The Taxpayers Alliance published a study showing that civil service numbers rose by 101,440 between 2016 and 2023. This was an increase of 24% and a bigger increase in numbers than the total strength of the British army. There has been a particular growth in top grades and the higher salary policy oriented posts, with 2,050 paid six figures and 195 paid more than ÂŁ150,000.
In 2021-2 44,220 people left the civil service, or 8.6% of the headcount. 69,400 new people were recruited. This demonstrates that a decision to freeze recruitment can make a substantial difference quite quickly to overall numbers and to payroll costs. Ministers running such a scheme should be looking for considerably more than the 0.5% productivity gain suggested in the Chancellor’s speech,. given the large 7.5% fall in productivity since 2019.
Of course senior departmental managers should put cases to Ministers to allow external recruitment where a job is crucial and the skills are lacking in the current workforce on the departure of a key member of staff. In most cases there will be plenty of talent in the civil service to find an internal promotion. In many cases the departure of a staff member to retire or go elsewhere will trigger a review of whether that role can be abolished, amalgamated with another or allow the removal of some other role when the person is pro0motoed or moved into the key role.
The Chancellor has proposed ÂŁ1bn of savings . As the typical cost of employing a person is around ÂŁ50,000 taking benefits and direct costs on top of salary that equates to around 20,000 fewer posts through natural wastage. This is half the level that could be accomplished in the first year of the programme.
October 9, 2023
Well better productivity means getting better results for less money. Thatâs not just about reducing headcount of perm civil servants, its also about reducing the money spent on the consultancies and outsourcers who do much of the work for the public sector.
But its also about using newer tech better. For instance, most of the developed world is using about 10 percent proton beam therapy as a percentage of their total radiotherapy, and that number is going up. Thatâs because it gives far better results, and doesnât damage surrounding tissues as much. Here in the UK we are at around less than 1% of all radiotherapy being proton beam.
Proton beam therapy in the UK is heavily rationed, mostly used for children with problems of the head and neck. There is almost no chance of an adult, for example, prostate cancer patient, getting proton beam therapy in the UK. And yet the results show that proton beam produces dramatically better outcomes in prostate cancer patients than traditional radiotherapy.
Sure proton beam machines are expensive. But there are at least 3 proton beam machines in the UK that are currently mothballed, and not being used. And the cost per treatment is not massively different to trad radiotherapy, especially when the significantly better results are accounted for properly.
It is in stuff like this that the public sector is simply not incentivised to âdo the right thingâ.
Labour say they will pay lots of overtime to generate lots more appointments to supposedly reduce waiting lists. But that sadly will still lead to only about 1% of patients getting proton beam, when the rest of the developed world is running at 10% (going up constantly). So, for Labourâs large spend they will just buy more substandard care. We donât want substandard care! And we need to start accounting for the cost effectiveness of public spend, by properly analysing the results they produce.
Proton beam produces better healthcare outcomes, but there is no incentive for the public sector to deliver more of it. The NHS story that we donât need more proton beam capacity is wrong, and just based on their current rationing. The spreadsheets that make proton beam look more expensive are also wrong, because they donât show any financial advantage to the significantly better results proton beam produces, and over worry about costs of changing over to proton beam (which is just a one time cost).
And there is a lack of a proper âduty of candorâ to the patients. The consultants know the patients would do far far better if offered proton beam therapy, but the NHS prevents them being honest about this.
We donât want more low quality service from the public sector, we want proper mechanisms built into the public sector for it to improve iteratively, and instinctively.
The public sector is not incentivised on results, its incentivised to play rationing and allocation games. That is a large part of the problem. Politicians should not need to try and push productivity improvements top down, they should be happening naturally bottom up.
October 9, 2023
+++
I have long felt that the NHSâs greatest fault is its lack of flexibility.
The larger and more centralised it has become the less humane/effective/useful.
Doctors, like parents have had all their powers removed and now a GP can not treat according to individual need and parents can not brush their childrenâs teeth!
A huge, unwieldy Titanic can not easily embrace new technology ( I would think) not least because of the blocking by various interest groups.
October 9, 2023
The latest prostate radiotherapy trial ( run over 5 years – Royal Marsden ) found the cases which were given 5 higher ‘dose’ sessions over a couple of weeks produced great results without the expected side affect outcomes of the more usual 20 or 37 daily sessions. It seems possible the existing machines can now be utilised to massively increase the number of patients having this solution to the localised cancers.
October 9, 2023
You have to ask why the rest of the world is not doing that, and why the rest of the world is doing proton beam in large numbers. I’ll save you the time, proton beam significantly reduces damage to nearby tissue and hence leads to far better outcomes.
October 9, 2023
and prostate cancer was just an example. there are lots of cancers where proton beam is significantly better than traditional radiotherapy.
October 9, 2023
Of course, the other aspect of âproductivityâ is the productivity of the entire country. Every time the public sector wastes a citizens time, they are reducing the amount of productive time which can go into the economy. Every time the NHS takes 3 appointments to do something which in any other country would be done in one appointment then its 3 half days of that workers time taken out of the productive economy. Itâs precisely because the public sector is not measured on how effective their use of their end citizens time is⊠they are that they get away with designing systems which are easy for them and hard for the citizen.
October 12, 2023
Precisely.I work in general practice.I Will examine the patient ,undergo the physiological tests including blood tests and ECG,s etc, come to decision about any potential next steps and treat.I then duly refer on, where necessary, to secondary care for more complex management.
Unfortunately the Locums will not even take bloods, even for an emergency as they see their role as consultants only.The excuse is time allowed, but surely an extra few minutes per appointment is far better than 3 visits for patients and systems.The many problems associated with using too many cogs in a wheel is they need to be staffed and written feedback needs to come from all directions.It doesn’t happen.
Letters are printed out informing patients that their children need vaccinations which have already been given , so the family turn up to be immunised where the receptionist had duly followed the letter from outside agencies to be told by myself that the immunisation has already been given.The longer the chain in communication , the more time is wasted and errors occur.
October 13, 2023
Yes indeed. blood tests are the class example though. how they are done varies wildly in different parts of the country. in some places the blood is taken there and then, when the decision is taken one is needed, either by the GP or the practise nurse next door, in other parts of the country a slip is given to go to a “phlebotomy clinic” where armies of low skilled workers do thousands of blood tests one after another. it can be very hard to get an appointment for these “phlebotomy clinics” often over 2 weeks from being given the original slip (further delaying access to any essential treatment if you have something serious), then of course you have to take time off work to go to another appointment. These “phlebotomy clinics” are often in the centre of major general hospitals, so this whole way of working leads to all the sick people in town walking through the main general hospital, passing their germs around each other, the staff, and the in-patients who are the most vulnerable in our community. Even in the height of the Covid crisis this nonsense was going on, its almost as if the NHS has designed ways of passing bugs around patients efficiently. Instead of minimising need for potentially infectious people to mix with others, the NHS maximises it.
And so on…
October 9, 2023
Indeed but what do we want the state sector to produce. Much of what they do is either taxing, mugging, wasting money hand of fist, over regulating or causing net harm in so many other ways Net zero, net harm vaccines, QE inflation, HS2 as good examples.
October 10, 2023
there is a brilliant take down of NATS and their air traffic control system by michael o’leary of ryanair on the web. absolutely straightforward honest talk which demolishes the poor performance of yet another failing public sector body. wish we had more people like michael prepared to go public with the blommin obvious.
October 9, 2023
Why would a nurse or doctor who is currently working weekends on bank pay agree to overtime on standard pay with pension contribution and national insurance taken out of it? Or are they offering to match the amount earned on agency work and give them their personal NI allowance twice?
October 9, 2023
Good morning,
Just take a moment to let that statement sink in. The government is far happier to let CS numbers rise in order to shuffle bits of paper / data on a screen around but, when it comes to the defence of the Realm, their first duty, they seem unable to care. Once again we see, like giving illegal immigrants housing and money over and above our own needy, a twisted mentality of those elected.
So what has caused this increase ? Which departments have grown the most, and why ? These I think are good questions to ask and, if I may be so bold, something I would like to see our kind host cover.
October 9, 2023
Take a look at TCW, Mr Patrick Benham-Cresswell, today. He’s got it in a nutshell. He’s distilled most of the fluff and set out a vigorous plan, cut 10% of the CS right away!
It WILL happen, just as soon as the international financial community decide ÂŁ is no longer investible and stops buying gilts. Look out $/ÂŁ.
October 9, 2023
Rachel Reeves just made the entire PCP redundant….
October 9, 2023
When the government is creating more legislation, more people are needed to implement it.
There’s all that employee rights, continually expanded by government, then the courts take it in all kinds of new directions. That takes more people to manage it all, including diversity managers.
October 9, 2023
Mark B
Indeed but they are happy to reduce the numbers in our armed forces, when the World is not a safe place.
Indeed it is always the armed forces that are called on to sort out the problems when normal services cannot be properly run by the so called elite Government departments, be it strikes, or logistics like Covid vaccine deliveries.
Why are our State occasions so magnificent, and run to time with no problems, because Government and the Civil Service are not involved in the organisation of them !
Government usually means inefficiency, expense, overmanning, ineffective, incompetence.
October 9, 2023
The bank of England is busy hiring large numbers of new diversity officers, clearly far more useful to the country than infantry.
October 9, 2023
I’d guess. The Home Office to handle all the processing of the extra incoming migrants.
October 9, 2023
“In many cases the departure of a staff member to retire or go elsewhere will trigger a review of whether that role can be abolished, amalgamated with another or allow the removal of some other role when the person is pro0motoed or moved into the key role.”
You’d think or hope this was the case. My experience (15 years in the public sector) suggests otherwise…a departure of someone was normally seen as windfall cash to be spread amongst the existing employees, via “promotions” (often just new job titles) or taking on some slightly different work. The last thing anyone wanted was to reduce the departmental payroll budget, it just got split between whoever was left.
October 9, 2023
Same here. I don’t remember a role or job ever being abolished in my branch of the CS during my 12 years there. There were, however, plenty of internal re-organisations, which shuffled people around and created new titles at the more senior levels although the actual roles seldom changed to any great degree. What the regular re-organisations tended to do at the lower levels was result in short-term chaos as people found themselves dealing with issues they weren’t familiar with – which is fine if its just one or two people settling into a new job, but very disruptive to delivery when it’s most of them!
October 9, 2023
If it’s this bad under the gutless, appeasing Tories then can you imagine what it will be like when cancerous Labour slither into power with neo-Marxist realignment agenda. Labour will have one aim, to realign this nation forever
October 9, 2023
Labour won’t need to do much, Dom. The WEF-ordered realignment – proclaimed by the PM two Tory leaders ago as Build Back Better – is going ahead already.
October 9, 2023
Correct, labour will have a recruitment free for all to cover every aspect of diversity and inclusion.
That doesn’t alter the fact that the tories have been in power for 14 years and allowed this to happen.
Don’t believe a word.
October 9, 2023
I wonder if the appalling Israel situation will make any difference?
Public opinion on the group which a lot of the Left supports?
Another jab/no jab/blue and yellow nudgeâŠleaving Labour exposed? ( might be a good idea??).
All public buildings to fly Israeli flags now.
October 9, 2023
Dom
Labour in fact did most of the re-alignment under Blair, this has never even been attempted to be corrected by the Conservatives over the past 13 years, but indeed continued, hence it has now morphed into being the Norm !
October 9, 2023
Dom – I despair of holding my nose and voting Tory yet again. It’s just not going to happen this time – no matter how bad you or the Tory press tell me that Starmer is. I won’t vote for Starmer btw.
October 9, 2023
Hunt could be more ambitious, the ÂŁ1bn is a drop in the ocean. A moment spent on research reveals that many of the extra 69,400 new civil servants that were recruited post-Brexit are deployed in jobs that used to be done in Brussels! Civil servants always find a reason to build bigger office empires…..
Hunt could raise at least another ÂŁ1bn by scrapping a few of the more obscure QUANGOS and freezing the whole QUANGO sector’s non-contributory, index linked, final salary pensions.
October 9, 2023
Scrap every single quango (I bet it wouldn’t make any difference)
October 9, 2023
Itâs quite apparent that it was a figure plucked out of the air.
âWe are in trouble so have to come up with something. What do you think will impress the voters?â
âWell a billion sounds a lot, Chancellorâ
âOK letâs go for that then, they wonât know any betterâ
But of course we do. Back of a fag packet (wonât be able to say that much longer under an anti libertarian Sunak) calculation from a weak Chancellor in the grip of the Treasury and the other Ministers incapable of challenging the Civil Service.
October 9, 2023
Yes, I wonder if challenged, he could say how many in each division of the civil service.
October 9, 2023
Replacing the current Chancellor with someone sensible would change only one role yet make much better results easier very soon after.
October 9, 2023
It would be interesting to find out how many jobs would go if every task remotely whiffing of equality, fairness and all that utter cr*p was scrappedâŠ.and how much would be saved.
October 9, 2023
Of those 44,220 who left the civil service, what have they done since, did the private sector create 44,220 broadly equivalent jobs, did 44,220 people opt to leave the employment market, people do not simply vanish…
As for the projected future ÂŁ1bn savings, is that the gross or net figure, in other words how much will DWP spending have to increase for all other departments to see their spending reduce. Not that I’m suggesting highly skilled civil servants will languish on Universal Credit, but without expansion of the private sector other less skilled people *will* remain on UC. Campaigners and politicos need to look at the round, not just the segment of the pie chart that best suits their (often polarized) arguments!
October 9, 2023
Has anyone worked out how many extra staff the civil service employed to deal with EU matters? I suspect that many who did deal with EU matters are still in place and work has expanded, not necessarily usefully, to take up the released time.
interestingly, the number employed by the civil service is now 25% higher than its minimum in 2016, but still 8% down on its most recent peak in 2005, the year that ended a 7-year period of Labour government under Blair and Brown.
Before WW2, when the UK stil hd an enp[ire, the number of civil servant full time equivalents was a mere 150,000 to 180,000. It ballooned to just under 1.2 million during the war and declined sharply afterwards to 0.8 million. Since 1950 it declined steadily until 1997 when Blair’s Labour was elected and promptly grew from about 475,000 to 530,000 by 2005.
These numbers are from The Civil Servant, https://www.civilservant.org.uk/information-numbers.html, which, not surprisingly, states:
” Brexit seems to have required the recruitment of approaching 100,000 officials – a great deal more than the c.60,000 employed by ‘Brussels’ to carry out all centralised EU functions. Assuming a cost/head of ÂŁ40k to include salaries, accommodation, employers’ pension contributions & NIC, etc., Brexit appears to cost approaching ÂŁ4 billion pa in staff costs alone. ”
Fancy that!
October 10, 2023
The “Soft Power” empire has,in their fantasies,replaced the defunct tangible empire.
October 9, 2023
The problem is that civil servants get paid for the number of people who work for them. There is an incentive to keep growing.
If you add to that the economically damaging woke policies of NetZero, Diversity Quotas, Universal benefits, lockdowns, technocracy and mass migration you will find a country that is literally going bankrupt.
October 10, 2023
Vladimir Putin’s Valdai speech at Sochi last week:
“Western influence over the world is a giant Ponzi scheme.”
Indeed it is-Mr Putin is spot on as usual-and that Ponzi scheme is rapidly unwinding.
October 9, 2023
“civil service numbers rose by 101,440 between 2016 and 2023. This was an increase of 24% and a bigger increase in numbers than the total strength of the British army.”
All no-doubt considered essential to deliver the Establishment’s agenda of population Surveillance, Propaganda, Control, and Micro-management of our lives.
The army only has to intervene abroad occasionally when the President snaps his fingers. The Government has to monitor, propagandise and control the British people 24/7.
October 9, 2023
May we have tomorrow a list Sir John of which departments and bodies you would abolish immediately if you had the power to do so.
October 9, 2023
Financial ombudsman service can go entirely for a start.
October 9, 2023
How many Civil Servants will we need to produce those details, and what time frame?
October 9, 2023
Reducing numbers will effect the overall cost of the CS, but I don’t see it having much effect to the qualityy of decision making or the overall level of efficiency of an organisation that spends too much time at home and even when at its desk can’t be bothered to answer the phone.
None of the financial forcasting elements of the CS are by any stretch of the immagination accurate. They have presided over an unimaginable deterioration in UK infrastructure. Their involvement in HS2 has resulted in financial chaos. Never ever does anyone in the CS take responsibility for their litany of failure. Their negative effect on the moral of UK citizens, their cost, and overt political ambition are far more serious than their lack of productivity. In fact we can be thankful they are so inefficient, consider the damage they could do were they competent.
October 9, 2023
By not declaring Hamas as terrorists the BBC is feeding future terrorist attacks. By not suspending the BBC the British Government are also feeding future terrorist attacked.
This is not a freedom of speech issue. We have seen many people cancelled for infinitely less than the BBCâs stance. This is about whether the Government implicitly support those who implicitly support terrorism.
October 9, 2023
Bashir, Saville reasons to be shut down in themselves. How come the Tory MP/ministers not demanding it? They did for a minor issue over GB. News?
October 9, 2023
Yes I’m sure we all remember the crescendo of demand from the public in 2016 – “if only we had 100,000 more civil servants all would be well, and lets make sure we load up on senior, really well paid ones”.
A hiring freeze is easy to announce but won’t really do the trick. In some cases it is needed to hire specific new people. the nettle must be grasped. there are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of people on the public sector payroll whose ‘work’ is either useless or positively damaging. Who for example has cooked up and drafted these new laws to criminalise people for using their dishwashers at the wrong time (voted through by Conservative MPs reportedly!?)? We know there are numerous very powerful, but invisible and unaccountable quangos which in effect govern us in a parallel system of laws and regulations to the Parliamentary democracy. the only solution is to close these bodies and make the staff redundant. tough but in the end the best and only way. I don’t suppose this govt has any appetite for a fight with these types before an election, such is their grip on power and the media. but if by chance the Conservatives scrape through, we need really radical and quick action after the election.
October 9, 2023
We have left the EU and therefore there should be less work to do, therefore there should be a substantial reduction in the workforce.
These people all get final salary pensions too, a luxury which was taken from those of us in the public sector. Far too much money is being spent and it needs to be urgently addressed.
October 9, 2023
1. Tackle the out-of-control sick leave. We donât see the same level of sickness among self-employed workers.
2. Hire more front-line staff but reduce the number of managers and non-productive staff such as those in diversity roles. As I mentioned yesterday we shouldnât have to wait two hours for HMRC to answer the phone.
3. Outsource work such as fraud and pay for results.
4. Introduce productivity bonuses for those delivering services but cut them for higher managers.
5. Reduce the workload by simplifying regulations. Bring back the staff improvement schemes as itâs the front-line staff, not the managers who know where the waste is.
6. Cut immigration and reduce the population.
7. Improve processes. As an example, our doctor just referred my husband for a scan but he has been given a video appointment for next March. This is just a delaying tactic to manipulate the waiting list figures. No wonder we see excess deaths with the woeful service the NHS provides.
8. Stop the majority of working from home.
9. Bring back the Time and Motion teams to assess the need and rank of staff.
10. Cut out unnecessary emails and meetings.
October 9, 2023
Productivity down, overall personpower up, demand for 4 day week, working from home?
All these facts suggest to me that there could be at least 25% redundancies?
October 9, 2023
Somewhat off topic: I have sent a short letter to our local newspaper, as follows:
“To improve my mind I borrowed a book explaining how Brexit has been a comprehensive disaster.
But I cannot recommend it, as it was written before relevant economic statistics were corrected.
Instead I would point to this article: “Data revisions undermine the Brexit pessimistsâ propaganda”.
Should I have inserted a helpful “erratum slip” into the book before returning it to the library?”
https://www.briefingsforbritain.co.uk/data-revisions-undermine-the-brexit-pessimists-propaganda/
October 9, 2023
Sir J, I believe your ÂŁ50k figure for a total cost of a civil servant may be a too low estimate.
In my experience from costing & bid work, the fully loaded personal costs would be much higher, initially based on a higher average/median salary (~ÂŁ40k) and additional cost items as listed below.
Fully loaded personal cost = salary, National Insurance, training, pensions, computing/IT, office space (rent, maintenance, council tax, water, electric). Some staff may also have expenses, travelling, subsistance etc.
Benefits such as maternity/parternity leave can also incur the cost of hiring temporary staff.
Off-payroll headcount (contractors) also need to be factored in, these are real people costs.
I would feel more comfortable using a total cost per employee of ÂŁ100k. It won’t be far out imvho.
This will make the your savings from reducing headcount double đ
October 9, 2023
It would be absurd for a departmental manager (senior or not) to make a case to a minister for a recruitment in breach of a recruitment freeze. If increasing productivity and a recruitment freeze (except for an essential post) then the application for a breach in policy should need to go no further than the permanent secretary. Of course, we are all too aware that permanent secretaries would likely have far too loose a definition of “essential post”. So it would have to go to a minister, whose red box would be filled with reams of applications to recruit.
The concept of “authorised headcount”, and headcount reporting (treated seriously) seem to be alien concepts to the Civil Service. One has to wonder, down to what level in the dysfunctional Civil Service has the authority to hire been pushed?
October 9, 2023
Yes, but how many are immediately re-hired as contractors, especially retired top-grade people?
October 9, 2023
Just change everyone’s employment contract and stop ‘today’ working from home ….do it today, get all staff back to work, back to work in the workplace. Only than can you start to measure productivity
October 9, 2023
With you kind permission SirJ, a clip from Australia Institute of Public Affairs âProfessor William Happer lecture â The Crusade Against Carbon Dioxide â September 2023â which describes the additional costs on public services of net-zero, and therefore reduced productivity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=mkISTcFaevuEWZE2&fbclid=IwAR1nT_k0uOMoEfAGlbBIrBBwquKUGJDvZwS05Iu1k3MpiS_jgI11KCsNP-w&v=v2nhssPW77I&feature=youtu.be
October 9, 2023
CS Departments are overseen by Government Ministers . They have a responsibility to ensure that both political and economic targets are achieved . If there is no strong combined management , subsequent wavering and uncertainty results . Everything stems from 10 Downing St . The CS recruitment process used to be a vigorous and intensive process to ensure a high standard of ability on entry , whether this exists today I have no idea .
October 9, 2023
If increasing productivity and a recruitment freeze (except for an essential post) then the application ……
should read
If increasing productivity and a recruitment freeze (except for an essential post) are government policy, then the application …….
October 9, 2023
Actually, is any of this handwringing genuine?
Surely the agenda is to have NO CS at all?
Everything to be done online.
And nothing achieved except the AI arrest of those who are unable to log in.
Until they impose digital currency at which point any tax demand will be automatically filched.
October 9, 2023
Excellent observations
October 9, 2023
I for one would far rather see 20,000 more soldiers, sailors and airmen in the next year than the same number of Civil Servants. And military recruits don’t cost ÂŁ50,000 each, either ! We even have the accommodation for them already.
The fact that the Civil Service has been allowed to grow by 101,440 in only seven years while our armed forces are starved of funds and have had to reduce manpower to dangerously low levels, is a complete disgrace.
Far worse than any of us would have thought : Ministers and the Treasury most got their priorities all wrong and must have been looking completely the wrong way while the Civil Service management feathered their own nest by allowed this to happen. Labour could hardly have done worse.
The cost of these extra 101,440 civil servants is at least ÂŁ5,05bn a year.
A freeze on recruitment is not good enough : a programme of redundancy must be initiated to get numbers back down to pre-2016 levels. In reality it should be lower than that, because there should have been efficiencies to be gained through new technology and AI in particular.
In the meantime the cuts in the number of soldiers should be reversed immediately and funded by aggressively culling civil service numbers.
October 9, 2023
The cause of the poor performance of the Civil Service is the poor performance of government ministers.
Unfortunately, in an electoral system of First Past the Post, there is only room for two main parties; the rest may pick up a few seats in pockets but the main contest will always be between those who hate the Tories and those that hate Labour. So do the two main parties contain a monopoly of wisdom and relevant knowledge? Nothing could be further from the truth.
JR can continue to build castles in the air but the country will continue to be misruled by incompetents who can gripe about a civil service which unfortunately contains people with exactly the same irrelevant qualifications as themselves and are as equally unqualified to do the work required by a modern state that provides its citizens with the best potential outcomes of any in the world.
October 9, 2023
I could do a lot better than the Chancellor and here’s how:
– Sack all of the Equality and Diversity Officers
– Sack all of the Race Relations Commission payroll
– Reduce the number of regulators so that only natural monopolies are regulated
– Reduce the number of NHS Senior Managers
– Reduce the proportion of non-clinical staff in the NHS
– Reduce the number, remuneration and bonuses of dierectors
October 9, 2023
ââ The Foreign Office has allocated ÂŁ17 million in development funding for Palestine in 2023-24, which is set to rise to ÂŁ29 million in 2024-25ââ
We always seem to be giving aid to countries that can buy missiles, weapons and space programs ??
October 10, 2023
The problem is mainly CULTURE today not politics for problems with productivity in this country.
Mrs Thatcher was the HARD WORKER she was precisely because of the WORK ETHIC her down-to-earth, Methodist father and mother induced in her (I am not a Methodist by the way but I certainly respect / admire them).
Most of her quotes were based on down-to-earth / pragmatic / practical and / or religion in them (‘any woman who understands the problems of running a home,’; ‘the Good Samaritan’ etc).
Sadly, many Tories today are now hypnotised by American culture – people such as Donald Trump (I am a Republican for economic and political reasons but no fan or Trump). Trump inherited his money from Daddy and doesn’t know how to treat women etc.
Until we get back to the values that created people such as Mrs Thatcher (as opposed to Donald Trump), then this country will continue to have serious problems including in productivity.
(And to take things one step further than the Methodists, the Quakers were highly successful / productive in business. For a small group of people, their success in business is huge. And I am personally grateful to them for my private education and more – even though I am not a Quaker either).
October 10, 2023
We are being told every day at the moment that Health visitor numbers are down, social worker numbers are down, police officer numbers are down, teaching support staff are doing, they’re struggling to get teachers in some key subjects and areas, why don’t you give us the actual figures and if these roles have been contracted out those figures too.
All of this extra money going in by your government without control it appears. Time to give us the facts and figures.
October 15, 2023
Raising productivity, start at Highways England.
National Highways spent between ÂŁ40million to ÂŁ50million to build the M49 junction between Severn Beach and Chittering near Bristol. Yet didnât get planning right to connect it to anything, its going to take another year even though the junction was completed 3 years ago. This sort of thing reflects on your government because you never monitor project completion. We suffer years of lanes closed with no-one working on them. Junctions half shut because theyâre stalled and not finished.
Highways allow people to dig up our roads then donât ensured theyâre relayed properly so within one year big pot holes open up near new housing estates when the builder moves off.
You need someone who is willing to shake things up. How does contracting work because people I know that contract for government work have to finish on cost and on time, yet these massive organisations who are able to underquote and often prioritised over smaller competitors seem to be allowed to get away with overspends and reclaim it and go over contract lengths. WHY?
It seems nothing is being done because some big companies are holding up projects youâve paid for, donât you think thats suspicious. Then we hear theyâre all at the Labour conference. You Tory MPs need to look at all the half finished over deadline contracts and bounce up and down on them. Where are the clauses to protect the tax payer?
I see private housing estates with 700 houses finished faster than social housing built with buddies in the industry that canât even finish 45 home estates in the same length of time. Something stinks.