I don’t know about the remainder of the public however I for one am not surprised about recent public sector expenditure findings…
Isn’t it wonderful how all the Chief Executives in local authorities, Departmental Chiefs in Government and Senior Officers in emergency services have all stooped to simple ‘scare mongering’ tactics. They have all been bleating that the level of austerity cuts are “impossible” and worse, that job loses will be “unavoidable”. It is also interesting that almost exclusively, nearly all the proposed redundancies are ‘strategically’ aimed at the front line service delivery roles.
For some time now I (and many others) have been saying “it does NOT have to be that way”. I therefore sit with a smug contented smile when I read news that confirms my thoughts. What a refreshing change to see someone, more eminent than I, who agrees with the view and can also see through all the self-preserving smokescreen and mirrors bollox…
BBC News:The government could save billions of pounds a year if it improved “shocking” spending processes, Topshop owner Sir Philip Green has said. (Read more)
Robert Peston (BBC Business Editor) points out that Sir Philip is predicting masive savings without any of the CEO induced public-sector redundancy. None of which is ultimately suprising, especially when you examine some of the public expenditure that has been uncovered.
Sir Philip said: “The conclusion of this review is clear – credit rating and scale in virtually every department has not been used to make government spending efficient… There is no reason why government should not be as efficient as any good business.”
I would disagree with the latter part of the above quote in that; there is actually every reason why ‘government should not be as efficient as good business’… It’s down to public-sector management, many of whom are just playing at what they perport be proficient at.
There are also insufficient controls in place to firstly monitor and secondly punish poor performance. Even if there were greater efficiencies in governance and the correct application control measures to address management failings, it is highly unlikely they would actually bare fruit. The present levels of acute nepetism, along with a propensity for selected membership of mutual adoration societies, would preclude any such measures being succesful.
After thirty years of working within the public-sector (contrary to popular beliefe there are some), I have witnessed the ‘criminal’ waste of public money at first hand and what is even worse, the abject laissez-faire attitude of many managers!
Related Articles
- Philip Green’s efficiency purge recommends more centralisation (guardian.co.uk)
- Green: ‘I’d be bust if I ran my business the way government does’ (bbc.co.uk)
- Report shows ‘staggering’ waste (mirror.co.uk)
- Sir Philip Green hopes to save Government £6bn (telegraph.co.uk)
- Efficiency review finds ‘staggering waste’ (independent.co.uk)
- Sir Philip Green: civil servants run up £1billion bill on Whitehall ‘charge cards’ (telegraph.co.uk)
Dave's Bankside Babble 
I fulminated a little on the same this morning. Retailing always seems a futile waste to me. One of my favourites is cider costing 2.8 pence at the factory gate, but £3.40 in my local free house, or £3.00 in the managed outlet. I have never been in a Top Shop, but no doubt I could get a dozen T-shirts from its sweat shop manufacturer for £2 or one from the retail outlet at £30 in its ‘sale’.
Mr. Green has nothing to offer us on efficiency. I would like to buy my food, drink, clothes and home efficiently. What stops me is his retailing fetish.
Quite what our town centres would be like with cider at only double production and delivery cost (say 60 pence a pint) would be like I hesitate to think, but the thought experiment of a world of manufacturing only to need is worth dabbling with.
The obvious issue is that much of the ‘work’ being done is neurotic. It’s also the case that becoming more efficient is the route to unemployment, rather than more productive redeployment. Somewhere in all this, we have very inefficient Mr. Greens making a lot of money.
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