Public expenditure savings suggestions

[AoWW]

Not bother sending an England team to Euro 2012. We know they'll be shit... so why bother putting a team forward when our overpaid prima-donnas can't' find the energy, passion and commitment needed to play as a cohesive unit.

Think of the money the nation would save on training fees, salaries, travel and accommodation, etc, etc.

[Jon the Hat]

Anyone have any idea why incapacity benefit should be more than jobseekers allowance?

Or why couples living in council houses which they got becuase they had children living with them should not move into a flat once the kids have gone?

How about why people living in expensive areas deserve more housing benefit than those living in cheaper areas? Or why people should be able to stay living in a home they cannot afford at taxpayers expense?

[FoxyPV]

Or why couples living in council houses which they got becuase they had children living with them should not move into a flat once the kids have gone?

Completely agree.

[Jon the Hat]

I am getting fed up with senior figures in the public sector saying "front line services will have to be cut." Why? You spend a huge proportion of your cash on managing people who manage the people who actually do something. Have some balls and get on with clearing out the excessive bureaucracy and stop trying to defend the indefensible.

[davieG]

I am getting fed up with senior figures in the public sector saying "front line services will have to be cut." Why? You spend a huge proportion of your cash on managing people who manage the people who actually do something. Have some balls and get on with clearing out the excessive bureaucracy and stop trying to defend the indefensible.

Probably because the people given the task of making the cuts are the ones that need cutting so they'll hardly make themselves redundant. In my experience of redundancies and I've been through a few it's usually decided by the board or equivalent asking the accountants to pick the and choose and neither group knows exactly what peoples' jobs involve so it's a lottery or it's the board asking senior/middle managers to pick on the basis that the do know something about what people do and as I said they're not going to pick themselves

[Webbo]

Probably because the people given the task of making the cuts are the ones that need cutting so they'll hardly make themselves redundant. In my experience of redundancies and I've been through a few it's usually decided by the board or equivalent asking the accountants to pick the and choose and neither group knows exactly what peoples' jobs involve so it's a lottery or it's the board asking senior/middle managers to pick on the basis that the do know something about what people do and as I said they're not going to pick themselves

It's a lot easier to sack a lollipop lady or a classroom assistant and apply emotional blackmail to the govt not to cut their budget any more.

[breadandcheese]

I am getting fed up with senior figures in the public sector saying "front line services will have to be cut." Why? You spend a huge proportion of your cash on managing people who manage the people who actually do something. Have some balls and get on with clearing out the excessive bureaucracy and stop trying to defend the indefensible.

Any cuts will affect front line services. Any politician (and all parties were guilty of this at the election) who says that front line workers will be protected when spending cuts are made is a liar. The fact is, any savings through new procedures or working practices will always hit both front line and backroom workers.

[Shrenchel]

Anyone have any idea why incapacity benefit should be more than jobseekers allowance?

JS is not supposed to provide a comfortable standard of living. The fact you have to scrap and save and think about every single penny is a great motivation for finding a job. That's not really an acceptable way for someone who geniunely can't work to live their whole life though is it. Why should a disabled person have to worry about money every moment of every day? Why should they have to choose between heating their home or eating a decent meal? If there are cvnts who could work playing the system, that's not the fault of those who geniunely can't.

[Jon the Hat]

JS is not supposed to provide a comfortable standard of living. The fact you have to scrap and save and think about every single penny is a great motivation for finding a job. That's not really an acceptable way for someone who geniunely can't work to live their whole life though is it. Why should a disabled person have to worry about money every moment of every day? Why should they have to choose between heating their home or eating a decent meal? If there are cvnts who could work playing the system, that's not the fault of those who geniunely can't.

Good point, I had not looked at it like that.

[Jon the Hat]

Any cuts will affect front line services. Any politician (and all parties were guilty of this at the election) who says that front line workers will be protected when spending cuts are made is a liar. The fact is, any savings through new procedures or working practices will always hit both front line and backroom workers.

There is a huge huge difference between protecting frontline workers (who frankly have no more right to a job than anyone else) and protecting frontline services. An enormous amount of effort is wasted on double checking and triple checking things which should be done by one person becuase there are too many people, too many measures and too much paperwork involved in just about everything. This being the case, there is no reason why we should have to see services cut, becuase if you take away all the pointless timewasting you have fewer people delivering the same end result.

It is painful though.

[davieG]

There is a huge huge difference between protecting frontline workers (who frankly have no more right to a job than anyone else) and protecting frontline services. An enormous amount of effort is wasted on double checking and triple checking things which should be done by one person becuase there are too many people, too many measures and too much paperwork involved in just about everything. This being the case, there is no reason why we should have to see services cut, becuase if you take away all the pointless timewasting you have fewer people delivering the same end result.

It is painful though.

The public with the media's help have brought a lot of that on themselves due to the over reactions when anything goes wrong, there is this clamour to ensure it's not repeated no matter how obscure or infrequent the event might be, so the public services in order to be seen to be doing something instigate extra checks and that involves more people.

Even the recent expenses scandal has resulted in an in increase in administrative costs in order to make it more accountable and to police it.

[Jon the Hat]

The public with the media's help have brought a lot of that on themselves due to the over reactions when anything goes wrong, there is this clamour to ensure it's not repeated no matter how obscure or infrequent the event might be, so the public services in order to be seen to be doing something instigate extra checks and that involves more people.

Even the recent expenses scandal has resulted in an in increase in administrative costs in order to make it more accountable and to police it.

I completely agree. We need to put people in charge who are actually bold eough to say that someone made a mistake.

I understand this kind of thing in some areas like Child Protection, but in others it is insane.

[RobHawk]

Means test MPs expenses!! Therefore if you fooking loaded already you wont be able to claim for mortgages and all the other crap they do! I know MP's would state but why shouldnt i gwet them just because im rich!! Well looking at the tax system it works exactly the same!! Once i have a family i will be entitled to nothing but child benefit because me and my partner are both full time! By no means are we loaded or earning vast amounts but i am unlikely to receive any tax credits once the reduce the income level to £25-30k. They really are a complete bunch of smug over paid robbing bastards!!

[Jon the Hat]

Means test MPs expenses!! Therefore if you fooking loaded already you wont be able to claim for mortgages and all the other crap they do! I know MP's would state but why shouldnt i gwet them just because im rich!! Well looking at the tax system it works exactly the same!! Once i have a family i will be entitled to nothing but child benefit because me and my partner are both full time! By no means are we loaded or earning vast amounts but i am unlikely to receive any tax credits once the reduce the income level to £25-30k. They really are a complete bunch of smug over paid robbing bastards!!

You can't means test work expenses. That is nonsense. That is likeyou boss saying you can afford your own car so he will take away your company car, but your colleague who blew all his cash on booze and hookers gets to keep his becuase he is skint.

[davieG]

You can't means test work expenses. That is nonsense. That is likeyou boss saying you can afford your own car so he will take away your company car, but your colleague who blew all his cash on booze and hookers gets to keep his becuase he is skint.

I don't disagree with you in principle but that is what happens with social benefits.

[Babylon]

Sod the cuts... I hope the council increase the budget for mayoral belts.

[Jon the Hat]

I don't disagree with you in principle but that is what happens with social benefits.

And therein lies the difference between work and living on benefits.

[RobHawk]

You can't means test work expenses. That is nonsense. That is likeyou boss saying you can afford your own car so he will take away your company car, but your colleague who blew all his cash on booze and hookers gets to keep his becuase he is skint.

I agree with what you are saying in theory but my point relates to the fact that the government is happy to increase taxes and make cuts left right and centre, but where Mr Cameron is a millionaire and doesnt need to rinse the governments coffers he is still happy to let expenses cover his mortgage payments. Again i understand that as a wealthy man he pays more into the tax system but some (not all) of the cuts on benefits (mainly family based benefits) just totally unfair and un just on hard working families.

The Con-dems keep on talking about what is and isnt fair and all i keep seeing in my work is the lower to middle income families who are working hard but not necessarily being paid alot, get screwed over by this government.

[Jon the Hat]

I agree with what you are saying in theory but my point relates to the fact that the government is happy to increase taxes and make cuts left right and centre, but where Mr Cameron is a millionaire and doesnt need to rinse the governments coffers he is still happy to let expenses cover his mortgage payments. Again i understand that as a wealthy man he pays more into the tax system but some (not all) of the cuts on benefits (mainly family based benefits) just totally unfair and un just on hard working families.

The Con-dems keep on talking about what is and isnt fair and all i keep seeing in my work is the lower to middle income families who are working hard but not necessarily being paid alot, get screwed over by this government.

You argument has no basis. Whether Cameron or Clegg or Gordon brown are wealthy or not have no bearing on their right to claim expenses. They have a job which requires them to maintain two homes. Any job where this is the case comes with expenses or allowances to cover that. If you start limiting that then only people who can afford to carry that cost themselves can become MPs and that is a poor state of affairs.

On the fairness front, the reality is that Labour put in place a swathe of tax credits which have no reasoning or benefit to the nation whatsoever. It is a hugely expensive excercise, hence why the budget plan to cut these and increase the tax threshold is a good move. Not taxing in the first place is far more efficient than taxing and giving back as credits.

There is very little reason why the state should be gving handouts to people earning between 30-50k a year. It is not a huge amount of money, but it is quite possible to live on. People will have to make hard decisions no doubt, but that is not a reason to not cut the tax credits.

[breadandcheese]

I agree with what you are saying in theory but my point relates to the fact that the government is happy to increase taxes and make cuts left right and centre, but where Mr Cameron is a millionaire and doesnt need to rinse the governments coffers he is still happy to let expenses cover his mortgage payments. Again i understand that as a wealthy man he pays more into the tax system but some (not all) of the cuts on benefits (mainly family based benefits) just totally unfair and un just on hard working families.

The Con-dems keep on talking about what is and isnt fair and all i keep seeing in my work is the lower to middle income families who are working hard but not necessarily being paid alot, get screwed over by this government.

To be fair, one of the first things this coalition did when it got into power was to impose a 5% pay cut on all cabinet ministers as well as a 5 year pay freeze. Admittedly, the real test of this is whether cabinet ministers' expense claims go up to compensate for this 5% pay cut, but it is still moving in the right direction.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

Charge patients for DNA'ing (Did Not Attend). At least £50 per missed appointment.

Some of our tests a patient just not turning up can cost us about £500! That's one tiny imaging department in one hospital one one day!

Well said. I could not agree more. :clap:

[Flynny]

Distinguishing between 'front-line staff' and 'pen-pushers' is very facile. There's a chance that just maybe we could get 25% more efficiency out of our services if we methodically pushed reforms through over the course of a couple of parliaments. Unfortunately we aren't working to that kind of timescale. According to the coalition, and even to a slightly lesser extent Labour, we have no time to do anything but indiscriminate hacking, quickly.

There are some odd public sector jobs, for sure, but not 25% of them. Some of the backroom staff purged will be doing useful things like keeping databases, records, filing, and generally greasing the wheels for the "frontline" staff who'll then have to do all that themselves.

I'm bracing myself in two years time for a raft of stories about how Policemen and Nurses are spending even more of their time doing paperwork.

Also why did we cut Corporation Tax?

[Jon the Hat]

Also why did we cut Corporation Tax?

To encourage growth. We are becoming less and less competitive from a corporation tax point of view, and this has led to many companies moving their head offices abroad. And lower Corporation tax probably means we actually take more overall with income tax, NI taken into account. A good move. We have to become a better place to do business if the jobs are going to come from the private sector.

[Jon the Hat]

Distinguishing between 'front-line staff' and 'pen-pushers' is very facile. There's a chance that just maybe we could get 25% more efficiency out of our services if we methodically pushed reforms through over the course of a couple of parliaments. Unfortunately we aren't working to that kind of timescale. According to the coalition, and even to a slightly lesser extent Labour, we have no time to do anything but indiscriminate hacking, quickly.

There are some odd public sector jobs, for sure, but not 25% of them. Some of the backroom staff purged will be doing useful things like keeping databases, records, filing, and generally greasing the wheels for the "frontline" staff who'll then have to do all that themselves.

I'm bracing myself in two years time for a raft of stories about how Policemen and Nurses are spending even more of their time doing paperwork.

Also why did we cut Corporation Tax?

People create work. It is a simple fact. You could take 25% of the people out and you would only cut the work capacity by maybe 15%, becuase 10% of the work is created by the existence of the jobs themselves. Everyone has to have a line manager, appraisals, training, computer, telephone, office space, expenses, all of which have to be procured, managed, maintained, administered paid for etc. Activity creates cost, none of which in itself adds any value to the output.

I also look at these cuts and the increase in private sector jobs, and I think all these government offices which are full of people answering phones or calculating tax credits etc, they will be outsourced to the private sector at reduced cost.

I look at 43 police forces around the UK, each with their own HR, payroll, procurement functions and I think consolidate! The same for the NHS, for local councils. Local councils have treasury functions. Treasury!! They make investment decisions like invest in Icesave... Crazy. All government agencies should have to borrow only from the Government, who can manage treasury for the whole country. Simple.

There are so many examples of things being done that don;t need to be done. Don't believe the hype about nurses and policemen, it is nonsense peddled by the Unions and Labour to scare people. They spent 13 years creating a bloated publis sector full of waste, inefficiency and pointless effort, and it is time to clear it out.

[DANGEROUS TIGER]

You argument has no basis. Whether Cameron or Clegg or Gordon brown are wealthy or not have no bearing on their right to claim expenses. They have a job which requires them to maintain two homes. Any job where this is the case comes with expenses or allowances to cover that. If you start limiting that then only people who can afford to carry that cost themselves can become MPs and that is a poor state of affairs.

On the fairness front, the reality is that Labour put in place a swathe of tax credits which have no reasoning or benefit to the nation whatsoever. It is a hugely expensive excercise, hence why the budget plan to cut these and increase the tax threshold is a good move. Not taxing in the first place is far more efficient than taxing and giving back as credits.

There is very little reason why the state should be gving handouts to people earning between 30-50k a year. It is not a huge amount of money, but it is quite possible to live on. People will have to make hard decisions no doubt, but that is not a reason to not cut the tax credits.

Totally agree, and well said :chant: