The side-effect of public cuts...

ILW

michaels wrote: »

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.

Are you some sort of management consultant?

michaels

Sort of - operational research consultant which means my charge out is about 30% of management consultants like PWC and I just go in and do the job rather than having targets to inflate the requirement and sell in as many other staff as possible - No wonder my salary is also half of theirs.

Edit: and I agree if things were done properly in the first place then my role wouldn't be needed but it is hard to justify having the skill set to manage change permanently available within the client organisation (either public or private) when the majority of time is spent managing business as usual; and given the low charge out rates of small companies is cost effective compared to using internal staff of similar experience anyway.

ILW

Sounds like the old time and motion thing.
Good idea in general, don't tend to make many friends though.

michaels

Exactly - it is hardly glamorous spending a sensible length of time talking to people on the ground to get as much understanding as possible in a limited time about what they do and how they think their job could be improved and then saving a few percent here and there. The brightest and best management consultants would much rather be taking senior managers to dinner and convincing them (normally on the basis of a back of the envelope excel calculation) that if they paid said consultancy huge sums they could completely transform the business but inevitably end up spending millions on a huge change that turns out not to produce the benefits claimed and often not actually being fit for purpose at all.

ILW wrote: »

Sounds like the old time and motion thing.
Good idea in general, don't tend to make many friends though.

lvader

tomterm8 wrote: »

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.

Just because they decided to match Labour policy while in opposition doesn't mean they would have done the same thing had the been in power instead of labour. It has never been Tory policy to have big government and high spending increaseing debt even during good years.

dharm999

Well, we are seeing an upturn in work, as public sector organisations are looking to outsource certain services. The big factor is cost savings, chiefly from lower pension costs; public sector pension costing upto 30% of salary versus a private sector pension of a maximum 6% of salary, a no brainer really. Plus they get someone that can provide cover for sickness, holidays, and are an expert in their field. I expect we will see a lot more work over the next couple of years.

tomterm8

lvader wrote: »

Just because they decided to match Labour policy while in opposition doesn't mean they would have done the same thing had the been in power instead of labour. It has never been Tory policy to have big government and high spending increaseing debt even during good years.

You can't have it both ways. You can't say you are going to match public spending, but you would have spent less. One or the other of the statements is a lie.

Conservative policy was to spend the same as Labour, right up until 2008.

kabayiri

I can see similar parallels for my current client in what dharm999 is saying.

The client I work for, never would be described as generous in any of their expenditure, salary or elsewise!
Every pound spent has to be justified.

Just to clarify something about the impact of this. The place I have been working for, they win government contracts, they also LOSE them. The effect of this is very noticeable when you walk along banks of desks which were full of people last year and are now empty.
It's not nice but these companies get used to the idea of change. They have to be very flexible and adaptable with staffing costs. This is a very different attitude to the public sector staffing image portrayed in here.

lvader

Opposition parties often agree to match because in effect the damage has already been done and trying to reverse everything would be worse. It doesn't mean that they agree with the original policy and that they would have done the same thing if in power. As an example it was against Tory policy to have the 50% income tax, yet they have decided to keep it.

kabayiri

I treat these policy claims with a pinch of salt personally.

We live in times which call for pragmatism on a level we maybe have not demonstrated before.

As an example, so what if the LibDems seem to have dumped their ideals? They are there to do a job for us. We pay their wages. And right now, that job is to get a handle on the debt and hopefully encourage private sector growth. I'm not interested in high minded principles right now.