The side-effect of public cuts...

Turnbull2000

My previous firm - an architects in Newcastle - last week axed 60 members of staff, around half in total, in response to a halt in a number of public sector projects.

headcone

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

My previous firm - an architects in Newcastle - last week axed 60 members of staff, around half in total, in response to a halt in a number of public sector projects.

I hear what your saying and understand that the Tory frothers on here will ignore what economy really means.

Stand by to be attacked though.

Spartacus_Mills

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

My previous firm - an architects in Newcastle - last week axed 60 members of staff, around half in total, in response to a halt in a number of public sector projects.

That is very sad for all involved but for a company to be so dependant on one sector for its work is a reflection of poor management.

I don't doubt that the knock on effect of cuts to the public sector will also be felt in the private sector. That is inevitable. However we cannot blame those administering the medicine. The coalition are doing what is necessary. We have to blame the !!!!less Labour governments that preceded this one.

It is better to have people in work but where is the money to come from. You cannot raise taxes excessively to do it. That would sap demand from the economy as well.

Cuts are inevitable and are a consequence of the !!!!less Labour government.

ILW

marklv wrote: »

No, because a job is a job. It keeps a person off the streets, off the dole queue and doing something. You might question the value of such jobs, but they are still jobs.

So you think borrowing money to give to someone to do a job that is of no use to anybody is a good idea. probably OK if the country's accounts are in credit but plain crazy if the cash is not there and has to be borrowed from abroad.

carolt

michaels wrote: »

not really a real job - govt spends lots of money but finds it isn't really getting any benefit from doing so - I (plus colleagues) figure out how they can actually achieve what it was they hoped they would get by spending the money in the first place - I guess only a real job if you think what they wanted to acheive in the first place was worth the tax payers money it cost and the general consensus (which I share) is that a lot of what the govt has felt worthwhile of late was not worth the money.

Yes I have my house, savings could pay of the mortgage if needed. I guess my comments re benefits are that the term 'national insurance' makes it sound like insurance against redundancy, ill health etc but it turns out if you also make your own provision you can not claim.

I'm with dopester in that you can claim contribution-based JSA, AFAIK.

So the insurance scheme does work - not sure why you think it doesn't.

ILW

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

My previous firm - an architects in Newcastle - last week axed 60 members of staff, around half in total, in response to a halt in a number of public sector projects.

Another option may have been that all the staff agreed to take a 25% pay cut whilst looking for other contracts.

michaels

Yes - £65 per week for 26 weeks - don't spend it all at once.

However it would be an awful lot more if rather than living frugally and saving I had spent every penny on plasma tvs, cars and holidays. I am not claiming either lifestyle is better just noting that one results in eligibility for considerable state handouts and the other does not.

carolt wrote: »

I'm with dopester in that you can claim contribution-based JSA, AFAIK.

So the insurance scheme does work - not sure why you think it doesn't.

tomterm8

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Cuts are inevitable and are a consequence of the !!!!less Labour government.

You can repeat that over and over,but it does suffer from the fact that
(a) before 2008, the conservative party policy was to match Labour spending.
(b) before 2008, the Liberal Democrat policy was to exceed Labour spending and
(c) after 2008, when the recession kicked in, there was very little choice but to do what the Labour party did.

You could have cut spending coming into a giant recession. But in fact, only three countries I know of did so. . Ireland did so, but their GDP has dropped by almost 20%, and their deficit is worse than it was before it started cutting. Latvia and Estonia have seen their nominal GDP drop by almost 30%, and their deficit really doesn't matter at all, because half their citizens are leaving, and everyone knows their debt will never be repaid.

Compare this to the UK, which has a GDP fall of "only" 6%.

It is easy to repeat lies, but there was little choice but to run the policies Britain did during the last couple of years, because there are things worse than big deficits. Every single major Liberal Democrat politician admitted this prior to the election.

Now we have to pick up the mess, and run with it, but we can at least be honest to ourselves that repeating '!!!!less Labour politicians' a dozen times a post simply doesn't reflect the truth. In many ways, Labour was right... it would be much better to wait a little longer, and cut more gradually, but we may not have a choice about matters.

But we don't need to cut as deep as some people in the conservative party try to make out.

Britain is now running about 5% inflation. Let's say real (after inflation) growth could be 3% for a total of nominal growth of 8%. If Britain can get their deficit to GDP down to 6%, we would actually be seeing the relative size of our debt being reduced. Debt is not adjusted for inflation (what that does to bond investors is another story) and so a country can run a deficit that is less than nominal GDP essentially forever. This may not be wise, but it is not a course for disaster.

Old_Slaphead

Turnbull2000 wrote: »

My previous firm - an architects in Newcastle - last week axed 60 members of staff, around half in total, in response to a halt in a number of public sector projects.

Out of interest, how many of those 120 jobs the company originally had were created in the last 5 years?

michaels

Trying to clarify - typically the initial spending prior to my involvement did not result in the savings and improvements anticipated. Involvement from me and my colleagues would then bring in many times its cost in actually realising the originally anticipated savings or benefits. Thus definitely (in my opinion of course) very good value for the taxpayer but also extremely easy to cut for a short term spending reduction.

We also do the same work for the private sector so it by no means only applies to the public sector but the recession has also resulted in some of our major private sector clients looking to avoid spending now even if it results in ongoing cumulative savings; and with the abrupt reduction in public sector spending (which I agree could have been foreseen but difficult to manage in a small company with a policy of recruiting at graduate level, promoting from within and no history of layoffs) there is simply not enough work available to support all the staff in the coming year.

dopester wrote: »

I'm still uncertain about the 'real job'. You're describing it as not really a job, as your work didn't result in the efficiency savings and enhance value for money in the way you and colleagues would have liked.