Wednesday 20th Budget Discussion

MS1950

grizzly1911 wrote: »

It isn't a slight of hand though is it because technically they are paid and employed by the private sector.

The fact the taxpayer through the government pays the supplier to provide the service historically done by the direst workforce is irrelevant to the statistician.

I don't know what proportion of that 30% are employed to provide service through the public purse. I am concious though that most of the visible public services that I see used by my council aren't direct employees, refuse, parks maintenance, road maintenance, street lighting, street cleaning, leisure services etc. The same goes when I visit hospital, apart form the clinicians many of the support staff are private contractors cleaners, catering, maintenance etc.

If only 20% are employed by the public sector why are people so concerned about a top heavy public sector. If it is only 20% that seems pretty small relatively and should thus be readily sustainable.

Edit:-

Canada, Greece, Iceland, Israel, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the
United States do not account separately for goods and services
financed by general government in their National Accounts

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/docserver/download/4211011ec054.pdf?expires=1363705874&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=A517A4E93F779237146E20E15AFC269F

Let me try again.

In his orginal (unsubstantiated)claimThrugelmir made 2 assertions:

1. "By 2010 50% of the workforce were effectively... employed by the Government"

2. that this 50% would be "more if outsourcing is included" (60 - 70 - 80% -we're not told)

All of the examples (without figures) that you (and Thrugelmir) have cited to support his claims fall into his 2nd 'more'/'outsourcing' claim - meaning that the 'missing' public sector workers in your and Thrugelmir's version of reality are not just the 30%-9million needed to account for 50% of the workforce, but would need to total around - what? - 10-15 million people to account for his 'more' than 50% 'outsourcing' category?

When the coalition came into office in 2010 their original claim was that job reductions in the public sector through cuts in spending would be more than matched by job increases in the private sector - and they set up the Office for Budget Responsibility to monitor their 'progress'.

If there were somewhere between 9-15 million extra people 'really' working in the public sector (because they are "paid out of public finances, via their private employer") - don't you think the OBR (and others) would have commented on it (and significantly revised upwards their estimate of the 'multiplier effect' of public sector cuts on GDP and growth - if so many jobs were actually dependent on the public purse)?

In fact if so much of the economy depended on public spending as you suggest (and Thrugelmir claims), we probably wouldn't be worrying about no growth (higher interest rates and debt perhaps) but not stagnant GDP and growth.

EvilJaz

I think the tax pay limits should be based on age

I think anyone on benefits that are capable to work should have there benefits taken away.

grizzly1911

MS1950 wrote: »

Let me try again.

In his orginal (unsubstantiated)claimThrugelmir made 2 assertions:

1. "By 2010 50% of the workforce were effectively... employed by the Government"

2. that this 50% would be "more if outsourcing is included" (60 - 70 - 80% -we're not told)

All of the examples (without figures) that you (and Thrugelmir) have cited to support his claims fall into his 2nd 'more'/'outsourcing' claim - meaning that the 'missing' public sector workers in your and Thrugelmir's version of reality are not just the 30%-9million needed to account for 50% of the workforce, but would need to total around - what? - 10-15 million people to account for his 'more' than 50% 'outsourcing' category?

When the coalition came into office in 2010 their original claim was that job reductions in the public sector through cuts in spending would be more than matched by job increases in the private sector - and they set up the Office for Budget Responsibility to monitor their 'progress'.

If there were somewhere between 9-15 million extra people 'really' working in the public sector (because they are "paid out of public finances, via their private employer") - don't you think the OBR (and others) would have commented on it (and significantly revised upwards their estimate of the 'multiplier effect' of public sector cuts on GDP and growth - if so many jobs were actually dependent on the public purse)?

In fact if so much of the economy depended on public spending as you suggest (and Thrugelmir claims), we probably wouldn't be worrying about no growth (higher interest rates and debt perhaps) but not stagnant GDP and growth.

As I pointed out in the link I attached from the OECD the government don't split their figures so there are no stats either way on what the government spend on outsourcing apparently.

I am not endeavouring to support Thrugs figures only pointing out that the government outsource in substantial numbers. They will be quite correctly quoted as private sector because that is the whole point of privatisation get them off the balance sheet. I never claimed that 9-15 million were in the public purse only that substantially more than 20% was more than likely.

MS1950

grizzly1911 wrote: »

As I pointed out in the link I attached from the OECD the government don't split their figures so there are no stats either way on what the government spend on outsourcing apparently.

I am not endeavouring to support Thrugs figures only pointing out that the government outsource in substantial numbers. They will be quite correctly quoted as private sector because that is the whole point of privatisation get them off the balance sheet. I never claimed that 9-15 million were in the public purse only that substantially more than 20% was more than likely.

I suspect there are figures for Government spending on outsourcing (and it's employment impact) somewhere in the public accounts - and if I can be bothered I'll try and find them.

The ONS figure of 20% of the workforce in the public sector amounts to around 6 million people - so what is 'substantially more' 1 - 2 - 3 million - more?

I really doubt that it's more than 1 million - even including the bailed out part-nationalised banks, the privatised (but subsidised) railways, BAe Systems and other defence manufacturers dependent on government contracts etc as well as the more commonly cited ousourced services in the NHS and Local Government etc.

That's why I find Thrugelmir's claim of 50%+ so absurd. If public spending really employs 'substantially more' than 20% of the workforce through 'outsourcing', then the suggestion from the IMF that the 'fiscal multipliers' used to estimate the wider impact of cuts on the economy are too low, would be something of an understatement.

http://news.sky.com/story/995359/we-all-underestimated-the-pain-of-the-cuts

CLAPTON

government 'spends' or redistributes about 50% of the GDP

tomterm8

My prediction is this is going to be the most yawn-raising budget in recent history since (a) we know what he is going to announce and (b) what he is going to announce is basically that he is not going to do anything except reshuffle the deck chairs and get the band to play a bit louder on the titanic.

BobQ

http://www.cbi.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/2012/09/action-now-to-open-up-more-public-services-to-competition-could-save-£226-billion/

The enclosed report commissioned by the CBI considers the opportunities for outsourcing in areas where outsourcing is considered feasible (so not a comprehensive coverage).

MS1950

CLAPTON wrote: »

government 'spends' or redistributes about 50% of the GDP

Government spending as a percentage of GDP is currently just over 40% (rather than 50%):

http://www.cir-strategy.com/images/UKGovernmentSpendingPerCentGDP.png

However, that's very different from the percentage of the workforce employed by the government (directly or indirectly).

CLAPTON

MS1950 wrote: »

Government spending as a percentage of GDP is currently just over 40% (rather than 50%):

http://www.cir-strategy.com/images/UKGovernmentSpendingPerCentGDP.png

However, that's very different from the percentage of the workforce employed by the government (directly or indirectly).

indeed
which was my point

SingleSue

EvilJaz wrote: »

I think the tax pay limits should be based on age

I think anyone on benefits that are capable to work should have there benefits taken away.

What would you class as capable?