What Public service wastages do you see?

PasturesNew

There was a recent event going on (private) in a pool (run by public sector). They were on strike for more money and were picketing the event. When others from other pools were brought in to keep it open they whined that those people "hadn't had the relevant health and safety training for THAT building". And that's the kind of nonsense and waste that's everywhere. The event was in a pool, but the contestants were all the top UK swimmers and their coaches (a lot of whom would have been lifeguards) ... so there was no specialist risk there. Only jobs that needed covering would be door entry and changing room staff (if any?), so then it'd just be a fire alarm issue: well, it's full of water and everybody was an adult and it was daytime.

All the training and box ticking that goes on is a waste of money. The rules that come out of this, checking the rules are followed, documenting the rules, having expensive meetings about the rules .... and then the workforce using the rules to find ways to stop working, slow down, refuse to do parts of the job, etc.

Andy_L

vikingaero wrote: »

My sister works for Tubelines. In January they were all given laptops which cost about £1,000 each. Then with April 5th looming they found they had a budget underspend and bought 20 new laptops and sold the old ones to the staff for £50 each.

Aren't tubelines a private sector company contracted to do (some) tube line maintaince though?

PasturesNew

sjaypink wrote: »

Equality & diversity training, often 100hrs lost per office at each 'update', just to tick boxes- and kill motivation....

As a "regular person in the street", I don't even know what this is, what it means, what it could be. But I bet if I went for a job with them they'd expect me to have had such training, so I wouldn't get the job as I'm not "on the inside" getting these waste of time bits of paper.

adouglasmhor

I see publications for schools sent by Central or Scottish Government to Local Authority HQs, then LAs have to arange uplift to the Education department often in another town in many areas. They could just be delivered directly to the right place, but it's easier to pass the buck than to phone up and make sure the job is being done properly and at minimum cost. It would cost no extra to deliver them direct to Education.

vikingaero

Andy_L wrote: »

Aren't tubelines a private sector company contracted to do (some) tube line maintaince though?

They were transferred back to TfL control last week. But essentially they were private but with the same public sector wastage attitude of the endless pot.

gingerdad

Wastes i have seen :-

TFT Computer monitors that a uni has paid to be taken away because they don't raise or lower (telephone book anyone) - but why pay to have the taken away, i understand why someone would pay to have a harddisk disposed of.

the 10,000 sq ft wareshouse in lancashire full of NHS kit bought at the end of the year waiting for the budget to install - some stuff in there had gone out of use before being installed.

The print job for a council recycling project that they said we don't need but the money needs to be spent on print, best part of 3,000 quid.

and in my current role countless jobs that come in late and pay extra to rush out from councils and other local govt...

twirlypinky

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

Traffic signs especially speed signs. What's the point of having a clearway sign followed 20 yards later by a "40". Loads of examples of this.

I recently passed 1 mile of roadworks and counted 97 temporary road signs one way and 93 the other.

I hope you were watching your speed while counting all those signs...

kabayiri

Government waste?

There's an app for that

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/iphone_government_subsidy/

twirlypinky

I work in the public sector, have done for about ten years.

There are more things than i can begin to list, but i'll give it a go.

Lights left on and taps left running all over hospitals.

Endless reams of external consultants brought in to tell us what we already know.

Agenda for change (don't get me started)

Endless reams of internal paper forms that wander their way around the building that could easily be electronic

Patients being dropped off in old folks homes with hospital pillows and blankets

Constant internal marketing and wrangling within one hospital with one bottom line. No one really seems to realise that all this bartering and buying from other departments is a waste of time, effort and money

allowing staff members to dial 118118 from their phones (and they doooo)

I could go on, but i won't.

Guitar

PasturesNew wrote: »

As a "regular person in the street", I don't even know what this is, what it means, what it could be. But I bet if I went for a job with them they'd expect me to have had such training, so I wouldn't get the job as I'm not "on the inside" getting these waste of time bits of paper.

[FONT=&quot]Equality and Diversity training isn't some sort of qualification you need for a job. It's usually part of the induction process after you've gotten the job that sets out the acceptable behaviour of people at work.

It comes under the 'It's not the company's fault because we gave them this course' category of training. It has less to do with equality and diversity and more to do with providing the company with a defence against getting sued if one of their employees behaves in a prejudice manner.

I found the courses I've been on to be very patronising and if someone did have racist or sexist beliefs a 45 minute workshop isn't going to change anything. That said it also explains what you should do if you're a victim of this kind of behaviour which was helpful when I was being bullied at work.

I also had to work through several computer animated scenarios of bullying, racist ageism and sexism. I queried with the trainer why in all the scenarios the bully, racist or sexist was always portrayed by a young white male. This just got me some nasty looks though.[/FONT]