying :eek:

We have containers of stuff that replace stuff that works fine and we never going to use.:mad: we can't spend it on anything else (training maybe or more professional staff) just hardware. mad

I see this type of thing day in day (and much much worse) out when we work on government contracts in Westminster, would love to tell more but rules are rules.

moggylover

I've worked in both and seen waste in both: probably more in the majority of large private companies where some management appear to be exceptionally good at building their own small "empires" within the Company.

I agree with ninky to some extent. I do not think that pared to the bone and overworked is either a good way to run a business, or a healthy one.
People do not work to the best of their abilities when constantly over-worked, over-tired or afraid for their job and any management system that uses these methods has to be ill educated and short sighted.

I think in judging the figures quoted for public sector sick days we would need to take into account that that will include such people as Social Services who are often badly over-stretched and stressed and almost certain to suffer ill health because of it, and who will from time to time also come up against threats to themselves which will not be easy to cope with.

moggylover

dacouch wrote: »

I see this type of thing day in day (and much much worse) out when we work on government contracts in Westminster, would love to tell more but rules are rules.

Actually, the worst waste I have ever seen is the "specialists" that get contracted in to Westminster and who somehow manage to make a £1M job cost £3M by preying on the lack of expertise of those around them. IT Companies being the absolute worst for this because it is such a jargon filled trade;)

ninky_2

The_White_Horse wrote: »

typical public sector mentality. remember who pays you!!! slacking may be good for your soul but its bad for my wallet.

sack 50% of these leach cretins NOW!

i'm self-employed. and most my contracts are for the private sector. and from the number of your posts on here you clearly don't have your nose to the grindstone either.

IveSeenTheLight

sjaypink wrote: »

The public sector is in transition. Any dept which is currently inefficient will not be so for much longer...

That is extremely optomistic and quite possibly niaive (no offence meant).

kabayiri

moggylover wrote: »

Actually, the worst waste I have ever seen is the "specialists" that get contracted in to Westminster and who somehow manage to make a £1M job cost £3M by preying on the lack of expertise of those around them. IT Companies being the absolute worst for this because it is such a jargon filled trade;)

This is their job though! To make money.

When government cashed in years back and sold off their IT operations to the likes of EDS, Fujitsu etc; did they really not expect it to come back and bite them on the a*se later on?

I quite agree that paying £550 per day for a so-so techy person isn't great value (thats an old figure, btw, prices may have gone up).

The answer is to have a balance of people inside and outside your organisation; and to somehow spread the workload to a wider range of suppliers, not just the big companies. It will take years to change though.

Do people here in the know think that there is a more relaxed attitude to spending the higher up you go in an organisation? (public or private). This might explain some of the largesses we come across.

moggylover

ninky wrote: »

i'm self-employed. and most my contracts are for the private sector. and from the number of your posts on here you clearly don't have your nose to the grindstone either.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

moggylover

kabayiri wrote: »

This is their job though! To make money.

When government cashed in years back and sold off their IT operations to the likes of EDS, Fujitsu etc; did they really not expect it to come back and bite them on the a*se later on?

I quite agree that paying £550 per day for a so-so techy person isn't great value (thats an old figure, btw, prices may have gone up).

The answer is to have a balance of people inside and outside your organisation; and to somehow spread the workload to a wider range of suppliers, not just the big companies. It will take years to change though.

Do people here in the know think that there is a more relaxed attitude to spending the higher up you go in an organisation? (public or private). This might explain some of the largesses we come across.

It may be their job to make money: if they leave their ethics behind whilst doing so then hopefully they won't have those businesses and jobs for very long;)

I have no objection to anyone making a profit from providing a service to the very best of their abilities and ensuring that the customer gets the very best they can afford and that it does what is needed of it. The sort of rip-offs the IT systems in Government have suffered from make it obvious that the service part has badly lost out to the money grabbing.

I certainly think that there are management out there that believe that spending cuts and wage freezes should only apply to those lower down the food chain than themselves. I have actually worked in departments where the cost saving achieved by cutting actual workers, and spending, have then been swallowed up by a wage rise for the manager perpetrating them whilst his department struggles to cope understaffed;) Again, this can happen in both the public and the private sector and is more about human nature than where the actual money comes from.