General Chat

I read an article a few weeks back by someone who has worked for over 30 years in what used to be known as time and motion, looking at ways of working more efficiently and cutting out waste. He had experience of both the private and the public sector and was a respected expert.

He happened to mention that the public sector consistently perform around 15-25% worse than the private sector.

Add to this the non-essential services that many councils seem to think they need to provide - usually by employing an "expert advisor" with an inflated salary - then it shouldn't be that difficult to save some serious money.

Hi both

Just to be clear, I don't work for a local authority. I'm just a "concerned citizen" who happens to pay her taxes - in a private sector job.

I quite agree with you, Penfold, that cutting out unnecessary waste has to be a good thing -and I'm sure that there's duplication in the public sector that could be dispensed with, as Maggie says.

On the other hand, I can't see that any company in the private sector could sustain cuts of a quarter of its budget just by eliminating waste. Front line services will have to suffer, as Maggie says.

Front line services can't exist without HR, finance and a range of other "back office" functions, which can only be cut to an extent, before they cease to have any meaning at all.

Don't give me your garbage about "power to local communities" Mr Pickles, and expect me to take you seriously, when you are simultaneously removing any instrument of power from those same communities.

Sue x

I agree Suzain. Profiteering & shareholders aside. A company would look at driving down costs, being more efficient in how it works. The loss of jobs is a last step & The important part of the business the product has to be maintained or improved. With a good company this is an on going process.

But it seems that with the councils, their 1st policy is to cut services.

Penfold

Where I work, more 'managerial' (paper pushing), rather than 'front line' (ie care assistants etc) jobs are being cut.
Strangley (or perhaps not) there will be a decrease in management and an increase in Admin within the ofice environment!!!

So...... do you think it's been realised who does the 'real' work in the land of pushing paper?

*I want a 'proper' job* LOL

Well done your daughter, Maggie - and well done, you!

Penfold - public sector jobs are being lost because of expenditure cuts in the region of 25% - and you're quite right - councils in the poorest parts of the country are suffering most. They have lost their working neighbourhoods fund and the like, which was awarded to them because of the problems faced by their neighbourhoods.

this has miraculously removed from the list of cuts faced by local authorities,

As for the private sector running things better - they are excellent at running things to make a profit. Unfortunately, local government isn't motivated by share-holder reward. Nor should it be.

Sue x

Typical of a tory government, the poor councils will be poorer & the rich councils will be better off.

I seem to remember that to correct the national government debt that a spending cut of 3 & 1/2 % was required. So why are so many front line jobs are being lost.

The private sector company would be able to achieve a similar saving by being more efficient & fewer job losses.

Penfold

I was (still am I suppose) a working single parent - who lost 6 weeks of benefit a year as I only had a PO box address for my ex who had moved to W Australia, and refused to sign a statement prepared by the CSA stating that he was violent - (to make their records match)!!
An act, I might say that, had I lied, as requested by the CSA, would have meant he wouldn't be doing the job he's now doing - teaching young adults (16+), some with learning disabilities.
It was worth the loss of income - but I was fully entitled to the EMA.
If my daughter can be as good a teacher as her father I will be proud of my bloody mindedness - and (unlike the CSA) - honesty!!!

I'm sorry to hear about that, Det. It must have been very hard for them.

You're right - the "just missed out" families often do feel hard done by. But surely that's no reason to question what those worth off than themselves do with whatever they're entitled to?

After all, it's much better to be a "just missed out" family than one who's unfortunate enough to be not missed out at all?

Sue x

You will have noticed that the 'field trip' was put in exclamation marks - lol

In the instance I'm quoting, the joint income of one of the families was just above the threashold.

They had 2 other children, one of whom was chronically sick. The mother had a low paid part time job which allowed her to have time off unpaid to care for the chronicaly sick child. The father was working full time, with some unsociable hours. The Attendence allowance was used to cover the cost of her car (rural area, frequent hospital visits). They didn't have holidays either! Sadly, the chronically sick child died aged 21 1/2.

But that is life. Neither they nor I begrudge(d) the EMA being used correctly, but it is often the 'just miss out' families who feel hard-done by.

DET

No doubt, Detective

I'd be interested to know why the parents of the children who didn't qualify for EMA couldn't afford for their children to go on the Moroccan field trip?

Personally, I held down a full time job plus an evening job, didn't run a car, and didn't have a holiday, in order that my daughter could have a good education. I was fortunate enough to have two jobs, and also fortunate enough to be able to earn enough so as not to qualify for EMA for my daughter.

I'm yet to be convinced that any parent who's fortunate enough to have had sufficient income not to qualify for EMA really couldn't afford a geography field trip for their child. It comes down to priorities, after all

Sue x

In truth, reading some of the responses re EMA, it is obvious that it has been used by some as it was intended....but in my limited experience, not by all.

2 examples - an area in the West Country 'trialed' it before it went nationwide. The Lecturer of the geography course advised the students to save it for a Moroccan 'field trip'. It ended up that the student's who didn't qualify, couldn't afford the trip.

In another part of the country, the step-father of a student was told that he should look to claim for his step-son (complicated, tragic family situation) When told what it was intended to be used for, he said that they would make sure the step son saved it.

So ok, yes, the money was used for the student's ultimate benefit, but in their cases, they would have continued into yr12/13 anyway!

The EMA came in when my younger daughter was in her last year at secondary school. We were both very grateful for it - it encouraged her to go to 6th form college - then onto uni. It gave her a sense of independence. She spent it on books and bus fares (plus the odd lunch), but didn't have to tell me what she'd done with it - when it was gone, it was gone, so she learnt how to manage money.
When she was at uni, she had to work to fund herself, the EMA had taught her the value of money.
Since leaving uni, she's had a couple of well paid jobs, but is now doing a PGCE.
If the EMA had been around when her elder sister was at school, she would probably have gone to 6th form college too, as all she really wanted was a sense of independence.

You're right, Cooper. EMA is a now officially a thing of the past.

Obviously, all those youngsters were wasting it on luxuries like bus fares to college and such like.

Not to worry - there won't be much in the way of a bus service soon, so that'll sort that one out!

Seriously, if only universal child benefit was abolished, there'd be no need for this. Not that there's any chance of that - witness the outcry when those with incomes over £40k were affected.....

Sue x

I heard that EMA was ending next month.
Many Children rely on this money to get them to and from college.

If they are going to make these cuts they should a least give free bus passes to the Children who need them to get to college.
Term time passes Monday to Friday one jouney in and one out would help a lot of students.

I remember in the 1979/1981 that We had free bus passes to get to the nearest college 15 miles away. We did not get anything else but it helped a lot.

Teresa

I just feel everything has been done in a splutter, surely they could have looked at things more carefully before cutting everything so drastically especially with all the extra vat they will have coming in soon.
I am just so sick of hearing about more cuts all of them affecting the vulnerable folk amongst society, none of these cuts will cause a scrap of difference to people like my brother and his wife, no kids from choice, and he told me a couple of years ago he earns more than any other partner in the company which is a large one, not just local, and more than in his wildest dreams. Yet he has never done much for my son, one of his three nephews (or much for the other one on my side of the family altho he doesn't need anything, his dad, my other brother, owns his own business and has set his son up as another director and helped him buy a house etc) Don;t know if he has helped the third nephew on his wife's side but he is apparently godfather to several of his friends' children, and treats them well. When I think it was me who looked after him when he was little and taught both brothers to read cos my mother didn't find the time...

Anyway I digress, those people will not feel the pinch at all - perhaps this is a subtle ploy to kill off all the elderly poor pensioners and fragile children so the hospitals don't get so overcrowded and cost so much to run.

Lizx

Well, with all the party leaders being millionaires, why should they keep anything they don't use?
Why do they need bus passes - they have a lovely BMW or two in the garage. Doesn't everyone have a car or two nowadays?
As for swimming - the heated one in the basement will do.
Library? Who needs one of them when we've (apparently) all got a Kindle!!
And, of course all dealings with utilities and banks will be over the internet as quite a few of us have computers - and those who don't - well they should be shelling out their minimum wage/jobseekers allowance/pension on a computer - or they could go to the library that we've just closed down!!

Does one feel a little forethought is needed?

What a load of grade one planks!

Today's announcement of local authority budget settlements isn't probably top of your list of "things to watch" - but maybe it should be?

In true coalition fashion, the biggest losers are the areas with the biggest need. Possibly because they are the very areas which wouldn't vote in a Tory under any circumstances?

When your local library closes, your municipal swimming pool is no more, or your bus pass is taken away - be grateful! According to the venerable Mr Pickles, that was your choice.

Sue x