Would you vote in favour of raising taxes?
Discussion
V8 Fettler said:
Zero hours contracts, use of sub-contractors and overtime enable a contractor to have sufficient capacity without the overheads associated with full-time employees, this is nothing new.
There are some cases in Public Sector services where this would help. But in the majority of cases it would be unworkable. For example a significant amount of Public Sector cost is in Fixed Assets. If one of your two Mega-Suppliers isnt performing, how is the OTHER provider going to provide several hundred new schools, or care homes, or neighbourhood offices? What about TUPE issues? Are all the zero-hours staff suitably trained/qualified?Even somebody who works in the Private Sector making widgets knows that doubling production in a very short timeframe is extremely costly and requires significant capital investment.
V8 Fettler said:
Have I not already stated that the scale of local authority budgets and the wide range of services means that this would be a big step away from the current arrangements?
It would be a massive step, with significantly increased risk but very little reward. That's precisely why only the Public Sector is big enough to bear the risk. You would effectively be replacing one bureaucracy with another (one that needs to provide the same service at the same cost but generate a profit for its shareholders as well).V8 Fettler said:
A well-designed contract would not have permitted National Express to default on the East Coast rail franchise without substantial financial penalty and the inability to qualify for similar contracts in future.
Hindsight is nearly always 20:20. And even a cast-iron watertight contract doesn't prevent the Private Company walking away by putting itself into administration. (Actually if it was smart when the contract was set up it will have contracted via a separate stand-alone entity which was controlled 100% by a Cayman Island subsidiary which itself was controlled by a Luxembourg-registered holding company). So there would be absolutely nothing to stop it washing its hands of an onerous contract, walking away, setting up another company, and buying the assets of the ORIGINAL company at a knockdown price, leaving the Govt. to pick up the liabilities.No!
Not when the money is likely be p155ed up a wall on ridiculous parliamentary expenses, excessive remuneration packages for NHS and other state administrators, misdirected interventions from Iraq to Kids Company, and more.
The way it misspends existing tax revenues, HM government already has too much of my hard-earned money.
Not when the money is likely be p155ed up a wall on ridiculous parliamentary expenses, excessive remuneration packages for NHS and other state administrators, misdirected interventions from Iraq to Kids Company, and more.
The way it misspends existing tax revenues, HM government already has too much of my hard-earned money.
Late to this thread. *** Warning *** long answer coming.
I will skip past the nit-picking of various errors of facts, or spelling mistakes, and go straight to gratuitous quoting:
I don’t think a race to the bottom of pensions provision will do anyone any favours. In my 15 years in local government, the pension offer has been watered down 3 times now, ages of pension entitlement via redundancy have increased, I’m paying extra NI on my pension now, and a max cap of £95k on all exit packages is being introduced (should have been sooner IMO).
Restructuring out poor people is the next easiest way, and used 99% of the time. Actual performance management, I’ve heard it done perhaps once or twice. Why? Performance management takes 6-18 months to do it in a way that won’t land you in an employment tribunal. You can’t just do the Lord Sugar “you’re fired”. People have targets, they have to be accurately assessed, given warning, given more warning, informal, formal, chance to turn around, be reviewed again independetly etc.
All through this time, their union rep will be insisting it’s done in triplicate. All through this time they’ll be throwing grievances out… “I had to work the bank holiday”, “I didn’t get the day off I wanted”, “he shouted at me..”. If the employee happens to have a protected characteristic, well, at this point committing ritual suicide would be more pleasant.
All through this time, you’ve got to keep your service going, and usually pick up the work of the absent employee (who will be off with “stress” by now) and keep feeding the paperwork sausage machine (as if you haven’t got 100% complete, the ET will come down on you like a ton of bricks).
Don’t forget, the employee isn’t in a call centre, or bolting wheels onto a car, where targets are easy to asses. Many services will be subjective, and being able to argue why performance is slow, or below par takes some time to express clearly. 2 social work cases landing in the in-tray could involve hugely different levels of time and complexity - it’s hard to prove beyond doubt that someone is slacking unnecessarily, without a huge amount of direct observation. You can't strap a motion sensor to someone's head (I did ask...) Private sector ideology doesn’t always translate too well. Any my work as a manager isn't watching my team to see if they're working. No, I've get the compliated work, the strategic stuff, the meetings with other areas etc., so I spend most of my time away from the team anyway.
Also, you can't just remove a function, get rid of everyone, and re-set it up again elsewhere. Employees have rights to that work, and the service has to be continuous anyway. Most staff have worked there over 2 years, so there's strict tests about redundancy that will be scrutinised by Unions (rightly so).
As above, poor employees can be weeded out fairly easily for trivial stuff (time keeping, ICT / social media problems, rude) but the crafty “job for life” ones who know how the system works (or with union support) can find cracks to hide in very well. I just wish they’d put that effort into actually working for the residents instead of shirking.
It’s also worth noting we’re having difficulty to recruit staff with the right professional skills (don't forget pay is a good chunk lower than the private sector). I’ve got accountancy posts out that I can’t fill. I’m legally required to complete accounts on time. I can either force out mediocre staff and pay a huge agency premium, or make do with what I’ve got and try to develop them over time (Note: I don’t have money for the agency premium anyway, so that isn’t actually an option).
I would say local government is generally unable to use ICT effectively, as we don’t have funds for mass investment (unlike private sector). 2 examples:
1) we have 94 legacy ICT systems - a product of having several dozen disparate industries all trying to work in the same organisation. We try to migrate a few to a single adult social care system. Took 4 years, couple of million in ICT consultants plus ICT licenses and hardware. Outcome? Zero saving, as demand had increased and all the spare capacity generated.The savings were to reduce admin staff, and the social workers just don’t have the capacity to feed data into the machine themselves with their workload. Result was the new system is now full of out of date data. What sort of business case can you make on that? What would the private sector do? The public sector can’t just quit the market, or go insolvent. We had foster carers leaving kids to our town hall doorstep because they hadn’t been paid their weekly allowance. Setting up councils from scratch now would be far easier than changing systems from the last 40 years (and older for things like highways and social care).
2) We get money from businesses for rates. The higher the Rateable value (RV), the more cash. Company “X” sells me consultancy services to find extra RV, and I pay them 7.5% of whatver they find (say £100k pa) (out of 48.9% x 30% which we keep). Our council cut its visiting offers down to 2, and with several thousand commercial properties, they can’t do much other than keep up with new builds.
The company has invested a model looking at 48 different data sets, and can spit out PDF BAR templates in minutes. Why can’t our council develop this? It’s beyond us. We haven’t got the investment headroom, the ICT expertise, the marketing expertise to sell it, but our visiting officers (on £25k) probably know 3x the amount that the company do about rateable value.
In the 80s, councils used to write software in-house (indeed, capita started in local government). Now, we get fleeced with huge annual fees who then asset strip talent and keep us locked into the cycle of them charing £1k to install free software. It’s hard cycle to break out of.
I think staffing is too low in places - I think getting things right the first time with a few more staffing would avoid costly mistakes in the long run.
Thanks for sticking with it so far.
Councils are set up with the explicit and single purpose to spend money. Huge quantities of money, in cases where the “market” system won’t, or can’t provide services effectively.
If you don’t like it, move to a country with no public sector, and then wonder why water is dirty, food unsafe, roads treacherous, the poor die in the street, next to the elderly and infirm, the rich having to employ armed guards when they went out. The Victorians / Edwardian's did learn this the hard way, and I doubt many people are genuinely “up for it” to re-learn them.
Finally - Liverpool 10% increase… I give it qualified support.
My County is in the poop financially (adult social care demand and price increases). The entire fire service (£30m) and library service (£25m) don’t match the current gap on adult social care spending for this year and next year. Where are they supposed to find that sort of money without tax increases?
It will probably cut community bus services before libraries. Result: elderly isolation, deteriorating health, lob the problem over the fence to the NHS. How is that sensible? But that’s the only path they have, as they’re legally required to set a balanced budget each and every year, and legally required to meet the care needs of the elderly. Care companies are putting prices up now, as rulings on minimum pay consolidate the market into a few large providers (small ones going under) who can unwind the price reductions secured by councils over recent years.
The bottom line is, people expect more from the state than the country can afford (or wants to afford ). Expectations need to change, but unsurprising enough, no-one wants to be the one to pay, or the one to change.
I think attempts to get the private sector to help the public sector avoid waste would just be a “front” for the private sector ripping off councils en masse. Sorry, but every situation I’ve seen has been the private sector over-selling and under-delivering. Think PFI - they are a huge, spectacular rip off by the private sector, where councils were forced (bribed) by HM Treasury to take them up.
And where people argue “bigger is better”, look at the NHS e-records debacle. Look at universal credit debacle. Large ICT just can’t be done by the private sector, yet alone the public sector. Reform needs to be on a scale that is manageable.
My solutions would be:
- proper discussion of funding and expectation of adult social care costs (CMD raised expectations in the Dillnot review, but then failed to do anything about funding them, the git)
- proper discussion about emergency accommodation and housing costs. They are crippling in the SE
- proper discussion about split of medical and non medical care costs, as cost shunting between LA and NHS costs the public purse a hell of a lot more than if it could be joined up better
- removing layers of smaller councils (Wales seems especially bad, but suspect this is the “a-symmetry of the union” funding thing left over from previous political tinkering)
- use of private sector ICT and process efficiencies, but on a “risk and reward” basis - none of this “give me your watch and I’ll tell you the time” nonsense we get palmed off with. This will need a big capital pot to pump prime, but if done well should reap rewards for the Treasury
- creation of a public sector management / leadership academy, where private sector experience and ethos can be blended with parts of the public sector that are needed (e.g. legal requirements).
- “something” - don’t know what yet - to end the “job for life” attitude that runs through Councils. The services attract a high proportion of lefties, but that’s because many of the services do “give back” to the community (youth, social work, teaching etc) and work well around family life. I think a lot of managers just don’t feel confident enough to “put their foot down” on low level slacking (I.e. making breakfast at work, chatting, sloppy work) because they know the union machinery and cuddly HR policies would cast them as the “bad guy”, and they’d lose about 2 years in productive time as they tried to shoulder through it.
- future pension costs are being capped now, but the milk has been spilt already. It’s worth remembering that if you screw remuneration to the floor, and treat staff like mindless resource units (e.g. zero hours, self employed, no holiday etc), that’s what you’ll get. Look at Uber drivers pissing in bottles by the side of the road, sleeping in their cars. Is that the sort of worker you want deciding whether to remove children from parents? Or judging the impact of development plans? Most management books will tell you that content staff work better.
Ian
I will skip past the nit-picking of various errors of facts, or spelling mistakes, and go straight to gratuitous quoting:
Robertj21a said:
My experience of local councils, confirmed by family members who have worked for some of them, is that:-
- there are too many small (inefficient) councils
Agree, but people like tradition, and being represented “locally”. There’s an active minority (can be broadly thought of as the retired) who will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.- there are too many small (inefficient) councils
Robertj21a said:
- the pension arrangements are wildly generous
In comparison to modern private schemes they are. But the public sector has historically used these as a recruitment and retention tool to balance the sector's lower pay, instead of higher up front salaries, bonuses, perks, performance pay, health schemes, car schemes and so on used in the private sector. Anyone heard of the Fox that lost its tail?I don’t think a race to the bottom of pensions provision will do anyone any favours. In my 15 years in local government, the pension offer has been watered down 3 times now, ages of pension entitlement via redundancy have increased, I’m paying extra NI on my pension now, and a max cap of £95k on all exit packages is being introduced (should have been sooner IMO).
Robertj21a said:
- poor management
I’d tend to agree with this. But decisions are slowed down due to the democratic process, and the annual funding arrangement, and 4 yearly electoral cycle makes longer term decision making difficult.Robertj21a said:
- poor staff performance (poor performers get moved around, never dismissed)
I would agree with this. In 15 years, I’ve known 3 people to be escorted out following an HR process (I did it personally in one case). They tend to be where people have done something stupid -sharing sexist jokes, lying on CRB check etc. These are the cases you dream about. Restructuring out poor people is the next easiest way, and used 99% of the time. Actual performance management, I’ve heard it done perhaps once or twice. Why? Performance management takes 6-18 months to do it in a way that won’t land you in an employment tribunal. You can’t just do the Lord Sugar “you’re fired”. People have targets, they have to be accurately assessed, given warning, given more warning, informal, formal, chance to turn around, be reviewed again independetly etc.
All through this time, their union rep will be insisting it’s done in triplicate. All through this time they’ll be throwing grievances out… “I had to work the bank holiday”, “I didn’t get the day off I wanted”, “he shouted at me..”. If the employee happens to have a protected characteristic, well, at this point committing ritual suicide would be more pleasant.
All through this time, you’ve got to keep your service going, and usually pick up the work of the absent employee (who will be off with “stress” by now) and keep feeding the paperwork sausage machine (as if you haven’t got 100% complete, the ET will come down on you like a ton of bricks).
Don’t forget, the employee isn’t in a call centre, or bolting wheels onto a car, where targets are easy to asses. Many services will be subjective, and being able to argue why performance is slow, or below par takes some time to express clearly. 2 social work cases landing in the in-tray could involve hugely different levels of time and complexity - it’s hard to prove beyond doubt that someone is slacking unnecessarily, without a huge amount of direct observation. You can't strap a motion sensor to someone's head (I did ask...) Private sector ideology doesn’t always translate too well. Any my work as a manager isn't watching my team to see if they're working. No, I've get the compliated work, the strategic stuff, the meetings with other areas etc., so I spend most of my time away from the team anyway.
Also, you can't just remove a function, get rid of everyone, and re-set it up again elsewhere. Employees have rights to that work, and the service has to be continuous anyway. Most staff have worked there over 2 years, so there's strict tests about redundancy that will be scrutinised by Unions (rightly so).
As above, poor employees can be weeded out fairly easily for trivial stuff (time keeping, ICT / social media problems, rude) but the crafty “job for life” ones who know how the system works (or with union support) can find cracks to hide in very well. I just wish they’d put that effort into actually working for the residents instead of shirking.
It’s also worth noting we’re having difficulty to recruit staff with the right professional skills (don't forget pay is a good chunk lower than the private sector). I’ve got accountancy posts out that I can’t fill. I’m legally required to complete accounts on time. I can either force out mediocre staff and pay a huge agency premium, or make do with what I’ve got and try to develop them over time (Note: I don’t have money for the agency premium anyway, so that isn’t actually an option).
Robertj21a said:
- poor controls
I’d agree. We have fairly intensive internal audit, but too much time is wasted correcting simple mistakes. Ironically, much time is wasted because staffing has been reduced to a point where the (largely) manual systems can't be operated any more, but money can't be found for automation.Robertj21a said:
- long-serving staff with little awareness of the 'real world'
That’s fair…some of the guys we’ve recruited from the private sector are excellent, and make a big impact. But the public sector is too big to just “replace” job lot with private sector staff. I also think the average powerfully built, gotee’d company director would struggle facing the myriad of responsibilities, demands, legal requirements and political realities with their hands tied by inherited situations that Local Government face. It would be interesting to see - maybe C4 could make a TV show where jobs were swapped for a year. They also for the most part wouldn’t put up with the paltry pay offered (pension notwithstanding)Robertj21a said:
- generally still over-staffed
Interesting that people attack back office staff. We have say 80 social workers, with boarder line illegal caseloads (I.e. would fail Baby P test). Do we want them sending their own letters out? Making their own diary appointments? Completing expenses paperwork? Inputting findings into a computer system? I would think not. They need to be out with clients, or in court. An efficient back office is essential, and cuts should be made in equal proportion. Would you have an F1 driver getting out to help change his wheel? No.I would say local government is generally unable to use ICT effectively, as we don’t have funds for mass investment (unlike private sector). 2 examples:
1) we have 94 legacy ICT systems - a product of having several dozen disparate industries all trying to work in the same organisation. We try to migrate a few to a single adult social care system. Took 4 years, couple of million in ICT consultants plus ICT licenses and hardware. Outcome? Zero saving, as demand had increased and all the spare capacity generated.The savings were to reduce admin staff, and the social workers just don’t have the capacity to feed data into the machine themselves with their workload. Result was the new system is now full of out of date data. What sort of business case can you make on that? What would the private sector do? The public sector can’t just quit the market, or go insolvent. We had foster carers leaving kids to our town hall doorstep because they hadn’t been paid their weekly allowance. Setting up councils from scratch now would be far easier than changing systems from the last 40 years (and older for things like highways and social care).
2) We get money from businesses for rates. The higher the Rateable value (RV), the more cash. Company “X” sells me consultancy services to find extra RV, and I pay them 7.5% of whatver they find (say £100k pa) (out of 48.9% x 30% which we keep). Our council cut its visiting offers down to 2, and with several thousand commercial properties, they can’t do much other than keep up with new builds.
The company has invested a model looking at 48 different data sets, and can spit out PDF BAR templates in minutes. Why can’t our council develop this? It’s beyond us. We haven’t got the investment headroom, the ICT expertise, the marketing expertise to sell it, but our visiting officers (on £25k) probably know 3x the amount that the company do about rateable value.
In the 80s, councils used to write software in-house (indeed, capita started in local government). Now, we get fleeced with huge annual fees who then asset strip talent and keep us locked into the cycle of them charing £1k to install free software. It’s hard cycle to break out of.
I think staffing is too low in places - I think getting things right the first time with a few more staffing would avoid costly mistakes in the long run.
Robertj21a said:
They need merging, quality management, performance targets, dismissals, revision of pension benefits etc etc.
Agreed, but "merging" and "revision of benefits are already happening". The rest: yes, it is needed. There were some good points there. Hopefully I’ve tried to give a balanced view from inside the wire.Thanks for sticking with it so far.
BoRED S2upid said:
To fund idiot councils no as there is nothing that can waste money better or spend it quicker than a local council. If it was a fair small rise for everyone to help us out of the hole we are in as a country then yes.
Hmm, it’s all spent on “you” though. I’ve never once known a resident come to the council, and say “you know what, can you spend a bit less money on me or my family please”, or “actually, I don’t mind waiting a bit longer for this to be done”. It can’t be had both ways unfortunately.Councils are set up with the explicit and single purpose to spend money. Huge quantities of money, in cases where the “market” system won’t, or can’t provide services effectively.
If you don’t like it, move to a country with no public sector, and then wonder why water is dirty, food unsafe, roads treacherous, the poor die in the street, next to the elderly and infirm, the rich having to employ armed guards when they went out. The Victorians / Edwardian's did learn this the hard way, and I doubt many people are genuinely “up for it” to re-learn them.
Finally - Liverpool 10% increase… I give it qualified support.
My County is in the poop financially (adult social care demand and price increases). The entire fire service (£30m) and library service (£25m) don’t match the current gap on adult social care spending for this year and next year. Where are they supposed to find that sort of money without tax increases?
It will probably cut community bus services before libraries. Result: elderly isolation, deteriorating health, lob the problem over the fence to the NHS. How is that sensible? But that’s the only path they have, as they’re legally required to set a balanced budget each and every year, and legally required to meet the care needs of the elderly. Care companies are putting prices up now, as rulings on minimum pay consolidate the market into a few large providers (small ones going under) who can unwind the price reductions secured by councils over recent years.
The bottom line is, people expect more from the state than the country can afford (or wants to afford ). Expectations need to change, but unsurprising enough, no-one wants to be the one to pay, or the one to change.
I think attempts to get the private sector to help the public sector avoid waste would just be a “front” for the private sector ripping off councils en masse. Sorry, but every situation I’ve seen has been the private sector over-selling and under-delivering. Think PFI - they are a huge, spectacular rip off by the private sector, where councils were forced (bribed) by HM Treasury to take them up.
And where people argue “bigger is better”, look at the NHS e-records debacle. Look at universal credit debacle. Large ICT just can’t be done by the private sector, yet alone the public sector. Reform needs to be on a scale that is manageable.
My solutions would be:
- proper discussion of funding and expectation of adult social care costs (CMD raised expectations in the Dillnot review, but then failed to do anything about funding them, the git)
- proper discussion about emergency accommodation and housing costs. They are crippling in the SE
- proper discussion about split of medical and non medical care costs, as cost shunting between LA and NHS costs the public purse a hell of a lot more than if it could be joined up better
- removing layers of smaller councils (Wales seems especially bad, but suspect this is the “a-symmetry of the union” funding thing left over from previous political tinkering)
- use of private sector ICT and process efficiencies, but on a “risk and reward” basis - none of this “give me your watch and I’ll tell you the time” nonsense we get palmed off with. This will need a big capital pot to pump prime, but if done well should reap rewards for the Treasury
- creation of a public sector management / leadership academy, where private sector experience and ethos can be blended with parts of the public sector that are needed (e.g. legal requirements).
- “something” - don’t know what yet - to end the “job for life” attitude that runs through Councils. The services attract a high proportion of lefties, but that’s because many of the services do “give back” to the community (youth, social work, teaching etc) and work well around family life. I think a lot of managers just don’t feel confident enough to “put their foot down” on low level slacking (I.e. making breakfast at work, chatting, sloppy work) because they know the union machinery and cuddly HR policies would cast them as the “bad guy”, and they’d lose about 2 years in productive time as they tried to shoulder through it.
- future pension costs are being capped now, but the milk has been spilt already. It’s worth remembering that if you screw remuneration to the floor, and treat staff like mindless resource units (e.g. zero hours, self employed, no holiday etc), that’s what you’ll get. Look at Uber drivers pissing in bottles by the side of the road, sleeping in their cars. Is that the sort of worker you want deciding whether to remove children from parents? Or judging the impact of development plans? Most management books will tell you that content staff work better.
Ian
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/virgin-wins...
Personal opinion- though I dislike Branson, I think Virgin can do a better job for less cost than its predecessor. Time will tell.
Personal opinion- though I dislike Branson, I think Virgin can do a better job for less cost than its predecessor. Time will tell.
Great post Ian. I only worked at a council for 6 months before moving on but a lot rings true. I think yours is an incredibly balanced view and I think it's fair to say social care is an area that is massively underresourced.
My experience was being in a team of 4 with a manager who seemed to have acquired her job as a result of years service rather than ability or motivation. The 'team' should have been 1 person there was so little work to do (we worked in transport). In fairness to the council they were starting a cull of management tiers as I left, a good start that would save big bucks.
What I found most infuriating was that our senior manager had a budget and it was of the use it or lose it type. In March we stopped using council meeting rooms and expensed travel all over the county to outside meeting venues where we'd have fully catered meetings about f
k all. I was living at home at the time and my dad was fking livid when I'd turn down dinner because I'd spent all day consuming his council tax.
I'm happy to pay tax if it provides care or support for the vulnerable, keeps the elderly mobile, gives the poor access to books and internet, empties the bins or keeps the streets clean and in good nick but I resent that there is still waste when these services are being cut and think any rise in rates needs to be paired with a cut in perks for councillors and a serious review of staffing in admin roles like my old job.
My experience was being in a team of 4 with a manager who seemed to have acquired her job as a result of years service rather than ability or motivation. The 'team' should have been 1 person there was so little work to do (we worked in transport). In fairness to the council they were starting a cull of management tiers as I left, a good start that would save big bucks.
What I found most infuriating was that our senior manager had a budget and it was of the use it or lose it type. In March we stopped using council meeting rooms and expensed travel all over the county to outside meeting venues where we'd have fully catered meetings about f
k all. I was living at home at the time and my dad was fking livid when I'd turn down dinner because I'd spent all day consuming his council tax.I'm happy to pay tax if it provides care or support for the vulnerable, keeps the elderly mobile, gives the poor access to books and internet, empties the bins or keeps the streets clean and in good nick but I resent that there is still waste when these services are being cut and think any rise in rates needs to be paired with a cut in perks for councillors and a serious review of staffing in admin roles like my old job.
IroningMan said:
Local authorities are my customer base; I see a great deal of cutting of 'visible' services in order to score political points.
We have too much local government.
I have often wondered this when crossing the runcorn bridge noticing that it is half painted. Wonder if this was some of militant socialists protest at tory cuts.We have too much local government.
Ian Geary said:
Late to this thread. *** Warning *** long answer coming.
I will skip past the nit-picking of various errors of facts, or spelling mistakes, and go straight to gratuitous quoting:
I don’t think a race to the bottom of pensions provision will do anyone any favours. In my 15 years in local government, the pension offer has been watered down 3 times now, ages of pension entitlement via redundancy have increased, I’m paying extra NI on my pension now, and a max cap of £95k on all exit packages is being introduced (should have been sooner IMO).
Restructuring out poor people is the next easiest way, and used 99% of the time. Actual performance management, I’ve heard it done perhaps once or twice. Why? Performance management takes 6-18 months to do it in a way that won’t land you in an employment tribunal. You can’t just do the Lord Sugar “you’re fired”. People have targets, they have to be accurately assessed, given warning, given more warning, informal, formal, chance to turn around, be reviewed again independetly etc.
All through this time, their union rep will be insisting it’s done in triplicate. All through this time they’ll be throwing grievances out… “I had to work the bank holiday”, “I didn’t get the day off I wanted”, “he shouted at me..”. If the employee happens to have a protected characteristic, well, at this point committing ritual suicide would be more pleasant.
All through this time, you’ve got to keep your service going, and usually pick up the work of the absent employee (who will be off with “stress” by now) and keep feeding the paperwork sausage machine (as if you haven’t got 100% complete, the ET will come down on you like a ton of bricks).
Don’t forget, the employee isn’t in a call centre, or bolting wheels onto a car, where targets are easy to asses. Many services will be subjective, and being able to argue why performance is slow, or below par takes some time to express clearly. 2 social work cases landing in the in-tray could involve hugely different levels of time and complexity - it’s hard to prove beyond doubt that someone is slacking unnecessarily, without a huge amount of direct observation. You can't strap a motion sensor to someone's head (I did ask...) Private sector ideology doesn’t always translate too well. Any my work as a manager isn't watching my team to see if they're working. No, I've get the compliated work, the strategic stuff, the meetings with other areas etc., so I spend most of my time away from the team anyway.
Also, you can't just remove a function, get rid of everyone, and re-set it up again elsewhere. Employees have rights to that work, and the service has to be continuous anyway. Most staff have worked there over 2 years, so there's strict tests about redundancy that will be scrutinised by Unions (rightly so).
As above, poor employees can be weeded out fairly easily for trivial stuff (time keeping, ICT / social media problems, rude) but the crafty “job for life” ones who know how the system works (or with union support) can find cracks to hide in very well. I just wish they’d put that effort into actually working for the residents instead of shirking.
It’s also worth noting we’re having difficulty to recruit staff with the right professional skills (don't forget pay is a good chunk lower than the private sector). I’ve got accountancy posts out that I can’t fill. I’m legally required to complete accounts on time. I can either force out mediocre staff and pay a huge agency premium, or make do with what I’ve got and try to develop them over time (Note: I don’t have money for the agency premium anyway, so that isn’t actually an option).
I would say local government is generally unable to use ICT effectively, as we don’t have funds for mass investment (unlike private sector). 2 examples:
1) we have 94 legacy ICT systems - a product of having several dozen disparate industries all trying to work in the same organisation. We try to migrate a few to a single adult social care system. Took 4 years, couple of million in ICT consultants plus ICT licenses and hardware. Outcome? Zero saving, as demand had increased and all the spare capacity generated.The savings were to reduce admin staff, and the social workers just don’t have the capacity to feed data into the machine themselves with their workload. Result was the new system is now full of out of date data. What sort of business case can you make on that? What would the private sector do? The public sector can’t just quit the market, or go insolvent. We had foster carers leaving kids to our town hall doorstep because they hadn’t been paid their weekly allowance. Setting up councils from scratch now would be far easier than changing systems from the last 40 years (and older for things like highways and social care).
2) We get money from businesses for rates. The higher the Rateable value (RV), the more cash. Company “X” sells me consultancy services to find extra RV, and I pay them 7.5% of whatver they find (say £100k pa) (out of 48.9% x 30% which we keep). Our council cut its visiting offers down to 2, and with several thousand commercial properties, they can’t do much other than keep up with new builds.
The company has invested a model looking at 48 different data sets, and can spit out PDF BAR templates in minutes. Why can’t our council develop this? It’s beyond us. We haven’t got the investment headroom, the ICT expertise, the marketing expertise to sell it, but our visiting officers (on £25k) probably know 3x the amount that the company do about rateable value.
In the 80s, councils used to write software in-house (indeed, capita started in local government). Now, we get fleeced with huge annual fees who then asset strip talent and keep us locked into the cycle of them charing £1k to install free software. It’s hard cycle to break out of.
I think staffing is too low in places - I think getting things right the first time with a few more staffing would avoid costly mistakes in the long run.
Thanks for sticking with it so far.
Ian
Thank you for your thorough replies to my various points, much appreciated. I can happily agree with much of what you say, and I never suggested changes could be quick, or easy. Given that my observations were built up over many years, involving a number of different councils - and a number of family members - it's reassuring to note that you are, broadly, in agreement. Now it just needs a means by which some real, positive, action can be instigated.......I will skip past the nit-picking of various errors of facts, or spelling mistakes, and go straight to gratuitous quoting:
Robertj21a said:
My experience of local councils, confirmed by family members who have worked for some of them, is that:-
- there are too many small (inefficient) councils
Agree, but people like tradition, and being represented “locally”. There’s an active minority (can be broadly thought of as the retired) who will fight tooth and nail to keep the status quo.- there are too many small (inefficient) councils
Robertj21a said:
- the pension arrangements are wildly generous
In comparison to modern private schemes they are. But the public sector has historically used these as a recruitment and retention tool to balance the sector's lower pay, instead of higher up front salaries, bonuses, perks, performance pay, health schemes, car schemes and so on used in the private sector. Anyone heard of the Fox that lost its tail?I don’t think a race to the bottom of pensions provision will do anyone any favours. In my 15 years in local government, the pension offer has been watered down 3 times now, ages of pension entitlement via redundancy have increased, I’m paying extra NI on my pension now, and a max cap of £95k on all exit packages is being introduced (should have been sooner IMO).
Robertj21a said:
- poor management
I’d tend to agree with this. But decisions are slowed down due to the democratic process, and the annual funding arrangement, and 4 yearly electoral cycle makes longer term decision making difficult.Robertj21a said:
- poor staff performance (poor performers get moved around, never dismissed)
I would agree with this. In 15 years, I’ve known 3 people to be escorted out following an HR process (I did it personally in one case). They tend to be where people have done something stupid -sharing sexist jokes, lying on CRB check etc. These are the cases you dream about. Restructuring out poor people is the next easiest way, and used 99% of the time. Actual performance management, I’ve heard it done perhaps once or twice. Why? Performance management takes 6-18 months to do it in a way that won’t land you in an employment tribunal. You can’t just do the Lord Sugar “you’re fired”. People have targets, they have to be accurately assessed, given warning, given more warning, informal, formal, chance to turn around, be reviewed again independetly etc.
All through this time, their union rep will be insisting it’s done in triplicate. All through this time they’ll be throwing grievances out… “I had to work the bank holiday”, “I didn’t get the day off I wanted”, “he shouted at me..”. If the employee happens to have a protected characteristic, well, at this point committing ritual suicide would be more pleasant.
All through this time, you’ve got to keep your service going, and usually pick up the work of the absent employee (who will be off with “stress” by now) and keep feeding the paperwork sausage machine (as if you haven’t got 100% complete, the ET will come down on you like a ton of bricks).
Don’t forget, the employee isn’t in a call centre, or bolting wheels onto a car, where targets are easy to asses. Many services will be subjective, and being able to argue why performance is slow, or below par takes some time to express clearly. 2 social work cases landing in the in-tray could involve hugely different levels of time and complexity - it’s hard to prove beyond doubt that someone is slacking unnecessarily, without a huge amount of direct observation. You can't strap a motion sensor to someone's head (I did ask...) Private sector ideology doesn’t always translate too well. Any my work as a manager isn't watching my team to see if they're working. No, I've get the compliated work, the strategic stuff, the meetings with other areas etc., so I spend most of my time away from the team anyway.
Also, you can't just remove a function, get rid of everyone, and re-set it up again elsewhere. Employees have rights to that work, and the service has to be continuous anyway. Most staff have worked there over 2 years, so there's strict tests about redundancy that will be scrutinised by Unions (rightly so).
As above, poor employees can be weeded out fairly easily for trivial stuff (time keeping, ICT / social media problems, rude) but the crafty “job for life” ones who know how the system works (or with union support) can find cracks to hide in very well. I just wish they’d put that effort into actually working for the residents instead of shirking.
It’s also worth noting we’re having difficulty to recruit staff with the right professional skills (don't forget pay is a good chunk lower than the private sector). I’ve got accountancy posts out that I can’t fill. I’m legally required to complete accounts on time. I can either force out mediocre staff and pay a huge agency premium, or make do with what I’ve got and try to develop them over time (Note: I don’t have money for the agency premium anyway, so that isn’t actually an option).
Robertj21a said:
- poor controls
I’d agree. We have fairly intensive internal audit, but too much time is wasted correcting simple mistakes. Ironically, much time is wasted because staffing has been reduced to a point where the (largely) manual systems can't be operated any more, but money can't be found for automation.Robertj21a said:
- long-serving staff with little awareness of the 'real world'
That’s fair…some of the guys we’ve recruited from the private sector are excellent, and make a big impact. But the public sector is too big to just “replace” job lot with private sector staff. I also think the average powerfully built, gotee’d company director would struggle facing the myriad of responsibilities, demands, legal requirements and political realities with their hands tied by inherited situations that Local Government face. It would be interesting to see - maybe C4 could make a TV show where jobs were swapped for a year. They also for the most part wouldn’t put up with the paltry pay offered (pension notwithstanding)Robertj21a said:
- generally still over-staffed
Interesting that people attack back office staff. We have say 80 social workers, with boarder line illegal caseloads (I.e. would fail Baby P test). Do we want them sending their own letters out? Making their own diary appointments? Completing expenses paperwork? Inputting findings into a computer system? I would think not. They need to be out with clients, or in court. An efficient back office is essential, and cuts should be made in equal proportion. Would you have an F1 driver getting out to help change his wheel? No.I would say local government is generally unable to use ICT effectively, as we don’t have funds for mass investment (unlike private sector). 2 examples:
1) we have 94 legacy ICT systems - a product of having several dozen disparate industries all trying to work in the same organisation. We try to migrate a few to a single adult social care system. Took 4 years, couple of million in ICT consultants plus ICT licenses and hardware. Outcome? Zero saving, as demand had increased and all the spare capacity generated.The savings were to reduce admin staff, and the social workers just don’t have the capacity to feed data into the machine themselves with their workload. Result was the new system is now full of out of date data. What sort of business case can you make on that? What would the private sector do? The public sector can’t just quit the market, or go insolvent. We had foster carers leaving kids to our town hall doorstep because they hadn’t been paid their weekly allowance. Setting up councils from scratch now would be far easier than changing systems from the last 40 years (and older for things like highways and social care).
2) We get money from businesses for rates. The higher the Rateable value (RV), the more cash. Company “X” sells me consultancy services to find extra RV, and I pay them 7.5% of whatver they find (say £100k pa) (out of 48.9% x 30% which we keep). Our council cut its visiting offers down to 2, and with several thousand commercial properties, they can’t do much other than keep up with new builds.
The company has invested a model looking at 48 different data sets, and can spit out PDF BAR templates in minutes. Why can’t our council develop this? It’s beyond us. We haven’t got the investment headroom, the ICT expertise, the marketing expertise to sell it, but our visiting officers (on £25k) probably know 3x the amount that the company do about rateable value.
In the 80s, councils used to write software in-house (indeed, capita started in local government). Now, we get fleeced with huge annual fees who then asset strip talent and keep us locked into the cycle of them charing £1k to install free software. It’s hard cycle to break out of.
I think staffing is too low in places - I think getting things right the first time with a few more staffing would avoid costly mistakes in the long run.
Robertj21a said:
They need merging, quality management, performance targets, dismissals, revision of pension benefits etc etc.
Agreed, but "merging" and "revision of benefits are already happening". The rest: yes, it is needed. There were some good points there. Hopefully I’ve tried to give a balanced view from inside the wire.Thanks for sticking with it so far.
Ian
Countdown said:
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The fog of post dissection descends, wonderful.-
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You're confusing services with capital works, please tell me that you aren't involved with spending the taxpayer's hard-earned shekels.
The primary reason why the wholesale transfer of local authority services to the private sector isn't going to happen soon is the lack of competent management within the public sector to manage the process.
Currently, where managed correctly, the "lot" size is determined by the capability of those contractors likely to tender. The tender pre-qualification process identifies contractors with sufficient capability to resource the additional workload should another contractor should default.
The greatest benefit of the transfer of services to the private sector should be accountability. Perform poorly as a contractor and you're at risk of being sacked; I not aware of any councils being sacked due to poor performance.
Efficient procurement and contract management processes shouldn't need hindsight, but they certainly need competent management by the Employer (customer).
For services and capital works, good contract management will ensure that the repercussions of default by a contractor are minimised.
Ian Geary said:
Robertj21a said:
- the pension arrangements are wildly generous
In comparison to modern private schemes they are. But the public sector has historically used these as a recruitment and retention tool to balance the sector's lower pay, instead of higher up front salaries, bonuses, perks, performance pay, health schemes, car schemes and so on used in the private sector. Anyone heard of the Fox that lost its tail?http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance...
https://www.ifs.org.uk/uploads/publications/comms/...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3324665/Pu...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26512643
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105...
Ian Geary said:
I don’t think a race to the bottom of pensions provision will do anyone any favours. In my 15 years in local government, the pension offer has been watered down 3 times now, ages of pension entitlement via redundancy have increased, I’m paying extra NI on my pension now, and a max cap of £95k on all exit packages is being introduced (should have been sooner IMO).
When you say 'race to the bottom' do you actually mean that benefits should not need to be vaguely affordable and related to market factors?Public pensions have been minimally tweaked (and in some cases become more generous). These changes have occurred 10-20 years after the inevitable changes were made in the private sector.
Public sector pensions still remain massively subsidises by the private sector, often with no good reason.
Ian Geary said:
It’s also worth noting we’re having difficulty to recruit staff with . To promote better management, in 1984, Congress directed a switch to an accrual method of funding retirement. Under this procedure, each year the services transfer into a fund the amount necessary to pay for future retirements. The amount transferred is a percentage of the service's basic pay. Thus, if a service implements policies that affect the future value of retirement benefits, it sees the budgetary consequences of that decision immediately in the form of an increase in the amount transferred to the retirement fund. right professional skills (don't forget pay is a good chunk lower than the private sector).
Don't forget evidence suggests otherwise!Ian Geary said:
That’s fair…some of the guys we’ve recruited from the private sector are excellent, and make a big impact. But the public sector is too big to just “replace” job lot with private sector staff. I also think the average powerfully built, gotee’d company director would struggle facing the myriad of responsibilities, demands, legal requirements and political realities with their hands tied by inherited situations that Local Government face. It would be interesting to see - maybe C4 could make a TV show where jobs were swapped for a year. They also for the most part wouldn’t put up with the paltry pay offered (pension notwithstanding)
Except evidence suggests otherwise!Ian Geary said:
BoRED S2upid said:
To fund idiot councils no as there is nothing that can waste money better or spend it quicker than a local council. If it was a fair small rise for everyone to help us out of the hole we are in as a country then yes.
If you don’t like it, move to a country with no public sector, and then wonder why water is dirty, food unsafe, roads treacherous, the poor die in the street, next to the elderly and infirm, the rich having to employ armed guards when they went out. The Victorians / Edwardian's did learn this the hard way, and I doubt many people are genuinely “up for it” to re-learn them. Ian Geary said:
- future pension costs are being capped now, but the milk has been spilt already. It’s worth remembering that if you screw remuneration to the floor, and treat staff like mindless resource units (e.g. zero hours, self employed, no holiday etc), that’s what you’ll get. Look at Uber drivers pissing in bottles by the side of the road, sleeping in their cars. Is that the sort of worker you want deciding whether to remove children from parents? Or judging the impact of development plans? Most management books will tell you that content staff work better.
Ian
See above.Ian
Remuneration hasn't been 'screwed to the floor' and evidence suggests that, even ignoring the hugely generous pensions, public sectors are at or above the level of comparable private sector jobs in the majority of cases.
Edited by sidicks on Sunday 13th November 13:16
Jim the Sunderer said:
It's probably the mid-priced gin talking but I think I've found their problem:
Relevance?Statement of Accounts 2015-16 said:
whilst the proportion of the working age population who are economically inactive is high at 34% (111,200) compared to the UK figure of 22%. Equally, long-term sickness is also about 28% higher than the UK average at 31,300 andthe proportion of working age people receiving Department of Work and Pensions related benefits is 19.2% (62,000) compared to the UK average of 12%.
Esseesse said:
My council claim to have cut to the bone but at this time of the year still send men out to sweep up and bag large areas of fallen leaves. I dunno, maybe they're the guys that at other times would be mowing the grass and would otherwise be idle.
I have a feeling once we leave the EU there is the possibility to significantly relax things surrounding landfill etc, maybe this could have an impact on council tax bills. It feels like the worst value for money tax ever.
Why would you be in favour of leaving the leaves where they fall?I have a feeling once we leave the EU there is the possibility to significantly relax things surrounding landfill etc, maybe this could have an impact on council tax bills. It feels like the worst value for money tax ever.
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