Facts4eu sent out a good note highlighting the productivity collapse in the public sector. Productivity is now 8.5% down on six years ago. The government needs to reverse this quickly, as it is making public services unaffordable to taxpayers.
As someone who has led parts of the public sector as a Councillor with Council Executive responsibilities and as a Minister I know the need to work with the staff and system to get better performance. As a former Chairman of two international industrial businesses I know what you can achieve with the right approach and key staff.
The first thing for the public sector to grasp is quality and productivity are two sides of the same coin. An efficiency drive must not be cost cutting above quality of service. It must be better and smarter working, mindful of the needs and views of staff.
Put in a quality system. Get things right first time to save duplication of effort and more complaints. Fix things that go wrong as soon as they are identified. Manage error out by changing approach when a series of errors emerges. Keep service design and delivery straightforward and easy to understand. Reward staff that do well. Make managers experience what staff have to do. Dont put off serving a user. That means you need more than one contact, a holding reply followed by the reply or action. Don’t allow backlogs to build.
As Chairman I always asked to see the complaints. They present opportunities . They reveal what is wrong that needs fixing. Remedy something well for someone you have messed up can create a more loyal customer. They see they matter. Listen to customers or service users, as it is their needs that give you a job. Design a service they want, not one that is convenient for the provider.
I would be happy to help the public sector be better for both employees and users. Like productivity and quality they go together to create success.
January 10, 2025
Good morning.
Alas, yesterday one of my elderly neighbours had to go back into hospital, which will be the third time in six weeks. They missed the fact that she had a compound fracture from a fall she had, and issues with her blood. She will now have to go through the same routine as before.
This is EXACTLY how I think. In a previous job as a manager I would often would have to deal with what I called, ‘Customer Issues’. I never referred to them as complaints as this had a negative connotation. We had a three step process.
1) Listen.
2) Ask questions.
3) Go and fix it.
The company I was then working for was providing a service. A service which people were paying for. And not only that, I realised that these customers had the power of CHOICE !! They chose to come to me and not anywhere else. This I valued. That is why I so firmly believe in competition, those that don’t care soon go to the wall. I call it, “Economic Darwinism” Not so much the survival of the fittest, but the less stupid !
We need CHOICE in the Public Sector. Hence why I keep banging on about allowing companies the ability to offer private Health Care as a non-taxable benefit. This and other reforms would make our healthcare much better.
January 10, 2025
@Mark B. +1. Choice is vital.
Our kind host mentioned creating “a loyal customer”. Our public services don’t need ’em. We are users, not customers. We are trapped. There is no “leave it” option from “take it or leave it”. Many essentials can’t be procured elsewhere (driving licence, planning consent, land registration etc the list is endless) and most of us can’t afford a private alternative when it exists.
Until there is choice, we won’t get any significant improvement.
January 10, 2025
It’s not just public sector productivity that needs mending.
There are huge areas that were once public sector but are now outsourced to private companies who have grown fat on the proceeds.
They are often completely useless. Prison services, dealing with illegal immigrants, running the London Olympics etc, etc. Once they were given the role, failure had no impact on them. They had a licence to waste public money without penalties.
January 10, 2025
John, I’ve just been reading about the private members bill introduced by the Greens. Climate and Nature.
It’s supported by a large number of MPs and if passed will decimate this country.
It’s intention is to count the carbon footprint of all imports and exports and reduce them by 75% thereby outlawing most agriculture, aviation and shipping. As the American banks are pulling out of the climate scam, is it to much to expect the same here thus stunting this eco nonesense
January 10, 2025
Don’t know why they are bothering, Ian. Temperatures in 2024 were apparently +1.6 degrees but according to the Graun ‘The Paris agreement target of 1.5C is measured over a decade or two, so a single year above that level does not mean the target has been missed’ so they’ve got 20 years to think about it.
Usual government stuff that if the facts don’t fit the agenda then change the agenda
January 10, 2025
Measuring the carbon footprint of imports would be a good idea, but almost certainly not for the reasons Greens would like
January 10, 2025
3 Take action (not necessarily fix it as one person’s complaint may be acceptable or preferred by 99%). The customer always has a viewpoint but is not always right.
January 10, 2025
@Mark B; Yours is a cheap shot at the NHS, the private health providers also get it wrong, often leaving the NHS to deal with their mess; my own father died early because a private provider missed the true site of the cancer causing a positive blood test. Having ripped out a (on biopsy) perfectly healthy major organ, by the time the true nature of the cancer was found the totally unnecessary surgery had allowed the cancer to spread to an inoperable party of the body – it was the NHS who had to, first, try and deal with a now out of control primary cancerous growth and then provide palliative care. I also knew a lady who went private, for a hip replacement, when a post op infection took hold she was transferred to the care of NHS.
Both my father and that other person had CHOICE, or did they, anymore than Mr Hobson had a choice, given the under-funding of the NHS in the last 45 years, and before someone suggests “record” funding, is that figure adjusted for inflation of not… 😡
January 10, 2025
Electricity demand just under 46gw. Wind supplying 7.3% and we’re Importing 13% of demand. Where is Milibrain these days, just one fault from massive power cuts and they want 1.5 million new all electric homes, 600,000 heat pumps installed annually and we all have electric cars.
We can’t manage now, let alone after all the new eco nonesense. Trump please send in the Marines.
January 10, 2025
Quite so, at the time of typing (12:34 GMT) gas powered electricity is 52 % and it is daytime – so tonight with no solar contribution at all then we are really sailing close to brown outs or even black outs.
January 10, 2025
We are currently Importing 14.5% of our power and 3gw of solar is rapidly dropping
The only thing left is more imports and STOR generators which are filthy unabated diesel generators. Who’d av thunk it
January 10, 2025
Yes, a very cold and still day Ian – with Wind at at 6% of the 46Gw of electricity being consumed (@ 12.30)
Solar has picked up at 8% (from vitually nothing at 9.00 this morning) but Gas is currently at 52.6%! We are Importing 13.3% at the moment, with Nuclear at 10.3%.
I’ve just watched a brief item on the BBC about Centrica warning that UK Gas reserves are very low. I was reassured to hear the ‘Commentator’ tell us that there was “no problem in practice” and that “Europe has much larger reserves of gas {than us} and that we can just import more Gas from them if required.” I was very relieved to hear this because I was beginning to get worried that there might be a problem with our energy strategy (or lack of one)….
January 10, 2025
i watched a YT vid’ about Hinkley Point C. Over budget. Massive delays. And will only supply 9% of the energy we need. It will also deliver the most expensive energy in Europe.
January 10, 2025
Actually a small reassurance because when we lose 10% from present nuclear shutting down ‘C’ might provide between 7% to 9% demand. However when will it deliver? 2030 earliest estimate?
January 10, 2025
Dare I say it “ the old school of thought” , it worked exceedingly well in my day , why not now?
Probably because the reds think they have won! Well possibly the skirmish but not the battle. So pack up your laptops and get back to WORk guys and gals.
January 10, 2025
Have the right people running the organisation. Don’t let political patronage determine who gets the job. Remove sinecure roles and departments. They give a bad example to other employees and add nothing.
You cannot have ‘a quality system’ with the wrong people at the top. They will hide weakness to cover their own backs.
All too often those who are sacked from one leadership role in public enterprises turn up in another – NHS, local councils etc, etc.
January 10, 2025
Jackie Smith. She who was once Home Secretary. Left to work on a NHS Trust Board. Now, I believe, in the HoL.
Says it all.
January 10, 2025
In Stalin’s day they would be condemned as Wreckers!,Saboteurs!! and Counterrevolutionaries!!!
Mandatory punishment:’ten years without the right to correspondence’.
(needless to say,that was a euphemism)
January 10, 2025
The FA, Lottery, Post Office…
January 10, 2025
Yes it is very distressing when things like that happen
Unfortunately I don’t think there is much expertise within the government
January 10, 2025
I live in Germany. Fortunately I have rarely needed to use the health system here but, from my understanding of how it is structured, I think UK could do well to learn.
Germans have a choice of health insurance and when they need a doctor or some treatment they often have a choice of which doctor to see and who to be treated by. If they are happy and the doctors have a good reputation they go back, if not they go elsewhere. The money follows the patients choice (I guess there must be some limits on costs) and thus the good providers are rewarded and expand.
If you can and wish o do so you can pay more for your insurance, I believe this is mainly going to get you a more private hospital (by which I mean your own room vs a ward) experience. It means more money flows into healthcare from those who can and wish to pay more. There is, as I understand, consequently a lot more capacity in the system
It seems the Germans are fairly content with their health provision
January 12, 2025
We have actual experience of the German system, having lived there for five years.
My British employer paid our health insurance and the service was excellent. We had our first son in the local university teaching hospital and both pre and postnatal care could not be faulted.
More recently, a friend in Germany in his 80th year had a serious, life threatening, fall.
He had immediate surgery and after two weeks was transferred to a rehab unit where he stayed for five weeks, receiving daily physiotherapy, exercise, and pain management, not available here. He returned home where he needed a little help from his wife, but they managed perfectly well.
As a direct result of the post operative care, he is now mobile with a stick, but is driving again. We visited them in August and found him fine. He was recently able to drive to Hamburg where they spent Christmas with their daughter and family. I doubt whether he would be so lucky if he was treated by the NHS where post operative care is very hit and miss but overall is pretty dire.
January 10, 2025
SIr John’s prescription sounds like what I was trying to get managers to do as a consultant in both private industry and the public sector for years in the late 1990’s and 2000’s, sometimes with great success. There is a key difference between the two sectors. If people – nearly all naturally resistant to change – ultimately won’t change, despite re-training, support, counselling etc – you terminate their employment. That is extremely difficult in the public sector. In industry you don’t get stuck with problem people as you sometimes do in the public sector. In the public sector you can move them sideways or, if you’re lucky, the majority will carry them, bypassing them in key processes. Either way overall productivity does not increase as much as it could because the dead wood still has to be carried even if it’s moved somewhere less damaging.
Anotyher key difference is the absence of competition in the public sector. One state industry, I knew got its internal teams to tender in competition with external contractors. It worked well but many unions will not accept such a practice so it is rarely an option.
January 10, 2025
Your last Para. is a good example of pro-active, creative management in the PUBLIC sector. I wonder how many other public services work this way, and how many more could. Was there ‘motivation’ ie bonuses for success?
Where there’s a will…..etc. Trouble is, one gets the impression that there is very little ‘will’ in the public sector.
January 10, 2025
I suspect that consultant overuse in the public sector is one of the reasons why productivity is low. But hey, the big four are claiming nice fees.
January 10, 2025
When something is broken, mending may be a clumsy approach. Propounder of Lateral Thinking, Edward de Bono demonstrated that starting afresh often becomes the only efficient way to go.
If a structure is badly damaged, such as in an earthquake or fire, repairing the worst parts may be grossly ineffective. Outdated undamaged facilities like aged wiring, pipework, awkward-sized rooms or corridors and poor insulation would be eliminated from their recurring nuisance. Clearing worthless debris from the site for a new build, fit for purpose, would normally produce a better result. Moving to a fresh location may be even better, with a smaller well-motivated workforce dedicated to quality and value.
January 10, 2025
Large manufacturing companies or I should say successful ones run their businesses within the constraints of ISO 9000 or in some cases QS 9000 whose collective aims are quality and productivity. I have been away from the game too long to know whether there are particular forms of these disciplines that deal with purely administrative organisations such as the DVLA, HMRC, or DEFRA for instance. If there are, then they should be applied for the overall good of the end product, just as it is with Nissan for instance. The moral and esprit de corps within an organisation that works well is always better than one that limps along. Costs and quality are carefully controlled, resulting in happy customers and the continuation of a profitable organisation. Profit in the case of a public service equals customer satisfaction to a large extent. Cost to the customer is part of that. The application of japanese Kenzei, or continuous improvement, also adds to job satisfaction.
My one and only contact with the DVLA suggests that they have put earlier problems behind them. Reporting across many other government organisations suggests that they have yet to face the challenge, not helped of course when government itself does so much to alienate the public for purely party political ends. If you cannot retain customer, ie electoral support, you are on a downhill slippery slope to an early demise.
January 10, 2025
When dealing with a government department, if all goes well they are very good. It is when something goes wrong that they don’t know how to react or who to refer you to. Then it generally goes completely t*ts up
January 10, 2025
Yes AG, as I’ve mentioned here before, I put my business through ISO9000 because it made tendering for Government buisness much easier. I intially viewed it as just another hurdle we had to jump through but it was actually very useful when things went wrong (as they will). Staff knew the process and that they would be expected to account for their part in any audit. Sometimes they suggested process improvements in advance of any issues. However, it was often evident that some of the organisations that demanded ISO had nothing like it themselves, especially when it came to receivables
I watched an interview with Liz Truss last night and found her thoughts on ‘the Establishment’ quite compelling. She argues that anyone wishing to sort this problem out had better come very well prepared to take them on, because it is very hard to ‘fix’ the engine once the train has left the station. Her arguments seems to align quite closely with David Starkey’s views. In essence, we need a ‘Great Repeal’ to return the real levers of power back to Parliament and away from the 440-odd Quangos, BoE and Courts where they have steadily been moved to since Blair.
January 10, 2025
ISO 9000 is a complete waste of time – a paper shuffling, box ticking exercise that prevents people from getting on with their main task.
It also ushered in a host of similar exercises that hold staff back. The requirement for green certification to bid for contracts is but one example.
January 10, 2025
ISO 900 is (was?) a process like any other Peter and did require operational change to begin with but once in place was not that hard to maintain, especially with the external annual audit. My company was routinely bidding for Government Business at the time and there wwas usually a whole section(s) of the bid process that one could simply skip over if you were ISO registered.
However, ISO also worked for our private sector clients. If there was a problem, I could demonstrate that we had a formal complaints system and that any client issues were being taken seriously. ISO 9000 did take time and investment but this was rewarded by access to business and good customer retention levels.
January 10, 2025
One musn’t use a broom anymore, find a vacuum cleaner, oh and is the user qualified, is the area guarded for the activity, what about power cables on the floor, how will the receptical to be used be emptied.
January 10, 2025
Excellent advice. It is unfortunate that, so often, it is not followed in the private as well as the public sector. I do wonder if the ease and volume of digital forms of communication has something to do with failures to get responses. Being old fashioned I wrote actual letters to a number of companies in November last year. The speed of response has ranged from immediate to still waiting for a reply.
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January 10, 2025
“Design a service they want, not one that is convenient for the provider.”
Good luck with that in the NHS!
January 10, 2025
PG,
I am not quite as cynical. The private medical sector works very well in my current experience. As it is often the same consultants working in the NHS, quality is not a problem. The hospital NHS works well, once you get through the door. GPs seem to act as gatekeepers, necessary because hospitals find themselves limited. in capacity and personnel. Not surprising because politicians have back fed the population at an unsustainable rate over 28 years at least.
All the problems of our infrastructure, civil service and lack of productivity should be tackled devoid of politics because politics in itself has no solutions. The only valid choice should be between what works and what does not work. Before that ask if it is really necessary. I think you will find that Reform is trying to work to that principal, but the challenge is deep rooted in our society.
January 10, 2025
It is GP’s reception that are the gatekeepers. Typical request over the telephone ‘ all appointments full for today, phone again nn.00am tomorrow. Physical Reception response ‘ We cannot take appointment booking here, you must phone in’.
January 10, 2025
So many produce nothing of value and it is of negative value. Merely inconveniencing, over taxing and wasting the time of the productive. Stop this activity and release these people to get real jobs. Start by ditching the whole of net zero and firing Ed Miliband. Encourage more people to use private schools and private healthcare with tax breaks for them to save money not the complete reverse so as to lighten the load on the state sector. Stop doing things the government should not even be doing. Have incentives to work, incentives to to be criminals, incentive not to leave the country, incentives to invest here, incentive to work hard and do well…
Alas Labour have a mad agenda that is the total reverse of this. Then again so did (and still have in the main) the net zero tax to death ConSocialists from Cameron through to Sunak.
January 10, 2025
Reduce low skilled immigration, which lowers wages, increases crime, increases demand for police, roads, jails, schools, houses… and cuts living standards.
You cannot tax your way to prosperity Ms Reeves, the countries tax system is already above the level where higher tax rates will give lower receipts. This even more so when so much of what the state spends is pointless or even damaging!
January 10, 2025
Yesterday I read that staff at one council the majority had second jobs because of WFH and a 4 day week. If the required work can be done in 4 days then there is an overstaffing problem.
The ONS and Land registry staff are working to rule because they’ve been asked to spend 3 days in the office. One minister described this as Victorians in attitude. My knowledge of the Victorians is one of hard work and dedication.
Milibrains department has a staff of 4500, what can they possibly be doing. The only way to increase productivity in the public sector is mass sackings.
January 10, 2025
What was that chap’s name who drove to test his ability for a longer journey, ah yes Cummings.
He promoted the idea of mass sacking in the CS,.
January 10, 2025
I believe an important consideration is also that the public sector productivity slump was covid induced (but not entirely the responsibility of covid itself).
The last UK lockdown ended on 19th July 2021 and public sector productivity should have been fully restored within 12 months but here we are 3.5 years later with a huge ongoing productivity slump. This evidences the slump is not to do with the lockdowns and covid itself anymore but a deeper problem has set in. I think everyone knows what that is as we all experienced it.
A Socialist assault was inflicted on people, businesses, media channels, regulators and even the national government since that first lockdown. The 3 lockdowns provided excess state handouts and access to almost free money both of which are very economically regressive long term. The lockdowns were also the perfect time for pent up Socialism to unleash itself and to pretend you can have something for nothing and the state is really what matters. Part of the strategy was to lie and distort in order to pit people against one another and thus confuse and weaken a Capitalist society so it could be replaced with a new Socialist model.
Instead of standing up to it, regulators, public-sector institutions and even the national government all pandered to it. They still do today and until we restore the laws of nature and sound economics we will continue with this blight on our society and our public sector productivity.
January 10, 2025
Have workers in the right place.
Home working has a place in productivity for tasks that require solitude and concentration or for repetitive tasks that can be done anywhere.
Tasks and roles which learn by osmosis and ad hoc collaboration and where instant contact is needed with managers to rectify issues need to be office based and attended. Customer service roles should not be home based (and if they can be then outsource them to a locale with lower costs and put them in a room together).
January 10, 2025
Dear NW, If one wants to work from home, one should probably become self-employed, either running one’s own business or acting as a contractor to one or more companies. If one wants the comfort of a steady salaried income, one has to accomodate oneself to the employer’s preferred way of working. I have the impression that many people who have acquired a yen to work from home since Covid fall into one of two categories:
1) They have realised the value of being at home more, usually for good family reasons. Maybe they are really better suited to part-time work at the cost of less pay.
2) They have realised how much time they lose and hassle they incur from long-distance commuting of an hour or more each way and want to improve their qualty of life by eliminating it. Maybe they should either consider moving to inferior central accomodation or moving to a more local job. Small town employers, public or private, often have a happier workforce.
January 10, 2025
Talk about Facts4eu pointing out the blindingly obvious. Of course productivity is “down on six years ago”, and not just within the (unspecified) public sector. How do the figures compare to three years ago though, during and just after the pandemic, rather than the year before its onset; how do they compare with 10 years ago, before the turmoil of Brexit (necessarily) imposed extra costs on both the public and private sector; how do they compare with 15 years ago, before the country had “Austerity” imposed upon it?
Reply Read the piece and see their graph instead of just being angry
January 10, 2025
“[the public sector] must be better and smarter working,”
The problem with the public sector that it is often reactionary in nature, rather than pro-active, and thus can not be run in ways our host suggests.
“Make managers experience what staff have to do.”
Most line-managers have such experience, as do trade union shop-stewards, it’s the hired in CEO types who often need to experience what staff have to do!
“Listen to customers or service users, as it is their needs that give you a job.”
Our hosts penultimate paragraph made me chuckle, was he talking about the average public sector problem or those of the private(tized) sector. Many private companies have zero customer comppaints accountability, not a problem when the customer is free to take their custom elsewhere, but many become trapped by minimum contract periods, or by natural (or created local) monopolies etc. How many man-hours are lost out of the economy by those waiting on hold when trying to contact a customer call centre, but then give up, a CEO will only ever see a small proportion of what the customer thinks – perhaps all CEOs should have to publish their direct contact information…
January 10, 2025
How does leaving the EU affect educational and health productivity Jerry?
Is 4 years not enough time to recover from covid lock downs?
January 10, 2025
@NS; Public Sector productivity is more that just education and health, much of which actually operated from within a quasi private sector due to contracting out. But even if we do only consider education and health, NHS Trusts, self governing schools and colleges; what effect has withdrawing from Erasmus(+) had; what has been the long term effect on the health sector from medical professionals, holding EU documentation, who chose to return home due to their doubts (right or wrong) as to their status post Brexit?
As for Covid, four years is clearly not enough time for the UK economy to fully recover, given how many in the private sector are still complaining; by your logic @NS all the pubs, gyms and clubs etc. that closed during Lockdown should have re-opened by now…
Given the fuss the private sector is making about their employees still WFH, wanting them to return to the office, it is clear private sector productivity is also still a long way off were it should be, why complain about otherwise. Low productivity is an issue across the economy, not just within the (true) Public Sector.
Reply Dream on. Is there nothing the public sector does you disagree with? Happy with Post Office treatment of staff? With HS 2 cost control? Withb Bank of England losing us £240 bn?
January 11, 2025
@JR reply; “Is there nothing the public sector does you disagree with”
Of course there is, and I said nothing above to defend the public sector in such circumstances, but certain others appear to dislike my comments because I highlight what they wish ‘gas-lighted’; those who think there is never poor productivity within the private sector are the the ones living in a utopia dream, not me!
January 10, 2025
@JR reply; Perhaps a URL might help if you want your readers to research what you have said, rather than accept your own comment on face value…! 🙄
January 10, 2025
Labour will do nothing to improve public sector productivity because the public sector represents one of the few remaining groups of reliable Labour voters. Any attempt to do so will induce strikes which Labour won’t stand up to for fear of upsetting the unions.
January 10, 2025
Agree totally but hardly rocket science except to the vast majority of MPs past and present who think more money is the key despite hundreds of excellent books on Management. Appointed for political reasons, not skill, plus narrow Civil Servants with the whole lot rewarded for failure as yet again we see with the devalued New Years Honours.
Therefore and you miss this completely you have to start with a serious change programme upskilling the people in charge, introduce performance management, selection and longer time in post.
So absolutely zero chance.
We learned from the Letby that there is no system to follow up recommendations from hundreds of enquiries. Can you imagine that, well yes looking at the people responsible. Billions of pounds spent on these and no one in government, I guess for ever, has a single brain cell to realise this might be wrong. Hence the constant repetition of failure.
Does anyone consider the ridiculous situation of a hospital trust, already short of cash, for instance being fined for H and S breaches meaning Err less available for their services and more likely to make mistakes. In the meantime management cont Niue’s as normal, no sanction, gravy train of promotions, bullet o roof pensions, no doubt honours.,
These are metaphors for the whole sorry mess public services are in. Somersaults to protect the politicians, council managements, chiefs of police etc from being held to account re the grooming gangs is the latest example.
January 10, 2025
Your remarks are very persuasive and following your recommendations would doubtless help materially.
It occurs to me that telling staff they are less productive presents difficulties, not only because productivity is hard to measure, but too many (who may end the working week noticeably in need of rest and recuperation) will typically not respond well as they presume it is a judgement on their efforts rather than the systems and procedures they must work to that frustrate productive working.
Let us also recognize that for the most part the last rotten government cared not at all about productivity (even while paying lip service to its merits) and this rotten government does not either.
January 10, 2025
The article fails to identify WHY public sector productivity has fallen 8.5% in the last 6 years. Surely the quick fix is – identify that and reverse it!
I believe the simple and obvious answer is that working from home has caused the fall in productivity. The people in charge need to implement methods for measuring each employee’s productivity and sack people who are not pulling their weight.
That said, in reality it is hopeless. The public sector simply gets away with it. No matter how much people (customers!) complain, they just shrug and collect their salaries and generous pensions.
I know someone socially who works for a government department. We regularly meet during the day for social events. I occasionally say when we meet ‘not working today?’ – invariably the reply, accompanies by a grin, is ‘working from home’.
January 10, 2025
An outstanding post from Sir John. Quality management is essential in all varieties of public service and this means well thought out procedures that will deliver the outcomes desired.
Unfortunately, my experience of working as a private sector quality consultant on contract to the civil service (the MoD) let me to conclude that their systems were more geared to covering up the numerous cock-ups, rather than identifying the root cause of problems and rectifying them with effective corrective and preventive action.
There was far too much duplication, nobody stayed in their department for more than a couple of years and being asked to write a justification for a bad decision that led to taxpayer loss was considered a “gong” that was to be emulated.
The civil service is bloated and needs root and branch reform. Grade creep must be eliminated. They need to start sacrificing salary into their pension scheme. There is too much elitism in recruitment. We need technocrats to cope with the increasingly technical nature of our society. Why does the MoD need 67,000 civil servants when the field army is only 35,000 strong?
January 10, 2025
Why on earth did the MOD pay a quality consultant when they had the armed forces to call on?
The systems and processes developed by our armed forces to ensure correct deployment and safety are beyond compare.
January 10, 2025
The contacts i had at the MOD were senior military officers, nearly always nearing retirement. For one MOD contract I was involved with, the bid process lasted nearly four years and my key contact changed three times in that period. All very pleasant & capable people but only one of them had any direct experience of the technical work involved. It also always seemed to be me who bought the coffee in their very impressive ‘marbled’ reception hall ! 🙂
January 10, 2025
The assumption here is that everyone wants more productivity from not just the public sector, but generally.
With the Chancellor doing all she can to close down the economy it is unlikely that any focus will be turned on making civil servants more dynamic. They live in their own bubble and easily resist any efforts from ministers to improve the way they work or increase output.
In only 6 months labour have done more damage to the economy than even the Tories before them. I suspect, though it is a worthy subject, that public sector productivity will soon become irrelevant.
January 10, 2025
“As chairman I always asked to see complaints”
Right there is the difference between Public and Private sector management.
The Public sector managers do all in their power to make complaining impossible by blocking the public out any means of directly communicating with the service provider.
January 10, 2025
DEMOCRACY SHELVED
Despite his mounting problems, Starmer finds time to carry on with his plot to create unitary authorities to replace local and county councils. Where was the consultation on this?
Tory and labour councils have already voted to suspend local elections in May while HMG works out how they will be replaced at some future time.
The thing to note is that Starmer is defining a system, to bring us more in line with the EU, complete with mayors. God knows how many extra layers of bureaucracy this will create…. but it will all end up as a very expensive undemocratic white elephant.
January 10, 2025
I believe we are to follow the French model.
January 10, 2025
Sadly the Public Sector still have dinosaur habits and unbreakable status quo thinking, safely shielded by Labour and their many unions.
Rachel Reeves talking tough cutting out waste but no action is a smoke screen. The Markets don’t believe her false promises, unlike Elon Musk (who even Putin recognised was very smart and delivers the goods, promises).
Because the Civil Service are so entrenched legally and are the hard rock core grit of the Public Sector other lesser unions and mortals follow suit.
January 10, 2025
Putin is very good at spotting smart people-he surrounds himself with a galaxy of talent.
January 10, 2025
I hardly ever get anything first time, for instance: we signed up for FTTP 3 years ago. It was pulled in in December, I was left to change all the internal connections over.
Nothing worked. I spent hours testing one connection at a time, including the new phones, because the old copper wire exchanges are to be made redundant.
Transpired that the old provider had failed to port the service to the new provider, a two week delay with no connections while they tried to flick the switch. During that time two relations died. We were uncontactable.
Then the system worked – for a while, went down last week for 3 days, dead. Now it is back up but every few minutes dies and the hub has to log back on. The phones can’t cope so they are unable even to take messages.
I have emailed and phoned the company repeatedly. They say they will respond. Not one contact initiated by them thusfar.
And the Government think that technology is going to bale them out 😳
January 10, 2025
All very sensible proposals from someone who has been at the sharp end and understands how things should be done. Unfortunately the last government stupidly allowed the efficiency of the public sector to fall by such a massive amount and Labour will certainly not address it in a vigorous manner. The train drivers and Junior Doctors pay settlements were proof enough : Theeves just gave them the money with no demand for productivity improvements. In the case of the train drivers, this was an unforgivable error, given that the rail industry, and in particular the driver’s unions, are riddled with very costly Spanish practices.
I do not think that the government, commentators, or the public yet appreciate what a dire situation Labour face mostly thanks to the expensive mistakes they have made in their first six months in office.
Starmer is going to have to reign in public spending in order to rescue the economy.
I would immediately reduce civil service and local government manpower numbers back to pre-pandemic levels. This can be done by natural wastage. By eliminating the unfunded final salary scheme, many highly paid civil servants will then apply for early retirement.
I would also cut back on Miliband’s ludicrously over-expensive net zero plans : Abandon the £28bn carbon capture plan for a start, which is entirely unproven technology and should be let to the private sector to develop. That saving alone would allow the rise in NI to be cancelled. Then grant all the new gas and oil exploration licences the industry will take. Although to be successful, a reduction in the windfall tax level will be needed but this will actually increase tax revenue and stop otherwise-profitable fields from being shut down prematurely. as is already happening. These will greatly improve our balance of payments and help shore up the currency.
We will also be able to abandon the stupid competitive tendering process for SMRs. Was any British politician seriously going to see this technology given to foreign competition ? The government should then immediately give the green light to Rolls-Royce to build two prototypes and at least the first ten UK installations.
We are unlikely to see any of these proposals come from a Labour government, nor, unsurprisingly, from a Conservative opposition dominated by Lib-Dim MPs masquerading as Conservatives. We are going to have to wait for the inevitable full-blown Sterling crisis to develop which will force a change of direction, and hopefully a change of government. Given the way things are developing, it seems likely that Reform and the Conservatives may well have a modest majority if there is an election in 2026-2027. That will give Labour ample time to become totally discredited.
January 10, 2025
What you say today goes a long way to demonstrating why private sector management has always been so much more efficient and successful than the public sector, and also why changing the approach of the public sector would require such a radical cultural change that no-one has ever made a serious attempt to achieve it, and I cannot see the current Government doing anything different to its predecessors in this respect.
January 10, 2025
Part of the problem is that computer software is not easily changed (both practically and contractually). So when things are not working properly, fixing it can be a real issue (cf the Post Office scandal).
January 10, 2025
I see that Quentin Letts has dubbed the Lib Dems ‘Trade’ spokesman “The leading contender for the tilte of ‘the most boring MP’ in the new Commons”.
Having listened to him speak earlier this week, I can only agree.
January 10, 2025
If you look at one of our main costs after payroll taxes, it is local services, council tax/community charges.
The customers are deemed not to know what they want or what’s good for them because more informed people will make that decision for them. People are so disillusioned that only around 20-30% of them come out to vote for the decision-makers.
Would we vote to reduce the bin collection services we used to have? To drag your own bin out once per fortnight, and if you don’t, it doesn’t get collected for four weeks.
Would we vote to paint cycle lanes onto pavements, narrowing that pavement so that prams and wheelchairs don’t fit alongside a bell dinging lycra clad speeder. Often, cyclists aren’t using dedicated cycle lanes on roads because they’re full of debris and grit and recently not salted, so they’re too icy. Then, many cycle lanes end up in the wrong places and not the town centre!
Would we vote for buildings left to rot because the Council can’t raise the funds to fix them and aren’t in a position to sell them to the private sector to invest in?
Would we vote for the massive pension pot top-ups? The £4000 flower beds with no flowers! The ever-reducing flower beds and boxes. Would we pay for reworking a junction that gave no extra lane nor improved traffic flow?
How is productivity calculated in this large customer service relative to all the extra rates they’re getting from all the extra houses, does anyone sit down and look at the extra incoming money and what the cost of all those extra residents cost the local council?
January 10, 2025
Listening to the news at lunchtime, we were told that there is no problem with havig low gas reserves, we can easily import enough via LPG Tankers and interconnectors.
That all comes at a cost : much higher prices per kW and damage to our balance of payments.
Nobody bothers to mention the latter these days, yet as Rachel From Accounts is about to find out, it has a big influence on our borrowing costs.
The sheer lunacy of Milbands refusal to consider any more drilling licences is obvious but we are also losing gas and oil capacity because of the high windfall taxes imposed first by the Conservatives ( against our host’s advice, it must be said ), and recently increased by Labour.
As a direct result we saw only this week that Total are to close down the Gryphon terminal which is expected to cost the Treasury £150m this year and as it is a hub, it will cause the loss of output from several other company’s fields as well.
What are this government doing ? They appear to have no idea whatsoever.
January 10, 2025
As someone working in consumer goods product development for a major multinational industrial company I wholeheartedly agree with this post. It’s very clear our better factories put their staff and their customers at the centre of what they do.
It has been interesting to see, and be a part of, a change in culture in one entity, in UK, many years ago. Was not easy, but we persisted, increased profitability markedly and after a while became a far nicer place to work which is strongly linked to constructively solving issues rather than running round blaming others.
The change management of this should not be underestimated and requires certain skills. It’s not easy, takes some time, meets resistance at all levels, but is very much worth it.
Many UK (and other countries) public services would benefit as would many private companies as well!
Reply I agree. I found it led to much better attitudes to help lead such change.
January 10, 2025
I am not entirely sure the Labour ministers will improve their performance if they assiduously read the complaints in the Telegraph every day. I don’t think they are capable of understanding real life.
January 10, 2025
As at 17:00hrs today https://grid.iamkate.com/ UK energy dashboard
Fossil fuels 57%
Solar 0%
Wind 8%
France 13%
Nuclear 10%