Gideon wields his axe [The UK's Comprehensive Review Thread]
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Having been involved with a number of Government technology projects over the years I'm confident that it would make no positive difference to productivity, certainly in the short term. By the way, the same is also true of almost every technology project in private industry. In my experience, headcount is never reduced as a result and is often increased. People just find different ways of filling their day.
Lothian
should be banned
Oh ****.
IFS is now saying (if they include the greyer areas such as the effect of housing benefit changes) the poor are being hit the hardest.
Francesca R
Girl
You're above the high end of consensus if you think that what the government says it is planning to do will generate 4.5-5million jobs.
The place I worked at decided a good way to reduce costs (and 'increase efficiency') would be to get rid of all the contractors in IT. The department I was in lost about two-thirds of its staff. There were at least three nervous breakdowns because of it. Headcount was back up to previous levels in a couple of years.
Undesired Walrus
Penultimate Amazing
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Technically George Osborne is correct when he says the rich will have the largest drop in earnings, thus taking the brunt. They do lose more than those at the very bottom. However, this overlooks the fact that it is (again) those in the second-to-top category who lose less than those at the bottom.
It is also mostly due to Darling's measures (The 50p tax rate for example) that lead to the very richest getting hit the hardest. The current Chancellor's measures shouldn't be praised for that.
Francesca R
Girl
Pace what Osborne or any politician might say, it would be staggering if -£7bn or -£11bn or -£18bn from welfare transfers did anything but that. If it hit the rich hardest, then by reversibility, boosting the welfare budget back up again by those sums would be hurting the poor--which would be rather weird.
The child benefit cut--revised to £2.4bn by the OBR--is the only substantive progressive change, and such universal benefit cuts are just about the only way welfare reductions can hit the better-off. More could have been done by "de-universalising" free TV licences, winter fuel payments, free bus travel and free eye tests [ETA: and the state pension]. That might have been regarded as too many promise-breaks.
The UKs underlying deficit could only really be closed in a progressive way if most of it was done via tax rises.
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But if they aren't then the "rationale" they are giving makes no sense.
For instance moving people from incapacity benefit to employment support (think that is what the new benefit/scheme is called), that only saves money if those people then move into work. The figure I have just heard is that there is a target of moving 23% of people from incapacity benefits to work, which I assume will mean that medical reasons will no longer be the sole criteria as to whether you get incapacity benefits or not. That target alone requires 23% of 2.5 million jobs, which I get to be over half a million jobs. We then have the roughly 500,000 of public service jobs that are going plus the repeatedly quoted 500,000 of private sector jobs lost because of the cuts, so that's a million jobs required to just keep the figures where they are now. Their job figures just don't add up.
Francesca R
Girl
Well it's the OBR's jobs figures.
However, I am sure it is possible for the fiscal arithmetic to "assume" that a bunch of benefit claimants disappear into the world of work, at the same time as the economic forecasts don't have the same folks coming onto the books. So there you have a point.
However, I am sure it is possible for the fiscal arithmetic to "assume" that a bunch of benefit claimants disappear into the world of work, at the same time as the economic forecasts don't have the same folks coming onto the books. So there you have a point.
Losing 65% of staff does sound insane and I'm not surprised that it ended badly.
OTOH, it's a rare department that couldn't stand to lose 10% of staff, particularly the least effective 10%.
Or alternatively it's a rare department that couldn't stand to lose 10% of workload, particularly the least important 10%.
"workload" for many of the public services means people's lives, so it equates to say children considered at risk.
Francesca R
Girl
Are you saying George Osborne ate some babies?
Then again there are offices and offices (partially) full of ineffective bureaucrats. I know, I've worked in them, heck, I've added to their numbers at times.
If the shortage of social workers is going to be used as an excuse for not reducing the number of people in any department then let's not worry about effectiveness at all.
You seemed to be saying that reducing workload in a department will result in harm to vulnerable children.
Whilst this is true for Children's Services, it's not true for all departments and "think of the children" is not a good enough excuse for not challenging waste.
OTOH as inefficient as the public sector may be, the private sector is no better
That wasn't my point, my point was that for many public services the "workload" is not widgets but real people lives.
Possible over simplification; the private sector has to make a profit and hence tends to keep a closer eye on the bottom line. One might argue that the private sector is more efficient in net terms but that the profit margins then push up costs to closer to public levels.
Roadtoad
Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
I listened to Osborne's speech while making a hard run up I-5. The one thing that sticks out in my mind is that Britain, unlike the US, is willing to make hard choices. As Osborne pointed out, you're better off confronting this early, rather than later when the choices will be far more draconian.
Sadly, I don't think the US will attempt this until there's no choice, when Social Security, which never should have been a part of the General Fund, is down to its last dime. You might not like the choices, but at least someone is working to try to fix this mess.
Sadly, I don't think the US will attempt this until there's no choice, when Social Security, which never should have been a part of the General Fund, is down to its last dime. You might not like the choices, but at least someone is working to try to fix this mess.
I know little about the nitty gritty of what social workers do on a day to day basis but I've heard social workers being interviewed who complain about the amount of paperwork they have to do and to lament how comparatively little time they get to spend with their charges as opposed to doing administration.
Clearly, the administrative tasks serve a purpose and cannot be eliminated entirely - otherwise they wouldn't have been done in the first place but perhaps some way can be found to streamline this part of the role (without exposing clients to undue risk) so that the "workload" eliminated is the bit which delivers no, or little value to the customers of the service.
Perhaps not, and we are doomed to having 20% of staff spending 80% or more of their time doing admin and having only 15% spending at least 60% of their time performing client-centric tasks.
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2006/01/20/52465/Too-much-paperwork-say-staff.htm