Spending

[wellinghall]

Sevel of my FList have said that they think the government spends too much, or that they spend too much on the wrong things. (I am paraphrasing here, but I don't think I've twisted anyone's words out of all recognition. So - what would you like them to cut spending on? Saying "waste" or "bureaucracy" seems a bit of a cop-out, but you can say "no new NHS computer system", or even just "the NHS" (or defence, or roads, or whatever it might be).

[Poll #951648]

Comments

[chainmailmaiden]

I thought I should clarify that when I say 'Consultants' I don't mean medical Doctors, I mean the highly paid ones they continually get in to advise them on everything. According to CIPS, you are better off working as a Procurement Consultant for publicly funded organisations than private ones, as you can expect to earn between £100-£200 extra per day!

[lalwendeboggart.livejournal.com]

Being 'on the inside' I can clarify that the single biggest waste of money is indeed on consultants. It's quite sickening. I can't give too much detail, but one example I know well is where they had two skilled civil servants doing X job at a cost of no more than £50k pa, they now have over 10 consultants doing X job at a cost of over £1k each per day - do the sums... It's not only sickening but it's morale destroying.

In the main, they come in to do the work that the civil servants have become too overloaded to do as so many staff have been cut it is simply impossible to get things done in many areas. But alas, the newspapers only see the headline numbers of 'staff cuts' they do not see the real picture.

Lecture over ;)

[chainmailmaiden]

Sounds familiar (I work for a NDPB). I used to see all the invoices for our Head Office until they gave us a shared service centre. Most of the consultants were paid more in a month than I earned in a year. We do employ fewer consultants now, but even so the amount we have spent on them this year would have funded all the staff they made redundant (because they had to cut permanent staff costs) more than twice over.

[lalwendeboggart.livejournal.com]

It's quite sickening as Depts and NDPBs have been told to cut staff in order to cut costs, but paying for consultants comes out of different budgets, usually the 'programme costs'. Aside from that being wrong, it's also short-termism, as what would be better would be to have the usual staff doing the work and gaining greater experience for the long-term view. The Trade unions at least are fully aware and are looking into it - as are Private Eye!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Are we entitled to more than one choice?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

No.

[(Anonymous)]

But tell us them in the comments, then, Philmophlegm, as I'm interested to know. - Neuromancer

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, that's allowed!

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Oh, go on then...

(Apologies for the delay, I've been on a course in Paris and rather out of the loop when it comes to LJ and in fact the news. The only two snippets of English language news I saw in France caused me to think respectively "Bloody hell - he WAS murdered" and "OMG, WE'RE ALMOST AT WAR WITH IRAN!")

Consultants. Yes, I agree that government spends far too much on consultants. However, as someone who works for a firm that would be included in that category, I feel I may have to defend them to some extent. To paraphrase sigisgrim, 'Nothing wrong with consultants - some of my best friends are consultants'. Most of the ones I know are very clever and their work would be of benefit to the project if:
* The bureaucrats knew enough to tell them what they really wanted
* The bureaucrats didn't overpay them (often just so that they could use up their budget for the year and make sure that they had the same amount the following year)
* The bureaucrats used them as contractors and kept control of the project and didn't simply relinquish control of the project to a private sector firm with their own agenda.
What I am saying is that much of the criticism levelled here against consultants I would argue should actually be levelled at the public sector managers and civil servants who hire them.


The arts. I would tend to agree with that.

The ID card. Agreed. I fail to say any genuine anti-terrorist rationale. This must be one of the least liberal governments in recent memory.

Replacing Trident. Personally, I'm in favour of keeping an independent nuclear deterrent. But you can do this quite cheaply (existing Trafalgar class hunter-killer submarines could launch nuclear cruise missiles, you could develop a bomber fleet etc). ICBM submarines is a ridiculously expensive way to go. I mean, to have an effective deterrent, all you need is a decent chance that one nuke gets through.

Something that nobody else mentioned: Contributions to the EU budget. I would like to see the UK government reduce its net contribution to nil at least until the the European Court of Auditors is happy to issue an unqualified audit opinion. Currently, the UK, Germany and France pay for everyone else.

I'm with Neuromancer on pointless devolved government (or pretend government, like the regional assemblies).

I don't know enough about the Civil Service to form a view (and I'm loathe to form a view based largely on 'Yes, Minister'). However, there is that nagging feeling in the back of my mind, that we have far too many civil servants. After all, didn't we used to run India with three people or something.

Absurdly high-paid public sector jobs advertised in the Guardian. For example (looking at their website):

"Head of Care and Commissioning
SOUTH TYNESIDE COUNCIL
Tyne & Wear
£90,000
You will focus on strategic commissioning, service delivery and support, and your role will be at the heart of integrated working and joint commissioning."
(NINETY GRAND? You could BUY half of Tyneside for that!)

"Head of Crime Reduction & Supporting People
LONDON BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM
East London
£75,000 - £85,000 pa
You'll further develop our strong and lasting partnerships with local groups and stakeholders, including voluntary services, faith groups, housing and health organisations."
(Meaning what, exactly? I mean, shouldn't "crime reduction" be the job of the police?)

"Assistant Director - Transport, Infrastructure and Engineering
PLYMOUTH CITY COUNCIL
Devon
Circa £66,000 pa
You will manage the delivery of a five-year LTP capital programme of at least £47 million, to include local safety schemes, environmental improvements and regeneration."
(£66k in Plymouth? And that's just the assistant! Think what the director must be earning. Actually, that should say: Think what the director must be 'earning'.

"Assistant Director of Social Care and Family Services
CORNWALL COUNTY COUNCIL
Cornwall
£58,821 - £71,889 p.a.
We are looking for a successful, experienced Children's Social Care Manager to help us drive up performance and integration."
(So that explains our council tax bill.)

The Olympics. Los Angeles made money when they hosted it in 1984. That was never on the cards for London.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

You will focus on strategic commissioning, service delivery and support, and your role will be at the heart of integrated working and joint commissioning.

Is there a single word there that actually means something?

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I know that "short-term initiatives" probably falls into the same "cop-out" category as "waste", but it really annoys me that every week (or so it seems) comes some new government initiative, with a huge pot of funding. You have to come up with an entirely new idea (continuing with old, good ideas doesn't count), submit your bid, and then you get your money... but it only lasts for a few years, and then the money's gone, and the project is over.

Take the People's Network in libraries - tonnes of money thrown at library services, to fund computers in every library, with free internet access for all. But the money was only for three years, and then it ended, meaning we're left with computers that are getting more and more out of date, and in a few years will be useless. Far better, in my opinion, to spend money on services that last, not short-term things.

(However, I was tempted to be silly and vote for something like "that secret army of mutant ninja turtles they're developing in Scotland.")

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

"that secret army of mutant ninja turtles they're developing in Scotland."

Oh, so you've heard about them too? ;-)

/silly

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

All these damn consultants (see others above) and the whole bloody "management of ..." bullshit be it paper trails, audits or whatever the term of the month is.

And don't get me started on fast-track promotion for graduates, yes most of us here are graduates, but frankly from what I've seen given the sheer number of kids at unis who've got no chance of getting a job related to their degree or staying in academia because they're thick - well I wonder where they're going ...

[tree_and_leaf]

We definitely don't need a replacement for Trident. There's certainly a case for maintaining the spend on defence, but the money would be far better invested on rifles that don't melt, decent flack jackets, and probably better intell.

I also don't think they should be setting up the ID card system. I'm concerned about the civil liberties implications, but I'd be even more worried if I thought - given the govt's record on experimenting with shiny new computer systems - that it would work. Should offer all sorts of opportunities for smart criminals, though.

[(Anonymous)]

* Consultants (just to be original).
* Short-term initiatives (because Lady of Astolat's description really rang bells). Actually, extend that to any eye-catching initiatives with which the Dear Leader is personally associated.
* ID cards (because I agree it's just obvious that a govt IT project of this magnitude is doomed).
* Additional layers of government (e.g. the proposed Northern Assembly, which fortunately got voted down). More regional govt might be a good thing, but should be "paid" for by reduction in other levels. E.g., the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies should have resulted in a reduction (say a halving?) of the number of Scottish and Welsh MPs.
* MPs' expenses and pension entitlements. Wouldn't make much difference to the national budget, but would be very satisfying.
* Unnecessary layers of quangocracy (e.g. the additional layer sitting over the MRC that Chainmail Maiden mentioned).
* Futile bean-counting exercises such as the Research Assessment Exercise in universities, the library targets LoA mentioned, and most of the NHS targets. Typically, these cost an absolute fortune to administer, and/or result in perverse incentives (like, don't know if this one still operates, but a few years ago hospitals were being actively rewarded for discharging patients too early after operations and then readmitting them when they collapse at home -- counts as two short admissions which obviously makes them twice as efficient as one long one would have been).
* Much of the Civil Service. Apparently the numbers of central govt officials and advisers has gone up by some huge percentage over the last 10 years or so. I don't see why they can't manage with the number they had before. Cutting the futile bean-counting exercises and the quangocracies should help.
* Stupid bits of spin fluff like the NHS "National Institute for Patient Involvement" or whatever it's called (budget a few million a year). I don't want to be "involved", I just want to be treated promptly and efficiently whenever I need it.
* Trident -- because I can't think of a single use for the damn thing.
* Illegal wars.
* The Olympics.

Er, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'll post again if any more occur to me... Neuromancer

[alitalf.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of this, and would add that one reason for the high cost of bureaucracy is that the rules are made very complicated, which must cost more to administrate.

Many different rates of tax *plus* national insurance *plus* working tax credits is one example. Why this may not be simplified is that if it were, people would see more clearly how much they pay.

It is a waste of admin for government employees to pay tax. They should just be payed a fixed multiple of national average take-home pay, and everyone over working age except government employees should be included in the calculation. Multimillionaires and pensioners, everyone.

Equally, state employees, and specially MPs should be forced to use the services that the rest of us use: NHS, schools and so on. That should prevent simply cutting services that a consensus agrees we should fund, simply to get more money for themselves.

Then the people who rule this country would have an incentive to improve, overall, the lives of the "little people" who don't have enough influence simply by voting. There should then be an incentive to spend taxes on things that a reasonable proportion of people need, but not on boondoggles like the Millennium Dome, the Olympics, reasonably avoidable wars, etc.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

The creation of the Scottish parliament has led to a reduction in the number of Scottish MPs at Westminster, following legislation in 2004, with the effect that there are now 59 seats rather than 73, bringing the size of Scottish seats into line with English ones.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

Although they still get to vote on England-only issues. But that's another matter.

[arda-unmarred.livejournal.com]

managers of all shapes and sizes