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I have work experience in the public sector. Waste disposal. And it was dire. Horrendously inefficient and wasteful. Yet I know that if the private sector was to get involved they'd only jack the prices up in the pursuit of profit. There must be a happy medium.

The biggest problem the public sector have is lack of money for change. Innovation and improvement required investment. And for the past 30+ years politicians of all stripes have ensured that the public sector has no money to spare. Even when there is money for a new process or system it either goes to a new Fad rather than fixing a long standing issue or to the lowest bitting private implementation which is inevitable the lowest price because they massively under bid, which means they then either need more money or cut corners, and if they don’t get it they walk away.

Anyone who claims the public sector or public sector workers are the problem just needs to look at ATOS, G4S or any number or PFIs.

I disagree. Having seen closely how both education and local authorities operate there is plenty of money, too little knowledge, too little acceptance that they lack said knowledge, arse covering to maintain positions, incredible vanity and largess on per projects and actual corruption on a few occasions.

At a very basic level the amount of consultants employed and fees paid to manage schemes to cover these inadequacies is incredible.

Passing these self same self serving individuals (of all parties) whole industries would be a recipe for a return to the late 70's is a disaster. I only saw the back end of it but it made the last recession look like a cake walk.

What is needed is some leadership from our so called leaders. Privitised industry with leader with the actual will to censor licensees that don't perform.

 notprop wrote:
I disagree. Having seen closely how both education and local authorities operate there is plenty of money, too little knowledge, too little acceptance that they lack said knowledge, arse covering to maintain positions, incredible vanity and largess on per projects and actual corruption on a few occasions.

At a very basic level the amount of consultants employed and fees paid to manage schemes to cover these inadequacies is incredible.

Passing these self same self serving individuals (of all parties) whole industries would be a recipe for a return to the late 70's is a disaster. I only saw the back end of it but it made the last recession look like a cake walk.

What is needed is some leadership from our so called leaders. Privitised industry with leader with the actual will to censor licensees that don't perform.

Theirs plenty of money for stupid projects. Plenty of cash for some useless stuff it seems at times but seems not ernough for the NHS etxc.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I have work experience in the public sector. Waste disposal. And it was dire. Horrendously inefficient and wasteful. Yet I know that if the private sector was to get involved they'd only jack the prices up in the pursuit of profit. There must be a happy medium.

I did 3 shifts on the Rubbish trucks, then left for a Forklift job.

Never again...

I've spent 20 years directly building circa £500m of schools, military installations, health facilities, LA housing and Infrastructure.

There's always lots of money but sensible spending and competent management, not so much.

 jhe90 wrote:

Theirs plenty of money for stupid projects. Plenty of cash for some useless stuff it seems at times but seems not ernough for the NHS etxc.

I'm sure a fair share of those useless stuff and stupid projects can be found at the NHS...

Did anyone ever take the fall for the whole, "nah, lets not bother patching our IT network" thing, for example?

I work in IT, in a school which was forced to outsource the IT to a private company under the BSF programme. As a result I got transferred out, then after 3 years or so the school (plus the others who had been forced into the same support contract) had to spend a huge amount of money buying the contract out and returning to in-house provision - so I got transferred back.

The 'support' over the three years was dire - bargain basement equipment purchased without consulting the school over its actual requirements (105 unrequested netbooks turned up one year - the same year the iPad was launched. Needless to say, the netbooks have barely been touched for some time and teachers have moaned about the lack of tablets) - oh and don't forget the extra 30% added to the cost of all hardware and spare parts to cover the admin of purchasing them. Systems put in place because the provider already had them set up for other schools so didn't have to spend anything, even though they were a poor fit for how the school wanted to run things. Any request for flexibility was deemed 'out of scope' of the contract and subject to extortionate payments, to point where the school had to hire at least 2 new members of staff to pick up the work its IT department was no longer doing.

'Cut and thrust' and 'innovation' it ain't. Diverting huge sums of public money into the pockets of shareholders it surely is.

Private industry is just as inefficient as government, often moreso. Most ventures fail, and fail for for a reason. Fads, incompetent management that cant be removed, people too stupid to realize how stupid they are, CYA syndrome, wasted dollars on inane consultants, funding made available for special projects but not needed fundamental stuff, etc is no less common there than in the public sector. That stuff is pretty universal.

That's not innovation though, that's poor procurement by staff/managers/consultants that have no knowledge of contracting.

They probably paid a huge fee to a cost consultant to do it for them.

Bearing I mind the buying power Gvt agencies have it always puzzles me how they can constant feth up buying stuff so often and so badly?

That one I think I can take a guess at.

Civil Service and Government departments will send a couple of civil servants, earning maybe 35k a year into meetings with companies carrying teams of lawyers and negotiators earning 6 figure salaries, each.

And any rising talents or the type who are genuinely good at that sort of thing? They'll eventually end up getting ground down by the other 'stuff' that comes with working for the civil service and end up becoming one of those 6 figure salary people themselves.


So, in short, no matter how many ways we try to skin a cat, all we end up with is a dead cat.

And who really wants a dead cat?

 notprop wrote:
Bearing I mind the buying power Gvt agencies have it always puzzles me how they can constant feth up buying stuff so often and so badly?

It's not that surprising. You should see how badly the military screw it up.
"You'd like that off the shelf product for your company? Not a problem madam. What's that? It's for the military? Let's just add an extra zero on the end. You say that's not a problem, lovely."

Then we throw baby officer lawyers who earn less than £45k into court to fight against the likes of Gilbert Blades. Don't think the guy has ever lost.

Yeah, we're crap at managing money. Don't even get me started on the disparity of funding between the flashy, sexy, fast jet boys and everybody else (I've somehow found myself working under an army driven branch, which means our funding is the square root of cock all).

 notprop wrote:
Bearing I mind the buying power Gvt agencies have it always puzzles me how they can constant feth up buying stuff so often and so badly?

In my experience it's a mixture of incompetence, nepotism and bribery. Case in point, our council has just started buying Mercedes lorries fitted with Zoeller lifters instead of the tried and tested Dennis lorries fitted with Terburg lifters that they've been using for decades. The Mercs are god awful, and the Zoeller lifters even more so. They're not even cheaper, so that excuse won't work.

So why buy them? Because the executive who went out to buy them (without any input from either the transport managers or drivers) thought 'oh wow, Mercedes make lorries! I drive a Mercedes! These are so cool, we have to have them!' Why would they think that, and why do they even have this position? Because they're an incompetent under educated dim wit who just happen to be the wife of the council head's band mate (in the Orange Order). Add in the very real possibility of a 'bung' to make sure they buy these mercs and Dennis never stood a chance.

This is just belfast though. I don't think things would be as bad in the rest of the UK. Or at least I hope not.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
[
This is just belfast though. I don't think things would be as bad in the rest of the UK. Or at least I hope not.

Council level jobs are where the actual corruption tends to happen in government. Contracts are regularly given to companies owned by the mates of the local leader, high level non-jobs to their kids, nice days out are accepted from soliciting companies, etc, be they Tory or Labour.

It's a mark of respectability that it doesn't tend to happen with the Liberal Democrat ones to anywhere near the same degree. Usually because they're nice middle class types with enough money of their own that they don't need bungs, and vaguely well meaning enough that they don't go out of their way to corrupt the system for their own benefit. I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen with them, but if you read the Rotten Boroughs section of Private Eye, or browse Rottencouncil.co.uk, you get maybe one case of a Lib Dem getting caught with sticky fingers, spending money on shutting people up, and behaving like tyrants for every ten happenstances from the other parties. Certainly, all the official Lib Dems I ever met from Vince Cable on down tend to leave me with the impression that they generally are trying to make things better, even when they screw it up royally.

Lib Dems aren't so good at big government, but they're actually the best of the lot when it comes to the local aspects.

Howard A Treesong wrote:Genuine innovation is difficult and requires skill and vision. Something lacking in a lot of people running this country and managing public services. Problem with a lot of 'innovating' popular with various leaders and management is that it's mostly the short term sort that involves everyone lower down the pecking order working a lot more for less and making cuts to things in the name of efficiency. Always looks good on the balance sheet and pleases shareholders, does little for the long term - and public services have to look long term, longer than the current government or the tenure of their managers. I'm very skeptical of the argument for private involvement bringing in innovation, privatisation is all about squeezing the most out of something for the least investment.

Yup, We need innovation from the government to make innovation in the private sector possible. Nobody would be stupid enough to try to invent the commercial internet or WWW but once those were established private companies were able to flourish on top of, or next to, those. All the fundamental tech that made the iPhone/smartphones possible was developed with government money but it were private companies that used that public R&D and then added some of their own refinement and R&D to make those into a commercial successes.

Vaktathi wrote:Private industry is just as inefficient as government, often moreso. Most ventures fail, and fail for for a reason. Fads, incompetent management that cant be removed, people too stupid to realize how stupid they are, CYA syndrome, wasted dollars on inane consultants, funding made available for special projects but not needed fundamental stuff, etc is no less common there than in the public sector. That stuff is pretty universal.

Survivorship bias, it's what makes self-help style business books possible. Ignore the failures, make some "rules" up that somehow correlate with the winners, and sell it as a way for people to improve themselves, their lives, or their companies. It doesn't matter than most companies die within a few years when government institutions regularly get vilified and entrepreneurs get deified. Silicon Valley venture capital is more or less just a lottery while somehow still thinking of itself as being made up of the smartest people on earth. They tried to sell us expensive Wi-Fi juicers on top of a Keurig/Nespresso pod model (link) or reinvent hotels (link), busses (link), slimfast (but with mould, link, link, link, link), and hundreds of new delivery systems for take out food or other services that are supposed to replace basic housekeeping skills (all at inflates prices so they can skim more from the top and entrench themselves as the middleman). Instead of trying to get an efficient public transportation system they wonder about the horrors of a pre-Uber transportation landscape and how people even managed to survive in such primitive times. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Private industry is just as inefficient as government, often moreso.

Yes and no.

A well run business is always sleeker than a well run public department. The business is far more aware of the bottom line, whereas a public department knows that it has the taxpayers wallet backing it up. It hires and fires more easily, and isn't vulnerable to expenses caused by political whim/necessity. It can pay what it needs for talent without being judged and invest for the future without worrying about needing to cheesepare down expenditure for an election. It's inherently a more flexible, yet at the same time, more punishing model. A company can go bankrupt, and nobody will save it from inept management decisions. That is, unless it can tie itself into a key goods monopoly or public service provision. Then the market pressures fade and it can simply raise prices to compensate for any deficiencies or incorrect decision making.

Accordingly I'd argue that private sectors are generally more flexible and efficient than the government, but primarily when operating within the private sector. The minute that it begins to assume the mantle of responsibilities for public services, it also begins to incorporate the mentality of the public sector; that is to say taking the current state of affairs for granted. The security provides both a lack of dynamic management and a necessity for middle managers to continually cost cut in order to receive promotion.

The best way to ensure that such things don't occur is to try and artificially stimulate competition. Then theoretically, the laxity doesn't set in. But that competition has to be real, and the government has to keep an eagle eye on it to prevent oligopoly. That's the part where we've tripped up with the current model. The government has shown itself unwilling to regulate and supervise effectively; both in framing the system and in enforcing the rules around it. I don't think that the 'Franchise' model is inherently discredited so much as this version of it and the government involved.

For example, when Southern was causing all that hooha a few months ago (which carries on even now to an extent), the Government quite literally amended their contract with Southern so that Southern wouldn't be in breach of their contract thus forcing the Government to step in. Had we had a Government willing to do so? It would have served to shove a stick up the arse of the other operators not to let things degrade to that point. If the Government were also willing to operate their own train company competitively and snap the franchises back if they didn't provide value for money? Perhaps it would work then.

As things stand, even the Transport Committee says the current model isn't quite cutting it and needs to be revised along such lines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-38867199

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Bearing I mind the buying power Gvt agencies have it always puzzles me how they can constant feth up buying stuff so often and so badly?

In my experience it's a mixture of incompetence, nepotism and bribery. Case in point, our council has just started buying Mercedes lorries fitted with Zoeller lifters instead of the tried and tested Dennis lorries fitted with Terburg lifters that they've been using for decades. The Mercs are god awful, and the Zoeller lifters even more so. They're not even cheaper, so that excuse won't work.

If your council leaves public procurement of something as significant as garbage lorries to the choice of a single official instead of a tender system there's something very wrong (and very unusual) there.

It probably was a tender, but these things are easily swayed.

 notprop wrote:
It probably was a tender, but these things are easily swayed.

Not if it was done properly, and it's way more complicated to do it that for a private company.

Private purchases are indeed easily swayed. I should know that since I work in sales. Personal relationship with the buyer is often one key component on whether one buys from you or the competition, and gifts/tickets for football or F1/private travels, etc. are also part of the equation.

Dealing with both the private and public sector I can tell you its several orders of magnitude more difficult to play dirty to put it that way in public purchases than private. And when it happens, and people get caught they lose their job and even go to jail. In the private sector..... well, it's just another day at the office.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
I have work experience in the public sector. Waste disposal. And it was dire. Horrendously inefficient and wasteful. Yet I know that if the private sector was to get involved they'd only jack the prices up in the pursuit of profit. There must be a happy medium.

Private for-profit companies that are majority (75%+) state owned? You notionally get the gains from being private sector, and the state gets most of the profits to reinvest.
Or we just need a government with some ability and vision to manage.

Same for housing; housing benefit rent payments should largely be coming back to the government, and the government should be trying to get the household bills of benefits claimants down as far as possible (since it's paying for them anyway). Just think how great it'd be (for the economy and environment) if there was a solar panel on the roof of every council house.

For every claim of a bloated public sector, I can point to terrible, inefficient service provided by the private sector to the public sector. Bid low, undercut ruthlessly and provide shoddy, sub-standard services whilst piling on the costs afterwards.
Serco, Annington Homes, Carrollion Amey etc have all bid for and acquired juicy govt contracts that they pump the tax payer for. I've had the displeasure of having to work alongside these companies, and their workers are for the most part, disinterested, complacent and unhelpful thanks to poor pay and conditions and unrealistic demands.

The private sector just does not work in these circumstances.

The problem is ideology and unwillingness to change even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/24/ten-scandals-since-2010-britain-loony-right-tory-party

Indeed, I think the outsourced stuff is worse. Like the G4S contract for Olympic uniforms for staff, working out at £6k/staff member.

Serco in hospitals is one that never made any sense to me. NHS must be up there in terms of biggest caterers and cleaning crews, so I can't understand why they don't have their own internal NHS catering and cleaning divisions, instead of outsourcing it to Serco (who must be making a profit on it). I can see the point outsourcing catering/cleaning if you're a small office and you don't need full time staff but the NHS has outsourced staff in in shifts.

 notprop wrote:
Bearing I mind the buying power Gvt agencies have it always puzzles me how they can constant feth up buying stuff so often and so badly?

In the school system at least it seems to be CYA and a lack of willingness to take risks, combined with this whole "if you don't spend your budget this year, it gets slashed next year" nonsense.

For instance, school I'm familiar with has a catalogue for supplies, and everything must be bought through that catalogue where it has it. Teachers can buy the same stuff for a quarter of the price elsewhere but aren't allowed because "official supplier". Due to having surplus budget at the end of the year, the same school splashed out on 2x PS3's for the break room that were barely used, but the idea of having money left over at the end of the year is unforgivable.

There's also just gak poor planning; a school near us was just rebuild under PFI (which is a disgrace), including a fully fitted and stocked Nursery. Nursery isn't open though because the council can't afford the staff for it. No considerations were made for growing population and pre-school demands, so it's almost fortunate the spare capacity is there but I'm fully expecting something to need overhauled before it actually opened because the unused equipment is out of date. It's currently one of the most expensive storage rooms in the county.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dwp-admits-error-man-with-no-legs-climb-stairs-arms_uk_58b68641e4b060480e0d06da

A double amputee told by the Department for Work and Pensions that he was “fit for work” as he could “climb stairs with his arms” has won an appeal against the judgement.

Julius Holgate, from Hackney, London, was told by government officials that because his arms were in working order he could use them to “climb” stairs and have “mobility”.

The decision caused Holgate to fall into debt and even pawn jewellery to access funds after a medical assessment gave him zero points towards accessing an Employment and Support Allowance (ESA).

He told The Huffington Post UK: “The government needs to stop using these private companies. They are no good. They have targets and they miss stuff. If someone can walk two or three steps it does not mean they can work. It is wrong.

“Over sixty percent of cases [that go to court] are overturned. For people like Julius they might struggle to find the money to do it.

“We would like to see the government restore legal aid as there are now a whole range of problems for people on benefits who suffer because they can’t receive legal aid.”

Last year, the DWP caused controversy when it declared a man with half a skull was “fit for work”.

Kenny Bailey, who has trouble walking and needs assistance to get dressed, underwent an individual assessment requested by the Department of Work and Pensions.

They deemed him able to work despite him being paralysed down his left side and suffering from memory problems.

Bailey later had his benefits reinstated after the decision was overturned following media coverage of his case.

Apparently they have a target for 80% rejection rate too.

It's a total embarassment. It's only a Tory ideology that'd have us in a situation where we spend more money to shaft the disabled than if we just gave them what they were asking for. It's totally stacked against them in every concievable way.

There really should be serious sanctions for ATOS for each case overturned at appeal.

Donald Tusk suggests No Brexit is still an option:

European council president suggests Brexit could be halted

Donald Tusk, the European council president, told the European parliament this morning that it was up to the UK how Brexit ended. Giving MEPs an update on the EU summit he also suggested that Britain remaining in the EU (“no Brexit”) was still a possible outcome. He told them:

Ahead of us is still the toughest stress test. If we fail it, the negotiations will end in our defeat.

We must keep our unity regardless of the direction of the talks. The EU will be able to rise to every scenario as long as we are not divided.

It is in fact up to London how this will end: With a good deal, no deal or no Brexit.

But in each of these scenarios we will protect our common interest only by being together.

He's right from a procedural angle, however I doubt the Tory Party could withstand such a change of direction without exploding into burning fragments, so I expect May to force it through regardless.

 r_squared wrote:
For every claim of a bloated public sector, I can point to terrible, inefficient service provided by the private sector to the public sector. Bid low, undercut ruthlessly and provide shoddy, sub-standard services whilst piling on the costs afterwards.
Serco, Annington Homes, Carrollion Amey etc have all bid for and acquired juicy govt contracts that they pump the tax payer for. I've had the displeasure of having to work alongside these companies, and their workers are for the most part, disinterested, complacent and unhelpful thanks to poor pay and conditions and unrealistic demands.

The private sector just does not work in these circumstances.

The problem is ideology and unwillingness to change even in the face of overwhelming evidence.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/24/ten-scandals-since-2010-britain-loony-right-tory-party

The problem here is that it is the client body the tenders and writes the contracts; why are they not drafted correctly? Why are they not being administered correctly?

I contract all of my work out; in all cases I define performance criteria, quality, programme and importantly remedy/penalties for breach of the contract. I can do that easily enough with out loss or recourse to the courts why can't civil servants?

From my experience it's because they are no more motivated that the Service Sector slobs you mention.

I don't think it's as simple as to say Civil Service Good, Two Legs Bad.

However I will say that over the past 30 years, the quality of the Civil Service has been eroded by successive governments, starting with Maggie of course, who ideologically disliked public services and tried with a good deal of success to shift power and responsibility to private companies employed by the government, thus demotivating civil servants.

Of course it's plain to see there is plenty of bad management and incompetence in private industry too. The main difference is that private companies can go bust if they fail badly enough, except of course if they are major banks, which get bailed out by the government (i.e. you and me.)

 Future War Cultist wrote:

 notprop wrote:
Bearing I mind the buying power Gvt agencies have it always puzzles me how they can constant feth up buying stuff so often and so badly?

In my experience it's a mixture of incompetence, nepotism and bribery. Case in point, our council has just started buying Mercedes lorries fitted with Zoeller lifters instead of the tried and tested Dennis lorries fitted with Terburg lifters that they've been using for decades. The Mercs are god awful, and the Zoeller lifters even more so. They're not even cheaper, so that excuse won't work.

So why buy them? Because the executive who went out to buy them (without any input from either the transport managers or drivers) thought 'oh wow, Mercedes make lorries! I drive a Mercedes! These are so cool, we have to have them!' Why would they think that, and why do they even have this position? Because they're an incompetent under educated dim wit who just happen to be the wife of the council head's band mate (in the Orange Order). Add in the very real possibility of a 'bung' to make sure they buy these mercs and Dennis never stood a chance.

This is just belfast though. I don't think things would be as bad in the rest of the UK. Or at least I hope not.

Actually, this sounds eerily familiar. Pretty sure this kind of thing happens everywhere across Europe.

Reason enough to ditch the Continent based ones and deal with our own.

Some hope...

jouso wrote:

 notprop wrote:
It probably was a tender, but these things are easily swayed.

Not if it was done properly, and it's way more complicated to do it that for a private company.

Private purchases are indeed easily swayed. I should know that since I work in sales. Personal relationship with the buyer is often one key component on whether one buys from you or the competition, and gifts/tickets for football or F1/private travels, etc. are also part of the equation.

Dealing with both the private and public sector I can tell you its several orders of magnitude more difficult to play dirty to put it that way in public purchases than private. And when it happens, and people get caught they lose their job and even go to jail. In the private sector..... well, it's just another day at the office.

Agreed, a procurement done correctly is almost impossible to be swayed by an individuals will regardless of who they are, especially when you consider the higher value procurements. That is not to say there isn't corruption of course, there will always will be regardless. We are more aware of incidents in the public sector because of the controls that are put in place to find it and root it out. However this is a double edged sword, it both makes it less likely but at the same time more in the public eye. There is vastly less controls and checks on the private sector (and you can even argument on government - lest we forget dinners with oil owners by certain MPs etc). As such they come to light a lot less often. I imagine that if the same controls were applied to businesses then more corruption would come to light - a gift of a seat in an executive box at a football club for a match is OK in business but not for Council employees. Most businesses likely fire employees acting corruptly or quietly pay them off, it is rare that they come to light (e.g. Rolls Royce) I would suggest.

The problem for Council's is for every one exposed there are hundreds if not thousands of contracts that are not enacted as part of a corruption scandal, but we only hear about the bad eggs because that makes news.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Compel wrote:
That one I think I can take a guess at.

Civil Service and Government departments will send a couple of civil servants, earning maybe 35k a year into meetings with companies carrying teams of lawyers and negotiators earning 6 figure salaries, each.

And any rising talents or the type who are genuinely good at that sort of thing? They'll eventually end up getting ground down by the other 'stuff' that comes with working for the civil service and end up becoming one of those 6 figure salary people themselves.

There is a lot to this. Councils are finding it increasingly difficult to hire the staff they want/need. Pay is declining, the benefits that were there to offset the lower pay have gone. There's no real reason for younger talent to stick around rather than go to the private sector. As such that inevitably means the quality you look for from a Council or government department is going to decline. If they can't find the staff then they are forced to hire consultants in specialist areas where the number are few and you can see why there is an escalating cycle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 notprop wrote:
I've spent 20 years directly building circa £500m of schools, military installations, health facilities, LA housing and Infrastructure.

There's always lots of money but sensible spending and competent management, not so much.

Capital projects are easier in some ways than service contracts. As long as you have the design correct then any performance controls are 'relatively' simple. It's not so simple when it is dealing with day to day operations where individual circumstances can throw a spanner in the works. The difficulty is when all those spanners add up to a big issue. You still have to provide a service regardless of how awkward the contractor is being, those bins still need collecting etc. You can't simply walk away and ask someone else to do it. That's not to say there are not bad contracts out there, but service has more factors to consider because of the public facing element of most of them.