Treasury has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (15530):
Question:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what estimate he has made of trends in public sector productivity since 2019. (15530)
Tabled on: 26 February 2024
Answer:
Laura Trott:
ONS publish annual National Statistics on public service productivity up to 2020. The next annual statistic for 2021 will be published on 26 March. ONS also publish estimates of public service productivity which currently include annual estimates for 2021 and 2022 and quarterly estimates up to 2023 Q3. These are official statistics in development.
The answer was submitted on 04 Mar 2024 at 12:37.
March 8, 2024
Failure to answer.
March 8, 2024
There seems to be theme in the ‘answers’, that can be summarised as – “Backbencher, know thy place”…
Sir J, holding the government to account is normally the oppositions’ job… are you on the wrong side of the house? REFORM!
March 8, 2024
I took my husband for a lunchtime baguette and a coffee in an ordinary cafe in an ordinary high street this week.
The bill was 4x my hourly take home pay – I have to graft really hard for it too.
You can’t survive as a party against this sort of thing.
March 8, 2024
Indeed even a coffee and a sandwich or a pasty take away at London train stations is ÂŁ10.
March 8, 2024
A,
Another quota appointment? It is difficult to tell in JRs party.
Sunak claimed everyone can succeed in his speech last week knowing his party has a quota system which stops meritocracy! Does Sunak think he was plucked out of obscurity for his brilliance or quota system of his party?
Cummings is right, there is no plan or strategy and No.10 and Tory party has accepted defeat. Treacherous May who accelerated the terminal decline of the party for her despicable actions over Brexit giving up as her work is done! Lockstep with EU now being implemented which ever half of the Uni Party is in govt.
It is no longer safe for Jews to be in London on days of marches, so Hunt gives further credence to going in to he mob by spending ÂŁ1 million of our taxes to a minority section of those who died in the war to stand out above the rest! How disrespectful and shocking to All those who lost their lives. Sunak and Hunt not fit for office.
March 8, 2024
To Hope,
Nor Cameron, who is officiously supporting the Biden administration’s betrayal of Israel.
March 8, 2024
+1 absolutely appalling – all official war monuments (that are funded by tax payers) should be for those of all religions and none. Pushed by the dire Javid it seems.
March 9, 2024
They were u til Sunak and Hunt intervened! Now they are appointing a Muslim Czar! How about a Jewish one, Sikh one, Hindu one, Christian one? It strikes me this is a racist appointment. They have enough clergy in Lords to seek advice from! What are they there for if not for advice?
March 8, 2024
So the answer states when the statistics were published but says nothing about the actual trends themselves.
Not particularly useful. It suggests an unwillingness to engage in a debate.
March 8, 2024
Standard practice give no answer and just refer to long & vague documents that also give very little answer but waste hours of peopleâs time to deter them asking again.
March 8, 2024
Great news Theresa May is not standing again at the GE. Can she not take her appallingly damaging Net Zero lunacy with her?
She did huge damage leaving us a much delayed and hugely botched semi-Brexit. VAT threshold still dictated by the EU it seems. I blame âVAT on private school feesâ and the Greta disciple, the socialist dope one Michael Gove for stabbing BORIS so we had to suffer the dire dishonest fool Brexit means sweet F A on Theresa May.
She get 5 out of ten on Talk Radio. 0/10 from me. But I did approve of opt out organ donation so perhaps 1/100.
March 8, 2024
I assume we will get another daft, LibDem type, Green crap pushing, EUphile & fake Conservative for that safe (in as much as anything is safe) seat? I have not looked but assume and hope JR will be able hold his seat?
March 8, 2024
Trott âs answer suggest to me ONS and OBR are in Charge and she implements what they say/forecast!!
Unbelievable.
March 8, 2024
Since 2015 public sector productivity has been flat. Private sector productivity has gone up by 20%.
The image of lazy civil servants filling their own boots is not an image of reality but it is actual reality.
March 8, 2024
No just âflatâ but so much or what they âproduceâ like incentives for more migrants, road blocking, motorist muggings, net zero, soft loans for duff degree is not wanted and/or does huge net harm.
March 8, 2024
I was really productive today. I issues loads of bus lane tickets, blocked three lanes of a busy road to cause vast congestion and prevented (by refusing planning consent or putting OTT restrictions on it) the building of two houses. My GP hugely productive too his huge phone queuing system deterred about 50 people from getting an appointment today .
Also I demanded three other house had to be knocked down for good measure. I really am so very productive.
March 14, 2024
J, Your statement does not seem to agree with:
longtermproductivity.com âProductivity trends in advanced countries between 1860 and 2012â, Review of Income and wealth. The v2.6 release of the database (05/09/2023) has data till 2022.
Moreover the report âProductivity in the UK: Evidence reviewâ (First report of the UK Productivity Commission, 37 pp niesr.ac.uk, 06/2022) has some reasonable comments about why productivity growth was an annual 3.6% in the three decades after WWII, then 2.1% in the next three decades, then around an annual rate of 0.2% between 2007 and 2019.
Given that the public sector provides about 20% of the UK activity, how exactly would that fit with your 20% increase in 8-9 years of the private sector productivity?
Maybe these documents are worth a read?
March 8, 2024
So they call it âPublic Service Productivityâ? We served you today by forcing you to buy a vastly more expensive, more expensive to run and rather impractical heat pumps, or a similarly daft EV, by blocking your roads so you have to drive further, mugging you for putting a tyre in an empty bus lane, or filing your tax form a day late because you had flu or by increasing your energy and other bills hugely through Mayâs net zero religious insanity.
I assume it all goes down as âpublic serviceâ and âproductiveâ. They may be blocking roads with bus and bike lanes anti-car red lights, not right or left turns or building a new pointless HS2 railway or (rarely) opening a new vital much needed road or bridge, or causing inflation by debasing the currency with QE, or forcing you to take net harm vaccines you never even needed – all is âpublic serviceâ and to them is productive it seems
March 8, 2024
So it seems Hunt got a bit shirty with the BBC. âNot worthy of the BBCâ he said after Rajan said: âWeâve seen seven quarters of GDP per head thatâs been revised downwards. Weâre hooked on foreign labour. The birth rate is collapsing. Many public services are creaking. Councils are going bust. Those are facts.â
Indeed they are facts he might usefully also have added you are not cutting taxes you are sill increasing them more, there is a huge housing problem, vast crime problems amd police who do nothing about many serious crimes. The vaccines did net harm (your claims for millions of lives saved by AZ vaccines are wildly wrong Hunt), the NHS is at best totally second rate, the lockdowns did net harm, net zero is costing us billions and giving us rip off energy and it gives no positives at all.
March 8, 2024
So the pathetic increase of ÂŁ5000 in the VAT threshold (way behind the inflation caused by Suankâs QE) was dictated by Sunakâs moronic Windsor accord treaty Hunt reveals?
A state funded Muslim only war memorial is an appalling idea, pushed by Javid the net harm vaccine pusher for NHS and other workers. They should surely all be for people of all religions, belief systems and ânoneâ. None being people who like to see real evidence before just believing in things like God and Net Zero.
March 8, 2024
What is this? Not that I am anywhere need Oxford today.
March 8, 2024
LL,
I think you will fine the ÂŁ5,000 increase is limited by EU laws, rules, regs. Do not forget UK not allowed to be more competitive, EU decides state aid, employment law, environment and energy etc. the betrayal of the public mandate and nation continues. It matters not which half of the Uni Party is in office because they are determined to act in lockstep to EU. Fact.
JR, tell us is the ÂŁ5,000 limit because of EU decides VAT.
Reply Some are spreading that view. I was given a categorical assurance by a Cabinet Minister in Parliament that we are free to set our own VAT
March 8, 2024
But not Northern Irelandâs?
March 8, 2024
reply to reply – then it was a big FAIL by Hunt & Sunak.
ÂŁ5k is just a joke – not worth doing it.
March 8, 2024
But not in NI and so they choose not to so as not to illustrate the disaster of the Windsor Accord by having different rates in NI.
March 8, 2024
The above reply was actually meant for Ms Gold.
Private groups, mosques and churches can of course fund their own sectional or even perhaps racist war memorials as they wish.
March 8, 2024
Spending a million pounds on a single religion’s war dead disregards every other person’s life and valiant service: Divisive and disgraceful. Beyond belief!
March 8, 2024
+1000
March 9, 2024
Agreed. It disgusts me. But then pretty much everything about this Not-a-Conservative-Party disgusts me these days.
March 8, 2024
No memorial of any sort should be allowed unless it is publicly – and I mean by individuals – funded. They are building a false narrative of a Moslem history, and therefore claim, to the U.K.
are they determined to make Powellâs speech true in detail?
March 8, 2024
See you at the Old Library at 1100hrs
March 8, 2024
Blimey, couldn’t the responder even be bothered to provide a reference?
If you allow the links, a quick dig found a “Public Services Productivity Review” commissioned by HM Treasuring, see;
https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/whatwedo/programmesandprojects/publicserviceproductivityreview
which published first estimates for 1997 – 2019 and 2021-22 on November 17, 2023, see;
https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/economicoutputandproductivity/publicservicesproductivity/articles/publicserviceproductivityuk/1997to2022
From the summary it makes for depressing reading with productivity growth estimated at 0.2% pa overall for 1997-2019 and Falling by 0.3% for 2022 compared to pre-Covid.
Would be interesting to see how this compared with the private sector, with other countries (if comparative data is available) and what the return on investment is (correcting for inflation) – perhaps the ONS could oblige?
The effectiveness of this analysis does depend on the metrics and methods used which will be tricky for many areas, but how do you assess investments, calculate pay, promotion and bonuses unless you can measure performance?
Good to see government is at least taking a stab at figuring this out.
March 8, 2024
Theresa May standing down at the next election.
Good riddance …. and only 10 years too late.
March 9, 2024
D,
I would say 27years too late, she applied for the wrong party. I would have preferred she was exiled rather than allowed to retire at taxpayers expense on RPI index linked pension. Stripped of her assets and given to victims of the Manchester bomber.
March 8, 2024
The whole discourse of Life logic has been offensive for so long ,being rude to people complaining that he and only he has a satisfactory degree. Inferring that people with science degrees are the only satisfactory ones and those who actually think about what they are saying are deluded.Politics are about humanity.Today is international women’s day and I appeal to women not to follow the man’s way as this is what has brought so much strife.I posted a similar comment earlier and this has been left out with too many Life logic postings.This is an example of unfair politics.
March 8, 2024
Not at all. But it is abundantly clear most MPs when taking about science, engineering, climate, energy, technology, insulation, renewables, economics, vaccine statistics, taxation even⊠really do not have a clue. A bit like me were I to give a lecture on Beowulf, Anglo Saxon or the history of the Romans in the UK. I would however at least mug up a bit. They do not even bother to do that!
March 8, 2024
Margaret,
“A good man, Hunter, in many ways, but no sense of discipline. And, of course, like all scientists a trifle narrow minded.”
Wilfred Hyde White as The Headmaster in the film of ‘The Browning Version’ 1951.
March 8, 2024
You really must get as frustrated as us out here at times John.
March 8, 2024
Laura Trottâs reply would be a proper answer if Jeremy Hunt ran the ONS. He doesnât. Nor does he even run the Treasury properly. Even though he is a bad performer, his own estimates for 2024 & similar recency would reveal something helpful, but they remain concealed behind smoke.
March 8, 2024
âLaura Trottâs on fire!â 2012 Olympics – the commentator yelled as she ripped up the field to win gold. Iâm not patriotic or moved much by sport in these later years, but, as a bit of a cyclist, I was in my feet punching the air.
March 9, 2024
and she’d probably provide us a better reply to Sir John !
March 9, 2024
Laura Trott the Olympian deservedly gained her gold in a blaze of glory.
Laura Trott the politician is limping over the cinders of a burnt-out government waiting to lose.
March 8, 2024
And in other news families who want to âbuildâ a granny annexe to look after elderly relatives will have to pay thousands more as a tax relief looks like being abolished.
With pensioners tax âdoublingâ under the Tories it is obvious HMG is waging a war against them.
March 8, 2024
This civil service has little to do with delivering services anymore itâs a large pension fund with a politically active wing.
March 8, 2024
ons.gov.uk 17/11/2023 âPublic service productivity, UK: 1997 to 2022â
Well worth reading in its entirety, realising the changes made about the way to calculate PS productivity, and checking the results for healthcare, education, and public order and safety.
As a subsidiary question, does a torrent of WPQs add anything to the âproductivityâ of a MP?
March 9, 2024
It ought to provide ALL MPs with relevant information on matters of note. The electorate can also be informed officially.
Shame the answers are now all an avoidance technique – they must be trained via courses?
March 8, 2024
I’ve often wished PMQs and any Ministerial question times in Parliament are conducted as if in a courtroom. That is, when a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ is required as the answer, they must conform. Similarly, when specifics are required, the answer applies to the specifics and not a walk around the barn. If the answer is not clear or not known, surely it’s simple enough to say so? Or is that deemed, losing face, again? The truth sometimes hurts, but it is always respected. And right now, this government is not respected mainly because of their untruths since 2019.
As I have read the three questions posed by SJ here, NONE are answered satisfactorily and certainly would have been jumped upon in court.
The HoC are instigators of British Laws, so isn’t it about time both the HoC and HoL became as courtrooms at question times? Otherwise, what is their point? To fob off, I presume?
March 8, 2024
Where did it say in your last manifesto that you were going to allow âmenâ to change their birth certificate to say âwomenâ ….you’ve lost the plot on almost every sphere of life, tradition & community
March 8, 2024
Given that so many employees working in the public sector are intent on damaging the UK in every way they can I prefer to hear that productivity is falling rather than rising.
Rather than raising productivity I think that cutting the state sector employment back by 10 percentage points each year for 5 years would be beneficial.
March 8, 2024
O/T: On this International Womenâs day, how is it possible for this country, one of the first with a law on abortion (The 1967 Abortion Act) to still rely on the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act to try to push in the HoL the Foetal Sentience Committee Bill, the Gestational Time Limit Reduction Bill, and the At-Home Early Abortion (Review) Bill?
It is particularly surprising thinking that among those pushing for these new bills are a majority of Conservatives likely to have their mouths full of âindividual liberty and freedomâ. Do they consider these âliberty and freedomâ only the prerogative of people like them? Are these well-to-do people willing to put their money where their mouth is and actually support the additional children that their restrictions on abortion would certainly bring to this country? Or is it another case of these âgoody two shoesâ (/sarc) not thinking much beyond their âreligious beliefâ?
March 8, 2024
A high birth rate is not one of our pressing problems – at least, if you ignore the immigrant communities. In fact the reverse. Low birth rates are used to justify excessive levels of immigration.