What Public service wastages do you see?

fimonkey

I've just been employed part time by a university to undertake some research. I will be working off site, will never ever even set foot in the uni buildings, yet I have to attend courses on Health and Safety, Equality and Diversity and a new staff induction. All compulsory and all will waste 3 days of my time....

Anyone remember the Hitchhikers guide to universe, where they sent all the insurance salesmen, hairdressers and other 'middle men' off on a spaceship to find a new world, telling them they had an important job to do? .... I'd have voted for Douglas Adam's over David Cameron anyday (and I have nothing against those professions per se, I like my hairdresser.. the training staff at this university could take their place. ;-)

I also sometimes work in a clinical environment - wastage = giving out appliances (crutches etc) willy-nilly without any deposit taken or incentive for the patient to return them.

twirlypinky

Chaos_A.D. wrote: »

Biggest waste I see is one pound in every five going to their pensions, wage increments, pay rises every year regardless of productivity.

QUOTE]
This is no longer true.

robin_banks

Wonder what Sir Alan Budd - (Head of Office of Budget Responsibility ) pay off will be.

He's quit.

chucky

with the electoral reform business that is going on now that will cost a few million pounds (someone feel free to correct me how much) to organise...

is now the best time to spend money on these things when there are cuts being made all over the place...

robin_banks

Chaos_A.D. wrote: »

Quite a bit I would say,the public sector under Labour as only been one step behind the FA and football in general in wasting huge amounts of money on imbeciles.

Strange then, that the OBR was set up by the current government.

Andy_L

Chaos_A.D. wrote: »

twirlypinky wrote: »

Well it hasn't long since changed that's for sure, still if it has, that's progress I guess.

So you're saying that 20% of the tax take goes on "pensions, wage increments, pay rises every year regardless of productivity"? Do you want to just think about that statement & get back to us?

adouglasmhor

twirlypinky wrote: »

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

We blocked that for the entire council phone sytem, they now get diverted to the reception at HQ and we look it up on Yell.com or BT phone book online free. Of course we log it and management see who is asking for travel agents* or other non work calls.

*There are cases where SW or Education do need to contact Travel Agents for peopel so it is not up to us to refuse to find the number.

Pennywise

fimonkey wrote: »

I also sometimes work in a clinical environment - wastage = giving out appliances (crutches etc) willy-nilly without any deposit taken or incentive for the patient to return them.

I know all about that. Trouble is, that when you try to return them, no-one wants to know. Earlier this year, I was trying to get rid of a walking frame used by my late father, but after several phone calls, just getting the runaround and different numbers to ring, often either permanently engaged, leaving a message on an answerphone not replied to, or even a couple of out-of-service numbers, no-one could tell me what to do with it, so I gave up and dumped it in the entrance hall of my closest hospital. At the very least, they should put a sticker on everything with a phone number or instructions for returning it. NHS staff just don't care about things like that - no wonder there's little to show for the trebling of funds over the last decade!

Primrose

I signed up for 10 weeks an Adult Education class recently. I was sent five idential sets of pre-course enrolment literature, and halfway through the course had to fill in a two page questionnaire on how I felt the course was meeting my objectives.
For heavens sake, it was just an Exercise Toning Class!

The local Council is wasting a lot of paper and postage on this nonsense. The course tutor then has to fill in their own assessment and all this paperwork for all students has to go back to the Adult Education Department to be filed somewhere presumably. (More unnecessary work and storage space which requires Council money to be spent. And to think that this procedure is probably being mirrored by thousands of courses all over the country!

wheretheresawill

nhs branded pens that write in blue ......we can only use black for clinical records