Jeremy Corbyn Vol. 2
Discussion
Burwood said:
I would hazard an educated guess. Pensions for retired staff, governments pushing more services back onto councils laps (that's what they say) and our council (Surrey) was looking at a 15% increase this year but stuck with 3 x5%. Aged care and looking after people with disabilities is what i've read. They aren't spending anything on the roads though!
Yes, you're probably right.People said at the time that there is far more waste in the big government departments (MOD, NHS, etc) than there was in local government. I don't know whether that's true or not but three of my close friends work for South Hams District Council (ICT), Sheffield City Council (graphic designer) and Torquay Development Agency (economic adviser). None of them are lead swingers and the graphic designer and economic adviser are expected to bring work in and bid for projects.
Mobile Chicane said:
If ever there were a time to vote Labour it's now
"I’d rather live with Jeremy Corbyn’s gentle dithering in pursuit of a better world than give May a mandate to destroy what remains of British decency."
I couldn't agree more.
The Tories are eviscerating our public services, and will continue to do so. Record numbers of homeless, food bank usage, the demonisation of sick and disabled people while handing huge sums of money to private assessment companies only for 60% of their decisions to be overturned on appeal, the NHS and emergency services in crisis.
Britain we can do better than this.
I've done well in life but some things aren't about 'me'. I'm voting Labour for the junior doctor, the midwife, the cleaner, white van man, anyone in temporary insecure employment or needing the care they're not currently getting.
Companies can and should pay their due. Anyone on >£70k can consider themselves 'comfortably off' compared with the average salary of £26k. I personally have no issue with paying more tax to fund our public services.
Sorry to comment upon this post so late in the day but I did actually read the article. I''m not entirely sure that you did though..."I’d rather live with Jeremy Corbyn’s gentle dithering in pursuit of a better world than give May a mandate to destroy what remains of British decency."
I couldn't agree more.
The Tories are eviscerating our public services, and will continue to do so. Record numbers of homeless, food bank usage, the demonisation of sick and disabled people while handing huge sums of money to private assessment companies only for 60% of their decisions to be overturned on appeal, the NHS and emergency services in crisis.
Britain we can do better than this.
I've done well in life but some things aren't about 'me'. I'm voting Labour for the junior doctor, the midwife, the cleaner, white van man, anyone in temporary insecure employment or needing the care they're not currently getting.
Companies can and should pay their due. Anyone on >£70k can consider themselves 'comfortably off' compared with the average salary of £26k. I personally have no issue with paying more tax to fund our public services.
George Monbiot in the Guardian said:
Corbyn’s team has been hopeless at handling the media and managing his public image. This is a massive liability, but it also reflects a noble disregard for presentation and spin. Shouldn’t we embrace it? This was the licence granted to Gordon Brown, whose inept performances on television and radio as prime minister were attributed initially to his “authenticity” and “integrity”. Never mind that he had financed the Iraq war and championed the private finance initiative, which as several of us predicted is now ripping the NHS and other public services apart.
So you want me to vote for the party who "championed the private finance initiative, which is now ripping the NHS and other public services apart" ? So that they can completely destroy it once and for all? People seem to have such short memories. George Monbiot in the Guardian said:
Corbyn’s team has been hopeless at handling the media and managing his public image. This is a massive liability, but it also reflects a noble disregard for presentation and spin. Shouldn’t we embrace it?
But they are trying to manage his image; the video of him sat on the train floor is a perfect example of the people around him trying to portray the image they want in the media. They may be crap at it, but "a noble disregard for presentation and spin" seems too kind on the man.MDMetal said:
covmutley said:
BigMon said:
I used to work for a local council, and still know people who do. It has changed massively over the past decade and there is no longer any 'fat' to be trimmed from it.
I dont believe that for a second. Just this week:-My mate who works for a Council told me that members of his team spend 25 hours of their working week doing union business.
-My wife told me that there are now 2 people doing a NHS management role because the other person has come back from another seconded role. Apparently this is ok because the other person is due to retire in about 5 years time
Plenty other examples of this I'm sure as well. No wonder people feel unmotivated
I worked for the government 10 years plus ago and saw a lot of wasted money...most of it being due to the tactics of the various consultancies who were engaged to manage and advise on IT projects. Siemens, Cap Gemini et al had a tactic of 'Get on the job, make yourself indispensable, and keep billing the client!'.
Lack of specialist oversight in complex projects enables constant error reporting/resolution/testing loops. Your average junior consultant getting paid for days on the project is quite happy being a busy fool getting nowhere as long as nobody knows why.
This had nothing to do with inherent inefficiency of the civil service, it was a calculated strategy from the private sector businesses who were engaged to manage and advise on projects.
So who is to blame for that?
Lack of specialist oversight in complex projects enables constant error reporting/resolution/testing loops. Your average junior consultant getting paid for days on the project is quite happy being a busy fool getting nowhere as long as nobody knows why.
This had nothing to do with inherent inefficiency of the civil service, it was a calculated strategy from the private sector businesses who were engaged to manage and advise on projects.
So who is to blame for that?
dimots said:
I worked for the government 10 years plus ago and saw a lot of wasted money...most of it being due to the tactics of the various consultancies who were engaged to manage and advise on IT projects. Siemens, Cap Gemini et al had a tactic of 'Get on the job, make yourself indispensable, and keep billing the client!'.
I've not seen that, but I have seen government departments screw consultancies around on projects, not listen to the specialist advice and then when they'd completely f
ked it all up accuse them of such tactics and even withhold payment. dimots said:
So who is to blame for that?
The procurement departments IME.They can't even be bothered to pay SMEs 7 figure sums, they'd rather pay 30% more to a large consultancy already on the books who they know will use the SME just so there's less paperwork. They want to write one cheque a year and don't care what the money goes on until someone questions it way too late. Zero notion of working with the consultancies to ensure there aren't unexpected surprises. And then it's the fault of the consultancies for doing what they were asked to and expecting to be paid as agreed.
Tankrizzo said:
I temped for a Welsh county council a few years ago between jobs. The waste & inefficiency there would make your toes curl. Staff making up jobs to avoid proper work, ignoring phone calls from members of the public (I worked in a department dealing with council benefit queries) while playing Minesweeper at 3pm, taking 3 hour "lunch breaks", disappearing for 2 hours to get their hair cut, spending the first 2 hours of each day discussing the previous night's events of the most popular TV soap operas, on and on and on.
I was employed for 4 months to cover a member of staff on maternity leave, and it quickly became clear that all this person's job involved was listening to answerphone messages left over the weekend/out of hours and then transcribing them into emails to the right people. 9-5 job, 5 days a week. I'm not joking or being egotistical when I say I smoked through the weekend's calls in a couple of hours, and then basically had nothing to do for the rest of the week (the evening calls might be one or two a night if that).
It turned out that the woman was on £26k pa to do just this job, nothing else.
I'll caveat that of course this was one council in one part of the country, but it still makes you think.
The NHS is the same - it's a joke.I was employed for 4 months to cover a member of staff on maternity leave, and it quickly became clear that all this person's job involved was listening to answerphone messages left over the weekend/out of hours and then transcribing them into emails to the right people. 9-5 job, 5 days a week. I'm not joking or being egotistical when I say I smoked through the weekend's calls in a couple of hours, and then basically had nothing to do for the rest of the week (the evening calls might be one or two a night if that).
It turned out that the woman was on £26k pa to do just this job, nothing else.
I'll caveat that of course this was one council in one part of the country, but it still makes you think.
My wife works for them - most of her colleagues are on long term sick leave for made up illnesses that in the private sector would see you eventually unemployed. A recent example is a new starter who went on long term sick leave due to stress...she'd only been there a few weeks.
Oh and then you have all of life's losers just taking up bed space.
It's nice to have the NHS, but sadly it's abused to within an inch of it's life - it can't continue. Throwing money at it isn't the answer.
BigMon said:
I worked in ICT rather than finance so I can't directly answer your questions but all I can tell you is what my ex-colleagues are telling me.
Despite earlier saying:BigMon said:
I'm mentioning my direct experience not what 'my mate' said.
You seem to be contradicting yourself.768 said:
dimots said:
I worked for the government 10 years plus ago and saw a lot of wasted money...most of it being due to the tactics of the various consultancies who were engaged to manage and advise on IT projects. Siemens, Cap Gemini et al had a tactic of 'Get on the job, make yourself indispensable, and keep billing the client!'.
I've not seen that, but I have seen government departments screw consultancies around on projects, not listen to the specialist advice and then when they'd completely fked it all up accuse them of such tactics and even withhold payment. dimots said:
So who is to blame for that?
The procurement departments IME.They can't even be bothered to pay SMEs 7 figure sums, they'd rather pay 30% more to a large consultancy already on the books who they know will use the SME just so there's less paperwork. They want to write one cheque a year and don't care what the money goes on until someone questions it way too late. Zero notion of working with the consultancies to ensure there aren't unexpected surprises. And then it's the fault of the consultancies for doing what they were asked to and expecting to be paid as agreed.
Bottom line is a lot of people are trotting out the 'private sector chases efficiency' vs 'public sector wallows in inefficiency' cliche which is not borne out by my experience - private sector is very happy with inefficiency as the status quo if there's profit to be had.
dimots said:
Bottom line is a lot of people are trotting out the 'private sector chases efficiency' vs 'public sector wallows in inefficiency' cliche which is not borne out by my experience - private sector is very happy with inefficiency as the status quo if there's profit to be had.
That's kinda the point.All organisations tend to evolve in the direction of being run for the benefit of their own staff, but at least with a profit motive and hopefully competition there's some limit to this.
dimots said:
Generally more cost effective and definitely a safer bet in terms of reparative payments/clawback etc if you work with a bigger firm than an SME - major tick box for procurement departments.
It's not more cost effective to pay a 30% premium for the same people to do the work. I don't buy reparative payments being an issue either - 30% is a massive premium when these organisations frequently work together for decades.A tick box however I am certain it is.
dimots said:
Generally more cost effective and definitely a safer bet in terms of reparative payments/clawback etc if you work with a bigger firm than an SME - major tick box for procurement departments.
Bottom line is a lot of people are trotting out the 'private sector chases efficiency' vs 'public sector wallows in inefficiency' cliche which is not borne out by my experience - private sector is very happy with inefficiency as the status quo if there's profit to be had.
As ever, this makes no sense - if there's profit to be made from inefficiency, there even more profit to be made from efficiency!Bottom line is a lot of people are trotting out the 'private sector chases efficiency' vs 'public sector wallows in inefficiency' cliche which is not borne out by my experience - private sector is very happy with inefficiency as the status quo if there's profit to be had.
sidicks said:
As ever, this makes no sense - if there's profit to be made from inefficiency, there even more profit to be made from efficiency!
As ever, you misunderstand the point. Efficiency = savings. Inefficiency = cost. Now look at that equation from a contractor/agency point of view rather than the client view.Introduce or maintain an inefficient state and you can charge the client more. Happens all the time and is exploited by many third party contractors.
dimots said:
As ever, you misunderstand the point. Efficiency = savings. Inefficiency = cost. Now look at that equation from a contractor/agency point of view rather than the client view.
Introduce or maintain an inefficient state and you can charge the client more. Happens all the time and is exploited by many third party contractors.
In the absence of competition you can charge the same price and make a higher profit by being more efficient. With competition the inefficiencies are competed away.Introduce or maintain an inefficient state and you can charge the client more. Happens all the time and is exploited by many third party contractors.
768 said:
It's not more cost effective to pay a 30% premium for the same people to do the work. I don't buy reparative payments being an issue either - 30% is a massive premium when these organisations frequently work together for decades.
A tick box however I am certain it is.
It is more cost effective because it saves on the creation of project boards, stakeholder groups, consultation, procurement process, etc... If you can farm something out wholesale at a higher cost to save on internal admin it can save money. A tick box however I am certain it is.
The clawback issue is a biggie for getting project spend approved, as are such indicators as age of company, turnover, etc... Government departments like to spend money with established acts. I'm not saying it's good, but SMEs less than 5 years old with less than £2m turnover will struggle to win contracts due to the process.
sidicks said:
In the absence of competition you can charge the same price and make a higher profit by being more efficient. With competition the inefficiencies are competed away.
Maybe just the projects I worked on but I would again refer to my point about that being possibly true on a macro level, but in reality not how it works. Government PMs are generally tight on management of maximum day rates and so on. What I saw was the deployment of junior Cap Gemini/Siemens consultants who were targeted with staying on the project for as many days as possible. The only competition I saw was between the consultancy firms themselves to gain control of steering and resourcing the project to they could bring more of their own people in. Very inefficient but good business for them.Gassing Station | News, Politics & Economics | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff