h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

managers and consultants

Well politicians and consultants are already on short-term contracts...and I suppose soldiers need ossifers to manage them.

(Not RN tiffs though, eh, swl? )

Can we be a bit more specific? 'Harrumph! All that waste!' is all well and good. But which huge sections of public service should we take an axe to? What shouldn't we deliver?

all the administrators whos job it is to compile stats and figures to show how well a public service is working while contributing nothing to frontline services themselves

publicly funded religious positions like hospital chaplains(if the church is that concerned, let them fund the posts)

if we must have levels and levels of managers let them be front line personel, manager doctors can still do rounds, uniformed managers can still walk the beat now and again, or oversee activities, or be part of a retained crew at the weekend

Well, we'd better keep an eye on those entrusted with making the savings. I heard today that some NHS Trusts are planning to close wards as a quick way to save money. One specific hospital is closing a geriatric Ward as a quick and easy way to save £4.5m a year without any job losses.

Sorry, without any middle and senior management job losses. Cleaners, auxiliaries and the like are expendable.

The public sector is not a job creation scheme. The priority must always be to preserve services before jobs. There is undoubtedly a degree of "featherbedding" in the Public Sector. In a rational world, unions and senior management would recognise this and work together to rationalise job levels whilst preserving services.

Somehow, I doubt that will happen. It's far easier to cut the services whilst protecting vested interests and blaming someone else.

Sorry..but I think people should be honest. Obviously there are efficiency savings to be need...although public services - as private enterprise - requires *some* level of bureaucracy. (Want me to tell you about private sector consultants and bureaucracy?)

But for the level of savings that are being talked about, we're not just talking about efficiency savings but *cuts in services*.

So which services?



Supplementary question:
Why's nobody talking about what's a sensible balance between decreased spending and increased taxation?

bring back hanging

reduce the numbers in prison

let everyone serve the full sentance

scrap the probation service

If you want to start a thread about increasing taxes - knock yourself out

bring back national service

round up the un-interested youth

ship them off to war

compare the one off payment of deaths with a life time of dole

££££££s in

There's an obvious point that seems to be very much ignored. If we cut government spending by cutting a lot of public sector jobs, what are the likely outcomes of making a lot of people unemployed during a recession? True, government spending might go down by paying them unemployment instead of a salary, but what will that do for all the businesses that end up with the civil servants' salaries in their till each month?

One way would be to go through the sectors one-by-one, announce big cutbacks and job losses, wait for the inevitable strikes and see if there is any noticeable resultant drop in service level.

so we need to organize a strike of all the bean counters in the civil service.........job done

A RL example KB - a moratorium has been called on all public sector new builds - schools, hospitals, offices. My sister works for a private sector company that fits out such projects. Their share price dropped 10% in one day as a result of the announcement and is still falling. There is a very real danger they will fold.

So yes, I am very aware that public sector spending spills over into the private sector.

But the bottom line is there isn't any way increasing taxation is going to make a significant dent in the huge deficit run up by the previous "government". Raising taxes on those with the most money is futile because they can afford to employ smart accountants or just leave. And a great many are just leaving. It's the law of diminishing returns.

We can guess all we want, but I don't think we'll guess close to the real cuts when they come. The talk is of 300,000+ Public Sector jobs going. I think Hootoo is going to get a lot quieter over the next year.

The economy will get a lot quieter over the next year too, I'm afraid.

True We all watch the financial pages with growing concern over the Euro crisis. If it fails in Greece, then it will take with it all the countries currently subscribed, like a pack of cards. The currancy speculators must be rubbing their greedy, sweaty, hands gleefully

Sorry I know

Two Names asks:-
< Supplementary question:
Why's nobody talking about what's a sensible balance between decreased spending and increased taxation? >
Because that sensible balance has overturned and would need a reduction in taxes, necessitating serious cuts in public services. Enoughs enough, when average pensioners in need of care are taxed in order to pay the pensions of others.

Otto. Is your Utopian state achievable without organisation and leadership. If it were achieved I doubt it would be any better than the state we live in at present. The books will never balance. However an audit is required now and again. For better or worse the auditors tell us we are uneconomical. If things get worse the bailiffs may be called in.

Effers ask Otto how and where he would house the organisers and leaders of his state. You don't drag down what you have built in the hope that something better will be produced. It's your world try living in it the best way you can.

<< how and where he would house the organisers and leaders of his state.>>

a special parliment prison, reduce housing expence claims, reduce coruption, and garantee no one would want more that one or two terms, liquidate the assets of mps and stick it in the treasury, if the country makes a profit the mps get a banous if the books don't balance they lose their shirt along with the rest of us

political office is a duty not a perk

Looking forward to your spell of duty Taff.

"Otto. Is your Utopian state achievable without organisation and leadership. If it were achieved I doubt it would be any better than the state we live in at present. The books will never balance. However an audit is required now and again. For better or worse the auditors tell us we are uneconomical. If things get worse the bailiffs may be called in."

I'm sorry, I really have no i8dea what you're talking about, or what you're referring to.

Sorry Otto. The first paragraph in your post 415 lead me to believe that you were advocating that everything should/could be provided by the state.