MPs are meant to run the complaints department. Much of the case work is trying to remedy failings in public services. I will be writing a few blogs on some of the reasons there are so many complaints.Many of the Statements and Ā debates are about what to do when things go wrong..
One of the principle causes of complaint is rationing. Key public services have too little capacity, leading to access denied or inadequate service performance Ā or long waits to get the service.
We have fully nationalised roads. All my life we have been kept short of road space by local and national road managers who want to deny or limit access to roads or think it a good idea to allow bad traffic jams. There is still no south coast motorway, the M25 remains too small, the A 303 to the West Country has not been fully dualled, with similar gaps in provision elsewhere in the country. Many Councils now close or limit what roads they do have to make access to towns increasingly difficult.
The NHS dominates healthcare. It has excessively long waiting lists, delays in getting appointments and lets Ā some down who need urgent treatment.
The fully Ā nationalised rail regions have poor records for delays and cancellations to train services. Train travel fails to offer much capacity for freight traffic in ways that could shift loads off the roads.
The heavily regulated and controlled electricity utilities rely more and more on imports as government will not design national security into its over managed system.
The water companies under nationalised ownership and more recently under privatised and regulated ownership have lacked capital and permissions to replace worn out old pipes and put in enough capacity for a rising population.
December 15, 2024
Why do things in the public sector work so badly? Because the Conservatives spent 14 years cutting funding for the public sector and failing to manage the sector competently. And the voters delivered their verdict last July
Reply There was a very large rise in public spending and public sector recruitment in the last four years
December 15, 2024
Lemming. We have recently witnessed the government caving in to the train drivers and doctors for no productivity improvement. Train drivers are so well paid that they no longer work weekends.
As with all monopolies there’s no accountability or sanctions for poor performance.
The government is currently spending 50% of national output very badly and you want to spend even more.
I worked in the power industry. If I worked overtime on Sunday the government took 52% of my earnings, much to pay for people who refuse to work. There isn’t much incentive there.
December 15, 2024
No, the Not-a-Conservative-Party didn’t spend 14 years cutting public spending. Spending increased, but at a slightly slower rate than the profligate Labour Party proposed.
The problem has been caused by the importation of 10 million immigrants since Blair came to power, 6 million of which came during the last 14 years and 3 million in the last two years alone. Our public services are overloaded by people accessing them who have paid nothing, and in many cases never will pay anything, into their provision.
And then, there is the serial incompetence of Public Sector managers and a great many incompetent, lazy and apathetic staff. (Direct experience of both).
Lord Frost wrote an article the other day in the DT saying that if the Government wants the public sector to improve productivity (as the private sector has) then it should recruit Managers from the Private Sector. Hear, hear and precisely what I said the other day … and give them the power to dispense with the services of the freeloaders.
December 15, 2024
No, no, no.
No minister can suddenly be put into office and be expected to manage hundreds of thousands of public sector āworkersā.
Half the people in the public sector consider their job to be a cushy number where low productivity and absenteeism are tolerated. Long holidays, early Fridays and late Mondays are expected – along with a good salary and gray pension.
The public sector is a monkey on our backs.
December 15, 2024
Managers in the Public sector have no skin in it, safest possible employment, best pensions, unquestioned sick days, months of full pay. Why rock the boat and upset the staff, you only make work and find yourself questioned from above with little or no support.
December 15, 2024
Todays guidance disappeared at 06.01 on posting the comment. Typifying all I said.
December 15, 2024
Every single Prime Minister since Tony Blair are listed on the World Economic Forum as being members. They are all deeply indebted to Klaus Schwab and his OpenSociety foundation for their promotions. They all attended Davos together. This is the UniParty:-
– Kier Starmer
– Rishi Sunak
– Liz Truss
– Boris Johnson
– Theresa May
– George Osborne
– David Cameron
-Gordon-Brown
– Tony Blair
December 15, 2024
Indeed and all with degrees in PPE, Law, History or Geography!
Listen to Laura Kuenssberg interviewing the dire fool Emma Pinchbeck CEO of the committee on climate change a Classic graduate interviewed by a language graduate on energy, climate, engineering, scienceā¦ mainly discussions about her thinking about moving to a heat pump and having bought an electric car (they save no CO2) and eating less meat (this does save CO2) but as CO2 is a net good. The interviewer mentioned Ā£5000 for a typical new heat pump system – more like 10 to 20 times this dear. Cost more to run too and created a huge extra winter electricity demand.
If the BBC wants to discuss Russian history or the finer points of Anglo Saxon Literature I am available. I know nothing on these topics being a maths, physics, engineering, and business chap but, unlike the two above, I will try tp mug up a bit.
December 15, 2024
Or classics for Boris that I missed out. Starmer has a rather poor Physics, Maths Music A level and from a posh school too BBC grades but he is perhaps the worst of the lot given all his many disasters so far like Lammy, Reeves, Cooper Balls, Ed Milibandā¦
December 15, 2024
Academic results aren’t everything. Sir Richard Branson was useless at school. But with lots of creative / entrepreneurial / common-sense / practical intelligence. Although I don’t think Starmer has this either.
(And then you have lots of Oxbridge politicians / civil servants who lack the vital type of intelligence of people such as Richard Branson).
December 15, 2024
In order to be invited you might have to demonstrate your lack, like insisting Russia has always been a good example of democracy, and that the literature was all burned by the monks.
December 15, 2024
Yes indeed. How they struggle to understand anything quantitative! Learning the finer points of the Russian Revolution, tundra or Chaucer will never help this country out of the present mess.
We scientists and engineers might struggle to grasp the needs of the so-called desperate Calais-based immigrants, the EU rule-lovers and the home-grown feckless, but we can stitch the numbers and structures together which might help and guide them. But you don’t get to be part of the Establishment via that route.
December 15, 2024
Oh knowledge of the Russian Revolution is critical to every Englishman at this point. Also the Nuremberg Trials, and a bit of our own history so that you know who you are and what you have to live up to.
December 15, 2024
Good morning.
To answer today’s question is simple. Supply and demand. And the fact that we have allowed demand to outstrip supply by not planning for it. Just let millions come and access it and it will “sort itself out” seems to be the current mantra.
December 15, 2024
Why do they run so badly? Well yes the extra demand from millions of migrants who
largely do not pay in is part of it blame. But it is not their money they are wasting and not they who benefit from any value purchased. They care not the cost nor the value received.
Then we have vested interests, corruption and group think lunacy like HS2, diversity, woke lunacy & net zeroā¦
December 15, 2024
Overpopulation is at the centre of causes.
Motorway design is a major cause of road problems.
All fast roads should be treated as one-way only, with a zero mph hard shoulder and 30mph limit on the first driving lane, increasing to 70mph on the faster lanes to their right. Such roads can go wherever planned, using flyovers or underpasses when crossing others.
When fast two roads are destined in completely opposite parallel directions, they can join at their zero mph sides. Then, as the opposite-destined traffic would be at least 3-lanes apart, one of the empty zero lanes would be saved. Normal driving rules would be unchanged, with left-hand-drive vehicles keeping left and overtaking on their right, exactly as now. That then becomes a Safety Fast Motorway.
Those who assess the change rationally will not envision ghosts of perceived risk, but realise the immense advantages.
December 15, 2024
Is it just us who can’t run nationalised industry? I’m trying to put a brave face on it, since we seem to be stuck with a large nationalised/regulated sector.
I can give one example of a very good nationalised service: the Austrian railways. A bit expensive to use, and lord knows how much taxpayers’ money was put into it, but the service was great. Remarkably punctual and clean. Last year my 230 mile, 4.5hr journeys from Vienna to a tiny rural stop in the Tirol cost Ā£25-Ā£50, depending on how far in advance I bought the ticket. Lots of tiny rural stations and a good regular service between them and the local towns (maybe just 2 carriages, but enough always to sit down). They ran come snow or shine. Staff helpful.
December 15, 2024
My German friend was trying to make a point the other day when she sent me details of European nations railway performances and Deutsche Bahn was middle table and listed as “mediocre.” I replied and said that result was pretty good ….. ours is dire and costs twice as much.
December 15, 2024
There’s a different attitude. If there is corruption at the top, it’s at least hidden rather than reported through to the masses. We have the worst of both worlds here, with cronies in the public sector rotating with fatcats in the private sector.
The workers, at least in Switzerland, work to routine. Not so much flexi-this that and the other, though that is changing. People expect a job for life in something like the railways but in return they follow the rules.
December 15, 2024
SJR, you say water was privatised ‘more recently’. It was 35 years ago. You suggest that they have failed to replace leaking water pipes because of a lack of capital. But in 2022-2023, England’s water firms made Ā£1.7bn in pre-tax profits, up 82% since 2018/2019. Those firms have chosen to pay vast sums in dividends rather than invest sufficient money in upgrading infrastructure. At that same time they have imposed large billing increases on the public. By all means criticise waste in state-run businesses, but I do not see the point of trying to assimilate private sector price-gouging and under-investment to an incompetently run public sector.
Reply The privatised monopolies were subject to price controls by the state. I lost the argument to have competition to control behaviours. If you turn to private capital you need yo allow dividends and interest payments. If they had stayed nationalised taxpayers would have yet bigger bills for interest on extra state debt.
December 15, 2024
The way they were set up and were poorly regulated resulted in the problems we have now. The government cannot run thing directly, are dire at subcontracting things like HS2, road maintenanceā¦ and dire at regulating things too.
December 15, 2024
reply to reply. but private investments which include available share trading, should not expect dividends on badly run loss making activities which antagonise its customers. Nor should investors be burdened with unrealistic loan interest payments. Both ripe for manipulation.
December 15, 2024
Reply to reply
1. A state run monopoly was swapped to, effectively, a private monopoly, where the public HAS TO PAY. The investment houses couldn’t believe their luck!
2. Good management is available in both private and public sectors, it is not selective.
3. Under public ownership there’d be no cash drain to shareholders, management being equally competent, either services should be better or costs lower.
December 15, 2024
Ah, but here is the rub.
Nationalised services by their very nature are not as competent as the private sector, they are less innovative, and they certainly do not generate a decent return on investment.
So costs are higher and taxpayer subsidies the order of the day.
December 15, 2024
The privatised monopolies may have prices controlled but that does not mean they are good value. We have over paid for water for years and currently electricity through ‘controlled maximum prices’. The water companies have taken billions out in dividends often sent overseas and the power companies have been making excess profits especially since the competition has been eliminated.. Dividends are of course required for investors, but they should be proportionate and not at the cost of bankrupting the business and not investing. Water companies are now asking big price increases to replace the pipes which we have already paid for. I don’t like paying twice for the same thing. The regulators act not in the public interest, but act like trade associations and are mostly useless. Every time one of them is interviewed on radio, they show complete incompetence.
December 15, 2024
Notice the report Fred Kite has established his committee inside Head Office, to work out the plan to return to the Socialist Republic of Europe. Will the Tory PCP make any objection — do they even care?
December 15, 2024
” Ahh, Russia – all them cornfields and ballet in the evening” (Fred Kite) – but there won’t be any cornfields under Starmer, just the men in tights…
December 15, 2024
šBrilliant āwell I was not going as fast as I couldā – every Trades Union official should have such a lodger!
Look out for posters on the London Underground of dancing and singing Britons bringing in the harvest – coming soon.
December 15, 2024
Bet we won’t be allowed to carry a hammer and sickle to work!
December 15, 2024
Could they do anything even if they did care? They squandered their 14 years and their reputation with their serial lying in four manifestos.
December 15, 2024
The reason the Public service is so incapable pf satisfying the public’s demand for ‘good’ services, is because there is no incentive in the system, for them to do so.
Equally there is no disincentive in the system either. When was a Public servant last fired for overseeing a poor department service?
Too many useless service performances are rewarded with early full paid pensions, or a Knighthood, or Peerage.
Why do they need to be any good at their jbs when they know the payoffs are guaranteed?
December 15, 2024
Rationing is partly to blame for the public sector crisis. We simply need to drastically reduce iummigration.
However, there is also the failure to replace poor management and lazy people.
All of the above is the fault of all governments throughout the 21st century.
December 15, 2024
Kwarteng said the other evening that āthere may be 80 million in the UKā.
December 15, 2024
was that the UK population, or just the growing CS?
December 15, 2024
Many of the failings of public services are a direct result of EU Regulations (now imported into UK law); UK Legislation and the growth of the Independent Regulators/Quangocracy.
We are still subject to EU Environmental Regulations, which were gold-plated by our Civil Service or are over-interpreted by the Quangocracy. That delays or prevents a great deal of infrastructure improvements and loads massive costs onto any schemes which do go ahead.
Over-interpretation of Environmental Regs by the Environment Agency (captured by Eco nutters) is why the water courses and drainage channels in the Somerset Levels were not maintained …. leading to massive flooding a few years ago.
Natural England can, effectively, block any infrastructure project which will impact a site they control (ie A303/ Stonehenge). The mere indication that dormice MAY be present in an area can stop a project. The presence of bats, newts, some birds (and certainly during bird-nesting season) will, at the very least, impact, a scheme.
If the proposed development is in a National Park (or somewhere like the New Forest) then the Park Authority must approve it which is one reason why there isn’t a south coast motorway because it would traverse the South Downs National Park.
As with so much else, the problem has been caused by the EU and a succession of British Governments who have given too much power to the unaccountable Quangocracy. We need a Government which will Take Back Control.
December 15, 2024
So Sir John, where does the blame for the short comings lie?
Is it incompetence by the minister, the civil servants, or the local management? Could it be an untrained or unskilled workforce or perhaps the unionisation that’s the problem?
Perhaps the organisation has forgotten about the concept of public service?
Too many public sector organisations seem unable to prioritise their core goals or to work to budgets… Why is this? Could we bring in new professional business teams from successful private companies to look at the state of the public organisations? Would anyone be brave enough, to take on the unions and today, the MSM in the way Mrs Thatcher did? I doubt it personally. It must be nice to have your own money printing machine when one is skint.
December 15, 2024
I think one reason the public sector is inefficient is that there are no incentives for them to perform better and no penalties if they underperform. In the private sector, despite restrictive employment laws, under-performers get moved out.
December 15, 2024
Look at how the country boomed during the Victorian era when state intervention was so much less, and innovation ruled.
Yes, indeed. It is clear that state run services are an abomination in terms of effective management. Roads in particular, but also Water and power, rail and farming.
It’s not all about incompetence – it is much more basic. Those in charge of supplying our needs just cannot be bothered to do their job properly. Those that should be looking ahead, planning and increasing capacity in whatever service they are employed to manage just shrug their sloping shoulder and tell us to use less.
That is not doing the job!
We can’t expect improved services now that netzero is in full swing, but that shouldn’t stop us complaining about and highlighting those manager that are failing in their useless nationalised roles.
December 15, 2024
The civil courts have all but ground to a halt. Despite the fact that a cornerstone function of a civilised state is to provide an accessible and affordable system to enable citizens to resolve their disputes, the courts charge ludicrous stealth tax fees at the point of entry, take ages to have an action properly timetabled for trial, and leave the resolution of those disputes largely in the hands of judges who have to show more experience of and commitment to DEI than aptitude for legal decision making. At least there is a private sector option available, in the form of ADR/mediation, but that is not suitable for every litigant.
December 15, 2024
Our host mentioned the lack of a South Coast motorway.
I live in Dorset, 4 miles west of Ringwood. Dorset is the only County in England with no motorway!
In my working life I had to go to Exeter regularly for 30 years and that route is torturous : the 80 mile journey never takes less than 100 minutes, and it often takes over two hours. By motorway it would take just 75 minutes.
Go by train, Lord Adonis would say, but there is no train line West of Dorchester !
With the enforced move to EVs, the Green lobby can no longer use climate change as a reason to object to new roads. We should not be wasting many billions on the railways, including HS2, we should spend a fraction of that amount on improving our motorway network. Look across the Channel where France is expanding its superb autoroute system. Yes, there are tolls, but road tax is much cheape, as is diesel.
December 15, 2024
The fact there is no motorway in Dorset is one of the reasons I moved there š
December 15, 2024
7.5 years ago our health centre (a simple building) burnt down. No rebuild has yet started. 5.5 years ago Notre Dame burnt down requiring a major and complicated restoration. It has just reopened. That says it all!!
December 15, 2024
Prayers before health – the way it has always been.
December 15, 2024
And still the socialists continue to argue that state provision is best!
December 15, 2024
āThe water companies under nationalised ownership and more recently under privatised and regulated ownership have lacked capital and permissions to replace worn out old pipes and put in enough capacity for a rising population.ā
āFlawed privatisationā the companies involved and seemingly in perpetuity never had/have the money to buy and run the Companies/Water Boards. The purchases are highly leverages, the first thing done once the operation is acquired is to sell and mortgage the infrastructure leaving them cash strapped virtually unable to pay the interest rates on the debts involved in the purchase.
Thatās not Privatisation, that is not someone going to invest and grow. That is simply organisations paying interest of debt and funding shareholders.