"Firms wary about hiring public sector staff"

[elster]

Countdown said:

I don't choose the number of staff I can (or can't) employ. The Govt gives me an amount of money and tells what tasks they want doing with this money. We don't "demand" - in fact the Govt and Public Sector will outsource regularly if it provides better value than doing it "in-house".

So if you want the plumbing and wiring doing at the same time as the decorating, yes it will cost more. It's up to you to decide and prioritise accordingly.

So you are saying it is an individual minister who decides how many staff work under each supervisor and how many supervisors work under each manager and how many managers are required. Then the ancillary managers on top of that?

Going on your painting the house analogy.

It is like a team of decorators being hired to paint for a mentally ill person. So when the painters say they need more workers and then more workers and then more managers for the workers they are taken on, working the gravy train after all the owner has unlimited money.

Then the owner struggles to pay as there are just too many people to pay, so they pass the house on to someone else.

The new person no longer wants the staff as they are too expensive.

That is your painter analogy.

[Countdown]

elster said:

So you are saying it is an individual minister who decides how many staff work under each supervisor and how many supervisors work under each manager and how many managers are required. Then the ancillary managers on top of that?

No, its not like that. Ministers/Govts don't set staffing levels. They grant money to the various Ministries/Departments who cascade it downwards. the allocation of funding will depend on the Governments priorities and its manifesto commitments

Staffing levels will be decided at a fairly local level, depending upon the type of Public Sector organisation. For example in schools it will be set by the Headmaster, in LAs it will be set by middle managers in conjunction with the respective directors

elster said:

Going on your painting the house analogy.

It is like a team of decorators being hired to paint for a mentally ill person. So when the painters say they need more workers and then more workers and then more managers for the workers they are taken on, working the gravy train after all the owner has unlimited money.

No it isn't. We do not get more money just by asking for it. Budgets are agreed in line with the comprehensive spending reviews. A Govt Dept might move money from one area to another but it definitely wouldn't get additional money from the Treasury (at least I've never known that to happen)

elster said:

Then the owner struggles to pay as there are just too many people to pay, so they pass the house on to someone else.

You don't think its due more to the fall in tax receipts then ? Or, to use your analogy, the owner has suddenly had a massive pay cut? You think that he's been walking around blindly, and all of a sudden he's realised he's agreed to employ too many people?

elster said:

The new person no longer wants the staff as they are too expensive.

Okey-dokey The owner has the right to cut back on the workers he employs. He might even decide to try a different company which agrees to carry out the same quality work for a cheaper price. Good luck to him I say - he who pays the piper calls the tune.

[stripy7]

Saddle bum said:

The dedication and (sometimes) danger go conveniently un-noticed. As an engineer endeavoring to give the squaddie the kit he so justly deserved, I have been stuck in the middle of a gunfight, had artillery dropped short onto my position (it was the krauts wot did it), been stuck in foreign parts without the means to return. It was all part of the job.

The best one was after the major fire in the Channel Tunnel. MoD refused to give me a return airline ticket on the basis my return fare had already been paid for! I suppose I was expected to swim for it and some of you would, no doubt, agree.

The assumption by some in the public sector is that reimbursement in the private is directly proportional- it isnt.
The MOD is shockingly wastefull. I worked as a private contrator in a certain MOD establishment about 5 years ago and watched in disbelief as a couple of ratings turned up daily, travelling from Portsmouth to London and back again to collect "vital parts" in reality off the shelf nuts and bolts which any hardware shop would stock.

Edited by stripy7 on Saturday 23 April 22:47