Boris Johnson-Prime Minister (Vol 8)
Discussion
Newarch said:
Indeed, it will play well with morons who whine about wfh (because needlessly travelling to a place of work is such a good thing) and who’ll be the first to moan when there is any discernible detriment to public services.
Parts of the public sector have had very poor service since the start of the pandemic. Absolutely nothing wrong with WFH where there are the systems, procedure and management to enable service levels to be maintained (or even improved). The DVLA is an obvious example of where the level of service has collapsed for anything other than the routine tasks that are dealt with well by their IT systems in place.
You can certainly make a case for reducing the number of civil servants but the idea that it will have any positive impact on the cost of living crisis is laughable.
They may as well just tag it onto everything.
In order to tackle the cost of living crisis we’re going to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
In order to tackle the cost of living crisis we’re going to privatise Channel 4.
In order to tackle the cost of living crisis we’re going to make it easier for people to complain about their neighbours building an extension.
Etc etc etc
They may as well just tag it onto everything.
In order to tackle the cost of living crisis we’re going to send asylum seekers to Rwanda.
In order to tackle the cost of living crisis we’re going to privatise Channel 4.
In order to tackle the cost of living crisis we’re going to make it easier for people to complain about their neighbours building an extension.
Etc etc etc
anonymous said:
[redacted]
The final, final step is to realise that a particular department is now close to collapse as most decent staff have taken VR and so a super huge contract is awarded to an outsourcing company who just happen to be a donor to the Tory party who promise to improve things and get back to normal but instead drive it further into the ground whilst costing the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds.Meanwhile, the cabinet minister who oversaw the awarding of contracts is now a non-executive director of said outsourcing company…
I just started a new thread on the civil service plans - should have posted here first!
Their plan seems to be to let natural loss (retirements, leavers etc) do most of the heavy lifting alongside headcount reductions in a few targetted areas.
I have no problem with the government reducing the number of civil servants (for example there are still ~70 people working on COP26 - WTF are they doing?), but can't help but think that this will be the usual ill-conceived cluster-fk.
By relying on natural wastage, this won't be properly targetted, but will be spread across all departments. The areas that do good work will not be able to recruit so will be hindered, and will either start missing targets, or have to reduce their remit, or will have to go to the public sector to get replacements at great expense (*1).
Most of this recent increase has come through the government response to Covid and BREXIT. I can understand the change in civil servants required to drop as Covid trails off, but can the government really reduce the number of civil servants working on BREXIT?
It's obvious from recent comments that this government has got half an eye on privatising the passport office, but which other important government areas will get privatised, with no actual cost benefit to the taxpayer?
In summary :
There will be no cost savings.
Services will get more expensive.
Grassroot Tories (the Grrr Unions/lazy Civil Servants lot) have had their balls/breasts tickled.
Tory party backers will be able to buy important and necessary services on the cheap to turn them into nice cash cows.
The story might push Partygate off the front pages for a few days.
(*1) One of my civil servant clients have had a head-count freeze for the last few years. They used to have permanent staff software developers each on ~£250 / day delivering software. They now have contract developers on ~£650 / day with the providing company pocketing the difference. This is how you get money out of the public purse and into private companies back pockets.
Their plan seems to be to let natural loss (retirements, leavers etc) do most of the heavy lifting alongside headcount reductions in a few targetted areas.
I have no problem with the government reducing the number of civil servants (for example there are still ~70 people working on COP26 - WTF are they doing?), but can't help but think that this will be the usual ill-conceived cluster-fk.
By relying on natural wastage, this won't be properly targetted, but will be spread across all departments. The areas that do good work will not be able to recruit so will be hindered, and will either start missing targets, or have to reduce their remit, or will have to go to the public sector to get replacements at great expense (*1).
Most of this recent increase has come through the government response to Covid and BREXIT. I can understand the change in civil servants required to drop as Covid trails off, but can the government really reduce the number of civil servants working on BREXIT?
It's obvious from recent comments that this government has got half an eye on privatising the passport office, but which other important government areas will get privatised, with no actual cost benefit to the taxpayer?
In summary :
There will be no cost savings.
Services will get more expensive.
Grassroot Tories (the Grrr Unions/lazy Civil Servants lot) have had their balls/breasts tickled.
Tory party backers will be able to buy important and necessary services on the cheap to turn them into nice cash cows.
The story might push Partygate off the front pages for a few days.
(*1) One of my civil servant clients have had a head-count freeze for the last few years. They used to have permanent staff software developers each on ~£250 / day delivering software. They now have contract developers on ~£650 / day with the providing company pocketing the difference. This is how you get money out of the public purse and into private companies back pockets.
Could have sworn I'd seen something that said the numbers in the public sector had gone up massively over the past couple of years, like a couple of hundred thousand?
Doubtless lots of fat to be trimmed, though if they want to save money I'd start with the rules before the personnel. Then trim them afterwards.
And maybe privatise entirely some of the pure 'service' functions, as long as there's strict SLAs and penalties attached.
Doubtless lots of fat to be trimmed, though if they want to save money I'd start with the rules before the personnel. Then trim them afterwards.
And maybe privatise entirely some of the pure 'service' functions, as long as there's strict SLAs and penalties attached.
pquinn said:
Could have sworn I'd seen something that said the numbers in the public sector had gone up massively over the past couple of years, like a couple of hundred thousand?
Doubtless lots of fat to be trimmed, though if they want to save money I'd start with the rules before the personnel. Then trim them afterwards.
And maybe privatise entirely some of the pure 'service' functions, as long as there's strict SLAs and penalties attached.
Doubtless lots indeed. Even so, as per the comment about imagined tory voter particles being tickled, there are in at least equal numbers those who think big government with interference to go is great per se. Here's to a decent cull, in the current context it's the right (no pun intended) direction of travel after recent overgrowth.Doubtless lots of fat to be trimmed, though if they want to save money I'd start with the rules before the personnel. Then trim them afterwards.
And maybe privatise entirely some of the pure 'service' functions, as long as there's strict SLAs and penalties attached.
turbobloke said:
pquinn said:
Could have sworn I'd seen something that said the numbers in the public sector had gone up massively over the past couple of years, like a couple of hundred thousand?
Doubtless lots of fat to be trimmed, though if they want to save money I'd start with the rules before the personnel. Then trim them afterwards.
And maybe privatise entirely some of the pure 'service' functions, as long as there's strict SLAs and penalties attached.
Doubtless lots indeed. Even so, as per the comment about imagined tory voter particles being tickled, there are in at least equal numbers those who think big government with interference to go is great per se. Here's to a decent cull, in the current context it's the right (no pun intended) direction of travel after recent overgrowth.Doubtless lots of fat to be trimmed, though if they want to save money I'd start with the rules before the personnel. Then trim them afterwards.
And maybe privatise entirely some of the pure 'service' functions, as long as there's strict SLAs and penalties attached.
looking forward to the dumb tory followers complaining about the cost / level of service when the DVLA / Passport office are privatised.
Apols if this has already been commented on, but who or what gave BJ the authority to say to Finland and Sweden that the UK would have their back? Not disagreeing with the principle, same as I wouldn't for Ukraine, but aren't these the type of actions that might require some sort of approving legislation? Just idle wondering.
Blackpuddin said:
Apols if this has already been commented on, but who or what gave BJ the authority to say to Finland and Sweden that the UK would have their back? Not disagreeing with the principle, same as I wouldn't for Ukraine, but aren't these the type of actions that might require some sort of approving legislation? Just idle wondering.
doubtless discussed in advance with the editor of the Daily MailHe really is a piece of work isn't he.
PM does not apologise after Nazanin tells him she lived in ‘shadow of his words’
PM does not apologise after Nazanin tells him she lived in ‘shadow of his words’
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hstewie said:
hstewie said: He really is a piece of work isn't he.
PM does not apologise after Nazanin tells him she lived in ‘shadow of his words’
Do you have some kind of alert set up, that immediately gives you all the latest Boris news?PM does not apologise after Nazanin tells him she lived in ‘shadow of his words’
According to the time stamp on the Independent website, the story was posted at approx. 15:18, meaning that the moment that the story went live, you were immediately posting the link to it here.
That doesn't seem like healthy behaviour.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: He really is a piece of work isn't he.
PM does not apologise after Nazanin tells him she lived in ‘shadow of his words’
I like the way he says explicitly referring to Johnson's statement, they write specifically and the headline becomes that he didn't apologise full stop. And then you run over here to post it, naturally.PM does not apologise after Nazanin tells him she lived in ‘shadow of his words’
Johnson didn't lock her up. He did see her come back and gave her an hour of his time to listen to her and presumably see what more he could do. The b
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