If QE Was Withdrawn....

grizzly1911

bigadaj wrote: »

Sounds like you have a very pro active council, my impression is that it would be rare for any company to do this. Let alone a public sector body. This is obviously against employment law, and its interesting it has not been challenged.

Not that dissimilar to large corporations.

Make the department all at risk. Create "new jobs" and ask people to apply for said "new jobs", often at a lower grade, as they have been re-evaluated. Unsurprisingly peole will often take the package.

pqrdef

dktreesea wrote: »

But surely the management can check through those applying for volunatry redundancy and give it only to those they want to get rid of?

If you put an offer on the table and people apply for it and then you tell them they can't have it, they tend to get a bit disaffected. Then do you still want to keep them?

dktreesea

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Not that dissimilar to large corporations.

Make the department all at risk. Create "new jobs" and ask people to apply for said "new jobs", often at a lower grade, as they have been re-evaluated. Unsurprisingly peole will often take the package.

That's what happened in our council. The distasteful thing, imho, was that if someone has been in a job for, say, 20 years, and hasn't ever had their competence called into question, then choosing them to be made compulsorily redundant, as happened in my cousin's local council down south, must be for cost saving, or because one of the decision makers didn't care about this particular individual personally. Nothing to do with the person's ability to do the job. The council cited budget cuts as the reasons behind the downsizing and outsourcing.

I just can't quite believe the "surplus to requirements" aspect of it. If they needed "x" number of social workers last year, and the population is growing, how is it they need 20% less people this year?

dktreesea

pqrdef wrote: »

If you put an offer on the table and people apply for it and then you tell them they can't have it, they tend to get a bit disaffected. Then do you still want to keep them?

Maybe, because they may work harder as a result of the restructure. I've been through a few restructures. After a major one, people tend to work harder, partly because they have more to do, but also because they are worried they might be the next ones chosen if there is another wave of restructuring.

The ones who get really disgruntled are those who applied for voluntary redundancy but got turned down. The whole selection process for redundancy, both voluntary and compulsory, is perverse. Say you think someone is going to go anyway. Maybe they are planning to emigrate in the near future. Then there's no reason to gift them a redundancy payment.

One guy at our council has been redeployed, to do something he is not at all interested in and only applied for because he thought he had no chance of getting it. In his same division there's a lady who didn't apply for anything. She's a teaching assistant. As she said, why would a teaching assistant want to be a dinner lady? But because the council has vacancies "suitable" for this lady, they don't have to make her redundant. She is arguing constructive dismissal but the council are arguing, successfully it would seem, from her union's reaction, that she can be redeployed and that they have a right, as per her employment contract, to redeploy her.

dktreesea

Longer term, if the economy doesn't recover, it's either cut the cost of government or continue on with QE. We need far more user pays, imho.

The thing is with socialism, it's very expensive. Everyone gets free visits to their GP, even if they earn £1million a year. That's fiscal madness. Why is there no school levy in state schools? Why are jotters provided for free? Surely every parent that sends children to school can afford to buy jotters, even the poorest ones? Why are prescriptions free for anyone, let alone everyone (Scotland)? There should at least be a nominal charge, even if it's only 80p.

Rollinghome

dktreesea wrote: »

The thing is with socialism, it's very expensive. Everyone gets free visits to their GP, even if they earn £1million a year. That's fiscal madness.

Yes, what we need is far more forms to fill in to stop that happening. When I pop into the surgery it's always chock a block with people earning a million a year in their Gucci shoes waiting to see a doctor and reading the 2003 editions of Reader's Digest for free. Can't get in the car park for Porsches.

I expect you find the same. Fiscal madness.

dktreesea

Rollinghome wrote: »

Yes, what we need is far more forms to fill in to stop that happening. When I pop into the surgery it's always chock a block with people earning a million a year in their Gucci shoes waiting to see a doctor and reading the 2003 editions of Reader's Digest for free. Can't get in the car park for Porsches.

I expect you find the same. Fiscal madness.

I suppose well off people feel they pay so much into the system by way of income tax, they deserve to get a few freebies back? Yes, it's entirely possible the well heeled don't need to go to a surgery - they just call one of their mates to pop over and make a house call.

Making as much as possible free to the consumer is all well and good, but for starters, we can't afford it, evidenced by the fact that we spend several billion pounds more, every single month, than we receive into the Treasury. £120 billion a year more.

grizzly1911

dktreesea wrote: »

Making as much as possible free to the consumer is all well and good, but for starters, we can't afford it, evidenced by the fact that we spend several billion pounds more, every single month, than we receive into the Treasury. £120 billion a year more.

The second half of the quation is also where the problem is we aren't generating enough income on which tax can be collected in sufficient volume..

If we were happily running on say a £10bn rounding shortfall would any of these conversations be taking place?

grey_gym_sock

dktreesea wrote: »

we can't afford it, evidenced by the fact that we spend several billion pounds more, every single month, than we receive into the Treasury. £120 billion a year more.

so c. £2,000 per person per year.

it can't go on forever. it's affordable in the the short term, since the government's cost of borrowing is very low.

all the plausible ideas for how to reduce the deficit involve economic recovery as part of the solution.

charging millionaires for healthcare would make no impact at all on the deficit.

nor would charging more for prescriptions. the current system in england for prescription charges - with significant exemptions - raises only a few hundred million a year. (it's only because so little is raised by charges that scotland has been able to abolish them.) any big reduction in exemptions risks poorer and more ill ppl failing to take medicines, with both worse immediate outcomes for their health, and the likelihood of further costs for the NHS as a consequence.

grey_gym_sock

dktreesea wrote: »

I suppose well off people feel they pay so much into the system by way of income tax, they deserve to get a few freebies back?

practical points aside, i see no moral problem at all with richer ppl getting something out of the system. if you're richer, you can expect to pay in more than you get out. but why should you get precisely nothing out?

it seems to have become a standard part of political rhetoric, from all the major parties, to suggest rich ppl should get nothing out. with of course no agreement on what counts as rich. but it's nonsense.