Dear deficit deniers, ukuncut and public servants. An idea.

[johnfm]

One of the main problems that we, the net contributors, have with the current level of tax and spend is blatantly dismal value for money.

The only thing worse than paying 50% income tax, 20% VAT, masses of fuel duty, inheritance tax, national insurance and business rate etc, is that we then pay £1.40/ litre to drive on poor roads, to wait in long queues to get a very average level of service.

In a world where even a conservative leaning coalition is going to spend over 45% of GDP on government, it is unrealistic for us to expect that spend to drop to levels where we have freedom to allocate capital efficiently. We are resigned to the fact that we will borrow £500 million a day for the foreseeable future.


So, can you meet us halfway. If we have to increase our current debt of £1400 billion by £500 million every day, can you up your game a bit and deliver some quality, pride and value in the provision of your services. If you do, we might start to value you and not begrudge you a living at our expense.

I think that is fair, no?

[Parrot of Doom]

You don't seriously think that this forum is populated mostly by public sector workers, do you?

[Mr_annie_vxr]

What like cutting crime down half from levels in 1995 ? Even with a system set up to record more crime?

Then have the goal posts changed to making people feel safe but not actually making them safe?

Or the fire service which has I'm increased the survival rate at Rtc's and fire attendance as well as a lot of work in fire prevention?

Ambulance service that's raised survivability?

NHS? Chances of surviving cancer and other serious ailments has risen rapidly. Numbers of surgeries available is up. The waiting times in most cases down. National life expectancy is up.

Do you mean those sort of performance measurements or different ones?


Don't lump everyone in together. Most PS workers don't deny there is a defecit. They don't deny changes need to be made.

[eldar]

Mr_annie_vxr said:

What like cutting crime down half from levels in 1995 ? Even with a system set up to record more crime?

Then have the goal posts changed to making people feel safe but not actually making them safe?

Or the fire service which has I'm increased the survival rate at Rtc's and fire attendance as well as a lot of work in fire prevention?

Ambulance service that's raised survivability?

NHS? Chances of surviving cancer and other serious ailments has risen rapidly. Numbers of surgeries available is up. The waiting times in most cases down. National life expectancy is up.

Do you mean those sort of performance measurements or different ones?


Don't lump everyone in together. Most PS workers don't deny there is a defecit. They don't deny changes need to be made.

Yeah, but apart from that what has the public service done for us?

[The Hypno-Toad]

The aquaduct?

[fatboy b]

johnfm said:

So, can you meet us halfway. If we have to increase our current debt of £1400 billion by £500 million every day, can you up your game a bit and deliver some quality, pride and value in the provision of your services. If you do, we might start to value you and not begrudge you a living at our expense.

Shocking statement. My OH is a PS worker. Spends most of her time helping to keep people alive through nutrition so they can he healthy enough to have tumours cut out of them, or - post op - ensure they're getting enough nutrition to keep their bodies going while they recover from having tumours cut out of them.

Despite never wavering on the quality of her work, despite the pressure to still do her job with fewer and fewer staff around, about 33% of the people she sees never make it. That's a hell of an emotional burden to carry while "doing your job".

So does she meet you half way?

[MorrisCRX]

Mr_annie_vxr said:

NHS? Chances of surviving cancer and other serious ailments has risen rapidly. Numbers of surgeries available is up. The waiting times in most cases down. National life expectancy is up.

Advancement in medical science is not simply an achievement of NHS. Nor is life expectency...

You can have waiting times and surgeries though.

[fatboy b]

MorrisCRX said:

Advancement in medical science is not simply an achievement of NHS.

They do have a massive input though.

[Liokault]

fatboy b said:

johnfm said:

So, can you meet us halfway. If we have to increase our current debt of £1400 billion by £500 million every day, can you up your game a bit and deliver some quality, pride and value in the provision of your services. If you do, we might start to value you and not begrudge you a living at our expense.

Shocking statement. My OH is a PS worker. Spends most of her time helping to keep people alive through nutrition so they can he healthy enough to have tumours cut out of them, or - post op - ensure they're getting enough nutrition to keep their bodies going while they recover from having tumours cut out of them.

Despite never wavering on the quality of her work, despite the pressure to still do her job with fewer and fewer staff around, about 33% of the people she sees never make it. That's a hell of an emotional burden to carry while "doing your job".

So does she meet you half way?

Sack her, take the cost saving and remove her "emotional burden", it's a win win.

[johnfm]

Notwithstanding the efforts of your other half, do you feel you are getting value for money?

Do you think the shoppers in Oxford Street got value for money on Saturday? Or the owners of The Ritz, F &M, Top Shop etc, as police stood by while masked criminals were in action?

The NHS employs over a million people now. Yet our health outcomes don't reflect the levels of spend in health.

There is no doubt there are tens of thousands of PS workers with a strong work ethic who are probably as sick of the wasters with a bad attitude as we are.

This doesn't alter the Value For Money analysis - which I think is currently poor considering how big the state currently is and what we get in return.

[JMGS4]

Mr_annie_vxr said:

Don't lump everyone in together. Most PS workers don't deny there is a defecit. They don't deny changes need to be made.

Mrs Annie, I'm sure that there is a lot of excellent work done at the coal face, however what floats to the top doesn't seem to get skimmed off or have their salaries/boni/pensions reduced!!!!
as far as I can see there are too many overpaid and wasteful chiefs and too few indians.... (but also some lazy indians from what I can remember of GB)

[don4l]

johnfm said:

One of the main problems that we, the net contributors, have with the current level of tax and spend is blatantly dismal value for money.

The only thing worse than paying 50% income tax, 20% VAT, masses of fuel duty, inheritance tax, national insurance and business rate etc, is that we then pay £1.40/ litre to drive on poor roads, to wait in long queues to get a very average level of service.

In a world where even a conservative leaning coalition is going to spend over 45% of GDP on government, it is unrealistic for us to expect that spend to drop to levels where we have freedom to allocate capital efficiently. We are resigned to the fact that we will borrow £500 million a day for the foreseeable future.


So, can you meet us halfway. If we have to increase our current debt of £1400 billion by £500 million every day, can you up your game a bit and deliver some quality, pride and value in the provision of your services. If you do, we might start to value you and not begrudge you a living at our expense.

I think that is fair, no?

We don't really have a Conserative leaning coalition, do we?

Despite all the talk of cuts, spending is continuing to rise by about 3% a year.

I can see sod all difference between the policies of Tony Blair and Dave Cameron.

Forecasted spending for the next couple of years:
2011 £681Bn
2012 £702Bn
2013 £713Bn

So we have the ludicrous situation where spending is increasing, and at the same time people are complaining about cuts.

It's a mad world!

Don
--

[Digga]

The Hypno-Toad said:

The aquaduct?

Under floor heating?

[Brighton Derly]

don4l said:

Despite all the talk of cuts, spending is continuing to rise by about 3% a year.

GDP is rising by much more than 3%

2011 £1.539 trillion
2012 £1.620 trillion
2013 £1.710 trillion
2014 £1.803 trillion
2015 £1.902 trillion

So although the amount of money spent is increasing, government spending as a percentage of GDP will be lower.

[MorrisCRX]

fatboy b said:

They do have a massive input though.

How so? Are the uni research labs funded by the NHS? I'm guessing so? What level involvment do the likes of gsk, az, genzyme have? The last pharma job I worked on (couple of months back), had a large investment by one of the previously mentioned companies and the break through was made by boffins in the US.

Just interested really.

[voyds9]

fatboy b said:

MorrisCRX said:

Advancement in medical science is not simply an achievement of NHS.

They do have a massive input though.

Perhaps they ought to focus on increasing the quality of life rather than the length of it. I would rather have 2 extra quality years of life than 7 years extra dribbling.

[Brighton Derly]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

When I were a lad (!) anti-social behaviour was staying in your room all day and not talking to anyone.

Vandalism, arson, harassment, underage drinking and joyriding is not anti-social behaviour. It is crime.

The pissweasels who commit these crimes are criminals, miscreants, deviants, reprobates, degenerates... NOT 'offenders'.

Edited by Brighton Derly on Tuesday 29th March 08:53

[neenaw]

johnfm said:

There is no doubt there are tens of thousands of PS workers with a strong work ethic who are probably as sick of the wasters with a bad attitude as we are.

I know that in my part of the NHS there's plenty of wasters with bad attitudes that don't pull their weight, continually off long term sick etc. The problem is that nothing's ever done about it. The management's hands are tied and they can't get shot of them. When they do try to get shot, the Unions start to play up and we're stuck with the workshy wasters for even longer.

The majority of people I work with agree about the deficit and the need to shrink it. They are also mostly aware of the need for cut-backs but as ever everything else should be cut back before their part of the PS as they are by far the most important. I imagine this would apply to most parts of the PS.

As for what we can do to cut the deficit or what the alternative is to cuts, I don't know but something needs to be done.

[don4l]

Brighton Derly said:

don4l said:

Despite all the talk of cuts, spending is continuing to rise by about 3% a year.

GDP is rising by much more than 3%

2011 £1.539 trillion
2012 £1.620 trillion
2013 £1.710 trillion
2014 £1.803 trillion
2015 £1.902 trillion

So although the amount of money spent is increasing, government spending as a percentage of GDP will be lower.

So what? Spending is far too high, as becomes clear when you look at the interest payments that the taxpayer will have to fund.

2010 £31Bn
2011 £43.3Bn +40%
2012 £46.5Bn +7.5%
2013 £52.4Bn +13%
2014 £57.8Bn +10%
2015 £63Bn +9%

In 2010, interest payments represented 2.1% of GDP, by 2015 they will be 3.3%. Meanwhile, the "Protection" (Police, Fire etc) budget will be cut from £34Bn to £29.6Bn.

So, for the foreseeable future, our interest payments are rising much faster than GDP. This is unsustainable.

At some point we will have to make real cuts. The longer we defer these cuts, the bigger the bill that we are leaving our children.

Don
--

[V8mate]

Having worked with both sectors, I can confirm that many areas of the public sector are riddled with incompetence and over-employment. Local government is particularly dreadful.

However, when I feel fairly and efficiently treated by any of the big supermarkets and other major retailers, utility providers, rail companies and other large private sector organisations I 'engage with' on a daily basis, I'll gladly report a chasm between the relative skill levels of the two 'business types'.