I am always disappointed though not surprised by the very different approaches taken by Private sector company  Chief Executives and public sector ones when being interviewed about their organisations.
The company CEO s go on to explain how well their business is doing. They  explain their passion to serve their customers better, to keep prices down and to innovate. They can manage whatever circumstances  throws at them. If they are being interviewed because something has gone wrong, they apologise and tell us how it is now being put right and will not happen again. They  do not blame their shareholders for not supplying them  enough money or giving  them the wrong instructions.They do not say the Bank manager was to blame for being too mean.
In contrast public sector CEOs often come on to tell us their service cannot manage, to say the increases in the  cash they are sent are insufficient, to say they are unable to recruit the  people they have been asked to employ. They are rarely asked why they cannot run the service better or even what they are doing to try to improve it.
We need to encourage a can do approach amongst high paid public sector CEOs who need  to grab the quality and cost problems which bedevil too many public services.
December 5, 2022
True enough but surely the smug complacency of a public sector run for the convenience and comfort of the people who operate it is not going to be shifted by earnest CEOs exhorting them all to do better.
And the private sector is constantly granted clear and definite signals of its capability by seeing revenues exceed costs: profit is the financial measure of commercial success. The public sector is, typically, denied such signals and the fix for a shortage of revenue is, as you allude, whinging about Government meanness. Accordingly, the one sector is naturally set up to strive for success and the other is not.
The internal markets solution that some management consultant types tried to foist on the NHS at one time just led I believe to huge administrative burden and no better outcomes so perhaps there needs to be a true external market, where taxpayers are able to choose to use competing public sector systems. Those that were seen to be failing would lose users and the Government could then close them down.
December 5, 2022
F57, Totally agree the State should not run anything that the private sector can already do. That said, you & Sir J miss one other key difference:
If a private sector company makes a big mistake (misses profit targets, failed take-over, etc), the CEO resigns.
If a public sector ‘company’ makes a big mistake (happens too often to list) the CEO generally gets promoted. e.g. Dido Harding, Andrew Bailey.
December 5, 2022
The difference between CEO private and public sector can be seen in recent events at Twitter. One acts straight away the other public sector one has meetings about whether to have a meeting.
Is the on line safety bill just another copy of the EU Digital Services Act to prevent and suppress free speech? The mirroring of EU laws and regulations must stop. We left.
Elon Musk is unravelling the corrupt nature of bid tech suppressing free speech to influence the election of the president of the USA! So it appears Trump was right and all those US intelligence officers who signed an open letter claiming a Russian hoax were either very wrong or knowingly corrupting the outcome of an election. None available for comment to alter their position we are told.
With covid disinformation rot and serious govt failing 8n every regard the on line safety bill should be scrapped.
December 5, 2022
Private sector bosses know if their operation doesn’t succeed, their customers will walk to the competition.
Yes you can buy private sector health, but you carry on having to pay for the service you left.
December 5, 2022
+1
And also private sector bosses may have started out making whatever in a workshop in N London or somewhere.
ieâŠknow their product and what they are talking about!
December 5, 2022
Private health insurance used to include a tax allowance. In education, the Assisted Places Scheme similarly used to recognise that parents who paid for the State system without using it could avoid fully paying twice. Blair abolished it.
Public Sector CEOs, such as Ministers whether incompetent or not remain unable if the daft Treasury or PM overpower to ban such helpful measures.
December 5, 2022
Totally agree Bloke.
Very sad that the assisted places scheme was ruined by Blair.
And that the tax benefit for private health insurance was spoiled for employers and employees.
December 5, 2022
We the public need to have individual opt-outs from public services. Then private companies would become providers and compete. But the government must be permanently precluded from taking over the private sector as they did during the covid scam, when they took over private healthcare facilities thereby defrauding the customers of their service.
We need a personal opt-out from ANY state provided service and a refund commensurate with the opt-outs. Letâs see how popular the BBC, Council bin collections, the NHS, State Pensions, State education, the police etc are.
As the state sectors fail, the Government remit in that âcompetenceâ is rescinded by the taxpayer, and the state must be shrunk accordingly.
Regarding Devolution: Scotland should have a dry-run of independence next year: they keep all taxes raised in Scotland and get no funding from Westminster. Wales can run the same experiment if it likes.
December 6, 2022
Lynn
Become more realistic and please better informed as well. It would make your contribution more valuable
December 7, 2022
Yes do as bill says Lynn
EUbill knows best.
December 10, 2022
Bill, do you realise how patronising you sound?
The NHS providers are failing to plan, recruit, and train. Miriam Deakin, director of policy at NHS Providers, said âThere are a staggering 133,000 vacancies across the NHS right now. This needs to be addressed urgently by the government in the form of a fully funded, long-term workforce plan,â
John, your party really do need to investigate this properly. Where are these 133,000 vacancies, what grade of worker? What level of pay, how long is the training course for that job? What skills are needed for those jobs? Are they all front line clinical jobs? I think it is time the public were told precisely which jobs are vacant. Too many kids are wasting time and money doing college courses with no job at the end of it. Student loans are funding it and no investigation seems to be done. Whilst the nHS tells us every week they canât recruit. Into what jobs precisely. How many training places to we offer each year? Can the training be changed?
December 5, 2022
As pointed out by a few really good articles in con woman today and yesterday, the attitude of the Tories to all the countryâs woes could be summed up by Javidâs remark, âso what?â. After all he presided over so many of the messes and achieved nothing in any office.
One of the best is John Haleâs on Great Reset or another from Kathy Gyngell highlighting the failures of the Tories and itâs not Brexit but Tories! The current blame shift on everything by this ridiculous party is not convincing anyone.
December 5, 2022
Since the top public sector management is this Tory government Sir John is absolutely bang on the money with his headline.
However, they’ve already had twelve years, and have been pretty abject throughout, so I don’t think that the public are expecting much change there.
December 5, 2022
Spot on well said
December 5, 2022
Not 12 years NLH around 70, and they have come and gone in every imaginable colour of the political spectrum. It suggests to me that the majority of politicians are failed examples of other professions or those who just have politics as their claim to fame. With exceltions they are unfit for purpose.
December 5, 2022
Arent there top public sector managers in the NHS on more money than MPs? If they have no responsibility and it is all to be the responsibility of the MP, and his team-then, shouldn’t their positions be dissolved?
Social service Managers, we were told recently, are on ÂŁ150k per area, i.e. Bradford.
Schools have Heads and Deputy Heads; how much are they on now? Isn’t there another level of Management between them and the MP?
I don’t hold the MP responsible for lower-down failure, when people earn over ÂŁ100k in direct Management.
December 6, 2022
getintoteaching.education.gov.uk âSalaries and benefits 2022/23â will give you the salary of teachers and headteachers depending on experience, location and size of the school.
TMALSS a starting unqualified teacher is at ÂŁ19.3k, a qualified teacher starts at ÂŁ28k and a headteacher is anywhere between ÂŁ50k and ÂŁ131k.
December 6, 2022
Thank you, I wonder if it is pupil numbers that dictate the Head’s salary?
I will check it out.
December 5, 2022
I think the comparison is spot on NLH.
The Civil Service is in fact the “continuity” goverment – in which no one senior ever really gets fired, Departments never go bust and no one ever has to worry about customer retention.
December 5, 2022
Wow, we agree on something Notts Lad
The most prominent Public Sector failure – who is largely responsible for the rampant inflation we are now experiencing – was recently promoted from the position of Chancellor to Prime Minister (with not a vote in sight and having been rejected by the Party Membership) and is thus following the usual Public Sector policy of being promoted despite demonstrating his incompetence.
December 5, 2022
Also NLH, the communist Labour Party would certainly be worse. We need to use Transferable voting and so get rid of the terrible twins.
December 5, 2022
The fear is that in the next two years, they will do even more damage.
December 5, 2022
NLH – Quite. But they are so utterly Leftist that I don’t know what you’re complaining about.
December 5, 2022
@formula57 – surely the smug complacency of a public sector can only be laid at Government they are the ones that ultimatly do the hiring and firing. It is Government that is soley responsible for the Taxpayer getting value for money
December 5, 2022
Andrew Bailey
left his last post to become The Governor of The Bank of England.
How is he doing so far?
December 5, 2022
Indeed Bob, indeed.
December 5, 2022
Dire and he was dire at the FCA too he gave us all one size 40% personal overdraft rates.
December 5, 2022
JR, again I ask:
How much did it cost the taxpayer for MPs to listen to corrupt Ukraineâs president wife last week? Seriously, how much and of what use to our country? All on ÂŁ83,000 plus cost of offices and expenses, ministers even more. Take the number of those present and how long (hours) they wastefully sat there doing nothing and achieved nothing. Nothing! This answers your question JR. You and other MPs might like to think about this before discussing productivity!
Just imagine all the businesses in the country telling all their work forces we are going to listen to the wife of the president of the Ukraine for a few hours this afternoon! Just to kill a few hours! Not as though parliament has anything else to do! Cut the bloody numbers, if not there in the jungle! Or on holiday. Or Johnson visiting Rupert Murdoch in Montana!
If MPs provide little or no value this comes from the top in cabinet and rotten culture of parliament.
December 5, 2022
Indeed.
December 5, 2022
And just think: Mrs Zelensky from Switzerland (or Florida or Malibu or Tuscany where her husband owns homes) was more interesting and less dangerous than the Green Greta to had Gove fascinated and âlearningâ!
December 5, 2022
Hope
You wonât ever get an answer to that question, which reveals just how useless this blog is
December 5, 2022
@Bob Dixon When you have friends in Government you can do anything as they are just as reckless with other peoples money
December 5, 2022
Very well, Bob.
It’s his job to help destroy the economy.
Such as the BEIS Net Zero Strategy plan to destroy our economy by zeroing our 1% contribution to global CO2 emissions when there is no empirical evidence we have a climate catastrophe and in fact “climate action” is only number 13 on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals :
https://sdgs.un.org/
December 5, 2022
Quote from Richard Tice,
“with even the Bank of England claiming we will be in recession for over a year (for which Bank Governor Andrew Bailey blames Brexit) they are all busy trashing Britain instead of talking it up.”
Elsewhere,
“The demise of the Truss administration following the mini-budget has been widely attributed to the marketâs reaction to the expectation of unfunded borrowing occasioned by tax cuts and the fuel price cap. To the contrary: the marketâs behaviour was quite clearly a response to the actions â and inactions â of the Bank of England, before, during and after the mini-budget.”
Bailey trying to deflect blame from his own home-made catastrophe.
December 5, 2022
Good morning.
The Private Sector does get things wrong – witness the case of Gerald Ratner of Ratners. And when it does, there are consequences. Not so the Public Sector. Many thousands of people, including both young and vulnerable, could suffer enormously and the State, to cover its own incompetence and even cowardice, would contrive to cover up such failures. I think dear readers can see what I am aiming at here đ
The problem is no one in any authority even recognises the problem muchless has the wit to deal with it. We need a PM and a Cabinet, along with a Parliament, with backbone.
Still, it will all be over soon and we can settle down to the Red Labour Parties turn. The guys and the girls in the Blue Socialist corner have had long enough to fill their boots.
December 5, 2022
+1 Mark B.
December 5, 2022
ah. but Gerald owned it !
December 5, 2022
I’d just like to add Gerald Ratner got knocked down, but he got himself back up again, built up a leisure business from the ground and sold it, and now owns one of the most prominent online jewellers.
December 5, 2022
Mark,
Read Hancock diaries/lies in the paper! He was getting remainer advice from Osborne! Hunt receiving remaining advice from Osborne!
December 5, 2022
+many
Not to mention what he has revealed re plagueâŠall as we suspected!
December 5, 2022
George Osborne was the driving force behind the push for regional councils. His ghost still rules – this policy was binned five years ago but has now lurched from the tomb. More council officers, more committees, more feasting at the taxpayers’ expense.
Whoever you vote for the politicians get in.
JF
December 5, 2022
Hancock made huge errors – the dumping of the infected into care homes to infect and kill others (they must have know the care homes did not have the capacity to do this safely), the pointless test and trace costing ÂŁbillions, the dangerous and rather ineffective vaccines even coerced into young people who were not even at any risk, the lockdowns, the NHS virtual shutdowns, the damaging nudge agenda, the lies, the pointless and damaging masks, the unused nightingale hospital PR stunt, the rubbishing of the Barrington Declaration agendaâŠNot evil perhaps but just grossly incompetent (PPE yet again).
December 5, 2022
Today we read Sunak getting advice from Gordon Brown!! Why not have him in No. 10 like the other former Labour minister like Patricia Hewitt!
Blaire giving advice and lobbying Handcock to allow UEA off travel restrictions during covid as he did a lot of business there!!
What is the difference in the two types of socialism?
December 5, 2022
Very little. Sunak and Brown certainly have good experience of what not to do – tax, borrow and piss down the drain, destroy the economy and currency debase.
December 5, 2022
It is the incompetence and even cowardice of Parliament and the Government they hold to account, that this even happens. The Civil Service the QUANGOâs etc only exist at the behest of Government â no one else. If things are wrong it is because Govenment hasn’t itself got the ability to put it right
December 5, 2022
Nadhim Zahawi, has vomited forth that Nurses should not get a 29% pay rise in order to ‘stick it to putin‘!
No doubt Mr Zahawi will be forgoing the looting exercise, I mean, ‘vote yourself a pay rise’, that MPs will shortly be engaging. Because exercising some restraint would set a good example. Baroness Mone might take note.
However, I’ve no expectation that the spoilt Political class will do anything so sensible.
NB. The British economy is in the dire straits it is, because of the incompetent people running it. Including Mr Rushi Sunak who expanded the money supply by four hundred percent in 2020 and thus directly caused the domestic inflation that the Nurses and Rail employees and the rest of the population have become acutely aware of over the last nine months.
Zahawari claims that inflation is the fault of President Putin. Yet before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the BBC was reporting 40 year highs in domestic inflation.
Note
December 5, 2022
Exactly. Inflation mainly caused by Sunakâs currency debasement, the lockdown, over reaction to Covid, endless government waste and increasing energy cost largely by the ânet zeroâ religion and energy ministers blowing up coal fired power stations or burning US wood in them. So by government policy & gross incompetence in short.
I note that Hunt has provided for ÂŁ1.3 billion of compensation for the millions of failed NHS patients. Enough for the often negligible ÂŁ120k vaccine cap compensation for just 11,000 people. Looking at the state (all cause excess deaths still over 200 a day) this figure will need to be more like ÂŁ100 billion. After all they âspentâ (or rather wasted) up to ÂŁ37 billion on the almost entirely pointless Test and Trace lunacy. How does one even manage to spend such sums so quickly on nothing of any real value?
Someone I know was randomly punched in the face breaking his jaw badly in three places a week ago. This by some random nutter he had never met or even seen coming coming. He went to casualty and had to wait over 8 hours in casualty before he even saw a triage nurse. Surely a sensible health system would do at least a basic triage on arrival. How many people die in A&E awaiting triage or even awaiting an ambulance before they get there. Or just deteriorate too far by the time they finally do get any medical treatments.
December 5, 2022
Nothing remotely new at all in the Earthshot prizes. Essentially squarer âPoly Tunnelsâ to protect crops, better charcoal (carbon) burning stoves, doubtless rather expensive âplasticsâ from seaweeds, sea defences on the barrier reef but this done âby Indiginous womenâ so obviously far better than ones done by mere white men.
I am all in favour or burning carbon to supply cheap on demand heat, power and cooking but it is actually usually rather better for the planet to burn coal or gas rather than chop down trees to then turn into charcoal and then burn them. But certainly best done in a more efficient burner. But loads of good designs for these already the main thing is to get them to the people who need them.
Has Prince William apologised to the appallingly treated Lady Hussey yet? Why on earth is King Charles going to see Ngozi Fulani. It does not seem a wise move but then climate alarmist hypocrite Charles rarely is. Will she be frisked for recording equipment, what will he say I wonder? Why does your charity only help black african heritage women perhaps? Do you have a detailed copy of your full charity accounts? Why did you change your name and wear African dress? Might be good openers.
Will he be seeing Hussey to thank her for her 60 years of faithful service ended due to a slight lack of tact in a trivial conversation – at worst?
December 5, 2022
stats. not state
December 5, 2022
Lifelogic are but, the hospital concerned will be good on inclusion, the management are no enjoying their 15% pay increase they awarded themselves. But what happened to the extra billions of taxpayer money dumped on the NHS, no one knows and no one in Government even cares – they still have the taxpayer to fleece.
December 5, 2022
More money, more doctors and nurses but fewer operations and treatments it seems.
December 5, 2022
Total tossers in cabinet blaming everything on Putin.
France buying uranium fromâŠRussia. Who buys electric from FranceâŠUK
India and China buying oil and selling it back to EU fromâŠâŠRussia UK not mining its own abundance of coal but buying it fromâŠ. Russia!
Who failed energy policy for 12.5 years⊠Tories
Who failed to mine its own coalâŠTories
Who stopped drilling for oil and gasâŠTories
Who scrapped coal fired power stationsâŠTories
Who banned frackingâŠâŠTories
Who scrapped gas storageâŠ.Tories
Who relies on hostile EU for electricityâŠTories
Who are building more interconnectors to EUâŠ..Tories
Who linked energy to stealing our fishing watersâŠ.Tories
Who has just given UK military to EUâŠ.Tories
Who has just signed political declaration after nation voted to leaveâŠ.Tories
Who has given N.Ireland to EUâŠâŠTories
Who printed over ÂŁ820 billionâŠ.Tories
Who trebeled debt to over two trillionâŠ.Tories
Who created highest inflationâŠ.Tories
Who has highest taxation everâŠ.Tories
Who has caused highest mass immigration in historyâŠâŠTories
Who has not scrapped ECHR to take back control of immigrationâŠ.Tories
No, I do not think Putin has caused UK mess it is the dishonest socialist Tories.
Just get out.
December 5, 2022
Indeed and all largely supported by Labour, SNP, plaid, LibDims and that green english graduate dope for Brighton Pav.
December 5, 2022
If Public Sector CEOs need encouraging to manage affairs properly they should not have been appointed in the first place.
December 5, 2022
+1 but they all go native once appointed.
December 5, 2022
Who ‘reformed’ the HoL by increasing their numbers still further?
Who signed the UN Global Compact on Migration against the express wishes of the British people?
Who is prolonging the war in Ukraine with our money?
Who agreed to pay ‘climate compensation’ to nations with their own nuclear programmes?
Who is preventing rail companies from making realistic pay offers to their employees.
Who gave big contracts to their mates to put illegal immigrants in hotels and rented accommodation, causing job losses for hotel employees and raising rents for would-be tenants?
Who has done nothing to reverse the Blairite politicisation of the judiciary, the police, and other institutions?
December 5, 2022
And taken 28% in regular pay rises since 2010 whilst most wages were stagnating. Funny how we didn’t hear about the ‘wage/inflation spiral’ when it came to a total of 28% pay increases for MPs.
I don’t doubt that many MPs work hard and almost unendurable hours but so do a lot of people who go bust in the private sector because of the Tory mismanagement mentioned in these comments.
Pay is never about how hard one works but how effective one is.
The Tories are now in a position way beyond being able criticise any other worker for making pay claims against a backdrop of inflation that they caused (see failures mentioned by Hope/Beresford.)
Credibility is blown.
Just… get out, as Hope says.
December 6, 2022
NLA: “I donât doubt that many MPs work hard and almost unendurable hour”
It’s not about how long or hard MPs work, it’s about how efficient they are. That’s the metric working people have been hit over the head, time and time again, by those in positions of authority.
Well, what’s good for the goose, is good for the gander. In my opinion as a sector, we have far too many politicians!
By the way, it seems to be the case, that our primary competitor in Europe, Germany have based their manufacturing sector on cheap (or relatively cheap) Russian natural gas. Whereas the British have used the North Sea oil revenue as a golden goose to expand the public (and it goes without saying, non-productive) sector.
Done under the auspices of the over-sized Political sector whose primary goal is to increase their own importance. All the while they have been berating the British worker to work harder, because they are competing with German industry, which had access to cheap Russian energy, or Chinese industry, which had the benefit of newly industrialising a largely peasant workforce.
China, have taken this as an opportunity to up-skill and educate their workforce, and build an industrial base of both heavy and high-tech industry.
Some vision shown by the Chinese political class, compared to the utter defeatist retreat and lack of vision by British politicians. Frankly, in my opinion, we’d be better off without their management of the economy.
December 5, 2022
@Hope +1 after 12 years playing at being in Government and never stepping up to the plate, these bumbing idiots are looking for another sound-bite to hang their hat on. The UK Government is the CEO of UK PLC, no one else just as with the glory all failures are 100% down to them
December 5, 2022
@Hope In the World as in life things happen, we elect our Parliament and the Government to spend out tax money wisely to insulate and insure us against these vagaries. Their duty is the safety and security of the UK, ensuring a resilient strong economy so the mechanisms of State can cope.
The last 12 years have shown how inept this Government is along with the whole of Parliment, they have done the complete reverse of what was required of them.
Your right Putin has nothing to do with UK ill’s
December 5, 2022
what do you think of it so far? Rubbish! – as Eric Morecambe would say.
December 5, 2022
My word Hope. What a brilliant post. The failings so clearly stated. Thank you.
December 5, 2022
Hope :
Absolutely correct.
You can also add to the failed energy policy :
Who is closing down all our nuclear plants to leave us by the electricity decarbonisation date with just one new build â the EDF/Chinese Hinkley Point C using failing and expensive EDF EPR technology? From 26% of our electricity in 1997 to 5% by 2035. Nuclear is the only affordable, reliable low carbon source of energy.
Who is implementing the Net Zero Strategy designed to make us dependent upon expensive, meagre and intermittent renewable energy where 85% of wind turbine parts, 100% of solar panels and 60% of raw materials for batteries, motors and generators are supplied by a hostile state, China?
The problem for concerned voters is that these are the policies of ALL the Parliamentary Parties.
December 5, 2022
PS :
Who signed us up to never-ending large scale immigration by signing the UN Global Compact on Migration…Tories (Mrs. May)
December 5, 2022
Hope, well said!!!
December 5, 2022
Boris/Sunak/Handcock government and their medical, BoE and their economic “experts” got all the big thinks wrong. Vaccinating the young, the lockdown, test and trace, masks, school shutdowns, NHS shutdowns, pushing the infected into care homes, ignoring all but Covid deaths…
December 5, 2022
Hope,
Coal to be cost effective has to be open-cast. We don’t have the right sort.
Shale gas, however…
JF
December 5, 2022
Who believes in more devolution – Tories
Who refuses to grant a parliament for England? – Tories
Who is intends to destroy England as a nation by dividing England into regions but keeping the other nations as single identities? – Tories
December 5, 2022
Well said Hope.
December 5, 2022
Historically Britain had two levels of nurse: state registered nurse (SRN) who did three-year training; state enrolled nurse (SEN) who did two-year training; another smaller group of staff known as nursing auxiliaries (NA).
The position of State Enrolled Nurse was abolished. This was a massive mistake.
S.E.N’s offered a less qualified route into nursing, similar to a midshipman in the Navy, which could still allow a route through to the higher role of S.R.N. I know many SEN nurses that became specialist nurses and held high level positions training throughout their careers into mental health care, specialist child nursing and Theatre grade 4.
The void has been filled to some extent by less qualified and unregistered nursing assistants.
December 5, 2022
a-tracy :
As for the police, and no doubt elsewhere, the nursing profession has been ruined by the necessity to have a degree and thus building up a large, unnecessary debt whilst undergoing a 3 year immersion course in far left politics.
A great start to turning the country around would be to halve the size of our higher educational establishment and all their worthless courses and at the same time end the invasion of our universities by 120,000+ Chinese âstudentsâ.
December 6, 2022
Don’t those Chinese students all pay International Student fees that keep the Universities ticking over? Isn’t it also valuable to build international friendships with the key movers and shakers from China?
Foundation (pre-undergraduate) tuition fees:
Engineering and Science Foundation (Year 0) ÂŁ20,000
Biosciences Foundation Year ÂŁ26,000
INTO Manchester International Foundation Programme ÂŁ19,565âÂŁ24,595
Bachelor, Master and PhD tuition fees:
Non-laboratory degrees ÂŁ20,000
Laboratory (science and engineering degrees) ÂŁ24,500
Clinical years within Medicine and Dentistry degrees ÂŁ47,000
Alliance Manchester Business School Master’s tuition fees ÂŁ20,000âÂŁ32,000
December 6, 2022
Many SRN’s have taken higher degrees and extended clinical training and we all are required to do undertake much clinical work for re registration in context with the speciality worked in . No profession should just rely on the preliminary training years, The qualification is merely a springboard to continue learning, however the only way to give Nursing credibility was through the Universities. It shouldn’t have to be as my SRN academic training was a far higher standard than the University curriculums and they still go on arguing about my masters in general practice. We need to not think about these divisions now and concentrate on the health professional where all staff start at the same level and view the patient as a whole, needing medication , health advice , surgery , medicine and anything else a human needs throughout their lives. Arguments re med school and nursing school are self interested for the organisations only. The med students are no better than the Nursing students and we simply cannot go on equating A level results with potentially advanced practitioners.
December 5, 2022
Rather a stupid thing to say in Zhawi.
December 5, 2022
It’s all about classic buck passing. They have no real accountable targets and move the blame back to the ministers.
They have a DNA which states
More funding is the panacea to all their ills. Put them and their management teams on 5 year contracts with 6 monthly Performance review on how are we doing and what waste has been identified and eradicated.
December 5, 2022
“They” being the, er, Government,, what?
December 5, 2022
Stop being silly Martin.
December 5, 2022
Best estimates suggest that the NHS spends roughly ÂŁ8 billion of its ÂŁ100 billion budget on management and administration. KingsFund.
The average NHS salary ranges from approximately ÂŁ15186 per year for Management Trainee to ÂŁ221858 per year for Chief Executive Officer. Indeed.
20 Dec 2021 â According to health minster Edward Argar there are now some 7,018 managers with total earnings of between ÂŁ80,000 to ÂŁ129,999 in the NHS. Spectator
2 Oct 2018 â Currently there are around 31,000 managers employed in the English NHS. WBS
The typical NHS Manager salary is ÂŁ42,900 per year. Glassdoor
December 5, 2022
Price is what you pay value is what you get – for government in general usually ÂŁ billions and value almost nothing and often even hugely negative as with net zero.
December 5, 2022
Sir John, I am really enjoying this excellent description of the bloated bureaucracy.
But is anything being done about it? Or are you just a voice crying in the wilderness?
December 5, 2022
The latter.
Richard Tice did his usual excellent Sunday Sermon on Talk Radio yesterday on the topic of VAT on school fees by abolishing charitable status (Socialists Gove and Starmerâs agemda).
He made the point that people using private shools pay twice already and raising the fees by VAT would cost the state not raise money.
But is it three times over and would be four with VAT. Someone earning say £30k (or even on benefits) might be able to live and have two children at the state school. To send them even a cheaper private school with VAT on the fees they might need to earn more like £140k to have the same money left to live on. One pays about £6k in tax/NI/VAT the other about £80K in taxes. Leaving them both about about £23k net for council tax, mortgage/rent, child care, commuting costs, food/light/heat, insurance, repairs⊠the same applies to private healthcare which already has 12% insurance IPT tax on it.
The idea that private schools have some unfair tax break is total lunacy and a con trick from Kier. The idea this (or abolishing NonDom status) will raise any net tax is mad thinking too Kier.
December 5, 2022
Just reduce you work to one day a week, move to a decent state school catchment area and help your children with homework in your considerable extra time or get a tutor might be the best advice. Or go on benefits and barter or do cash in hand black market – many will see as the best option given the system that pertains. A certain doom loop for tax take.
December 5, 2022
I heard that topic being discussed by Tice, and the Labour chap who came to counter the sermon. His bottom line of his side of the argument seemed to be that if Starmer said state schools will benefit to the tune ÂŁ170 million pounds⊠thatâs will happen!
The labour chap did give the game away though. He let slip that when all schools are back under state control money wouldnât matter! Thought that might be the end game! He proved it to be.
December 5, 2022
The Labour chap was the only one he could get on. Seems very thick to me but at least he was brave enough to come on despite his obvious limitations in the thinking department.
December 6, 2022
Six days ago in the FT â The Labour party pledged to remove the VAT exemption on private school fees, which it estimates could raise ÂŁ1.7bn. 62% of the public are said to back it. Probably because they don’t realise all those wealthy, elbow-nudging parents will take all the best places at the top Comprehensives (mainly top of the league because of the wealthy area they are sited in) because they live closer to those schools.
December 5, 2022
There is a similar huge unfairness in tax paid by two people both working one living in half priced social housing and the other in market price housing. Same disposable income after tax and rent perhaps but one pay say ÂŁ6k in taxes the other perhaps ÂŁ14k. The extra tax they pays perhaps going to subsidise the rents of the others living up the road. Where are the fair competition regulators on this huge injustice?
December 5, 2022
Has Tice proposed abolishing the 20% VAT on energy charged to the commercial sector? Those small non-VAT registered business paying a punishing rate.
Nobody cares but they will all close and the unemployment costs will go through the roof.
December 5, 2022
Indeed most recover the VAT but for the few that cannot. Ditch net zero, get fracking, drilling and mining is the best route.
December 5, 2022
Why should those who can afford private education for their kids get a tax break and not those without kids or those who home school who also do not use state education? The point being that every tax payer pays towards state education, and everyone includes those can afford private education. Just giving tax breaks to those who choose to pay for private educations would be most unfair. Your choice. You can choose NOT to use private education if it annoys you so!
December 5, 2022
I think I
The latest blogs from JR are a more subtle way of passing the blame to civil service, quangos and public sector bodies. All of whom are controlled byâŠâŠ.Tories!
December 5, 2022
@Mike Stallard agreed the latter
December 5, 2022
He’s a loan voice and (I fear) wishing on a star. There are other models of healthcare in oher countries and we should look at them and learn. But first we need to reduce net migration from 504,000 (legal) and 40,000 (illegal) down to 50,000 and 0 respectively. No healthcare system in the world could cope with what we are dealing with at the moment.
December 5, 2022
Yes, all very nice and true but the way to improve things is to name the failures and seek their sacking. Since that doesn’t happen there will be no change.
Just keep talking about stuff we all know about, and get a nice warm feeling the right things are being said.
December 5, 2022
But not a lot is left actually in the public sector. We have privatised water companies, train companies, postal services and energy companies. Of course they don’t complain about being short of money, Sir John. Price-gouging allows them to pile up profits, some of the time used for investment purposes, but a lot of the time providing their shareholders with tasty dividend returns, and of course funding handsome management bonuses and golden handshakes. Whether they provide a decent service to their customers is secondary, and depends on how much blatant exploitation they can get past their supine ‘regulators’.
December 5, 2022
If there isn’t much left in the public sector why does it cost ÂŁ1 trillion a year?
December 5, 2022
.. & why does it need 5.75 million employees?
December 5, 2022
I was thinking of public services. 2021-2022 NHS budget ÂŁ190bn. So where is the rest going? Military? Benefit payments? Not sure anyone wants to privatise them.
December 5, 2022
Who competes with your water company, your train company, and power competition is the thinest of veneers. They are illusary private competitive organisations.
December 5, 2022
Yet still it is about 22% of the work force.
December 5, 2022
Monopoly and monopsony operations controlled by The State! As independent as the Bank of England đ
December 5, 2022
Hat man. It’s as though they’re false ‘private companies’ if you list to the union leaders of those services.
How many of those you mention would survive in the cut-and-thrust world of actual private enterprise if government subsidy was removed?
Our bus service got cancelled for a whole month in August, no buses at all, no help for their customers, no alternative offered. Just cut off; the drivers didn’t lose anything. Their pay was made back up. The bus company didn’t lose anything. The government topped them up. So they benefitted because they got to keep the all the costs to minimum during a slow use month when schools weren’t operating. The public who had to make alternatives, buy bikes, get lifts from families, give up their jobs, well who calculates the cost of that?
December 5, 2022
Indeed. Nor are they removed when they don’t perform. Public sector managements are not nearly accountable enough given the wide powers they do in fact exercise. This is particularly the case in the NHS.
The other extraordinary thing we see is public sector CEOs openly campaigning for particular strategies relating to ownership. We saw this with the C4 CEO, our highest paid civil servant, openly campaigning against the decision of her 100% owner to sell! In the private sector that would have resulted in the immediate boot.
December 5, 2022
Why should the public sector bother? They are onto a good thing, they can do whatever they want and they can do it with impunity. They may even get a gong and a generous income from the Lords, no matter how incompetent or obstructive. It strikes me that ‘who you know’ and ‘who you are’ is far more important than competency in the public sector.
December 5, 2022
Johnson just gave two of Carrieâs mates a job and I come for life 8. The lords when they are in their twenties and thirties!! His lords list will cost us the taxpayer ÂŁ562,000. Cost of living! Did he even give the taxpayer a thought!
Same for Sunak who gave away ÂŁ44 billion saying we must increase taxes, he even claimed he will serve with integrity knowing he was not going to implement the manifesto as he claimed. That appears to me to be lying.
December 5, 2022
I often wonder if there is a greater % of dishonest people in Parliament than among the average population. They range from sex pests to expense cheats, to backhanders for their mates (or wives mates), being ‘bought’, and the outright criminal. How many do we NOT hear of, and how many are concealed by their mates in Parliament who are up to the same tricks?
December 5, 2022
Being sensible, trying to improve efficiency and competence in the state sector is seen as being a trouble maker and rocking the comfortable boat.
December 5, 2022
Sometimes in the private sector too.
December 5, 2022
and whether you hit the diversity target. Need more female managers, but she’s not as well qualified or competent; hire her any way we need to tick that box.
December 5, 2022
When public sector chief executives fail, as they regularly do, instead of being dismissed out of hand, they are usually moved to a different public sector with promotion. Eventually those time servers are often given K’s or end up in the HoL! This in addition to pension pots that can only be dreamed of in the private sector.
Little wonder that the public sector fails on a regular basis.
Why not set out some of these failures to expose in detail in Parliament Sir John.
December 5, 2022
Why should Public Sector CEOs behave differently?
There are no sanctions; the “customers” generally can’t take their business elsewhere and are forced to pay up for appalling service; and the CEOs threats/bribery usually works with the cowardly Blu-Green-Socialist CON in Government.
If you want to change the Public Sector culture either impose some serious sanctions or – better still – get rid of the Public Sector CEOs and bring in some professional ones from the private sector.
I won’t hold my breath. I’ve been holding it for 12 years waiting for some Conservative policies and it’s proven to be a pointless exercise.
December 5, 2022
How about all those directors of services or police councils! All over ÂŁ150,000 who achieve nothing and cannot make a decision to save their lives! Cameron was going to have a bonfire of quangos, JR appears to forget, no one was going to be paid more than Cameron, JR appears to forget. What happened to all those changes promised by Cameron? Maud was their enforcer! What happenedâŠnothing. Still JR blames the leads not the Tory govt who is souls responsible after recognising change but failing to do anything after 12.5 years.
December 5, 2022
Donna,
Interesting is it not Starmer currently talking about constitutional change regarding devolution and Lords!!
Tories have done nothing in 12.5 years other than load the lords with Lib Dumbs and their mates!! Now Hunt on a mission to implement EU plan to regionalise England to divide and conquer our country to prevent any resistance to being aligned with EU!
Yet the socialist Tories remain load all to Snake and Hunt for partyâs sake!
December 5, 2022
John, I don’t know why the Tories don’t answer these accusations ‘the Tories have done nothing for twelve years’.
1) They aid for a pupil premium
2) Paid the extra costs to raise the school leaving age from 16 to 18
3) Increased the numbers in the University system
4) Increased the personal allowance on NI to ÂŁ12570 from less than half that. + the personal allowance on income tax doubled at the lower end (you only screwed the wealthy by clawing back child benefits based on one parent’s income and the personal allowance – quite socialist).
5) Created a safety net for all mortgage owners after Brown’s bust in 2008, keeping interest rates low and under 2% for nearly 14 years.
To counter some of that, the Tories tripled the student tuition loan for English students only from ÂŁ3500 to ÂŁ9500. And much inflated the interest at times of otherwise low interest to ensure the 9% graduate tax impacts for 30 years.
They screwed up the Brexit deal by being unprepared to put the same barriers to the EU that they were ready to put on the UK and screwing up N Ireland so VDL thinks Ireland is now as good as a united Country.
December 5, 2022
Make the non-financial rewards of public sector servants dependent on success. At present the gongs are handed to the panjandrums as a right. Knighthoods should be earned and a seat in the Lords should only go to those who make a major contribution to the UK’s international competitiveness.
A start has been made, a precedent has been set. The Common’s Speaker can no longer expect automatic ermine
My first nomination for a worthy lordship is Alan Bond of Reaction Engines.
JF
December 5, 2022
Where is Baroness Ann Widecombe one of the few who survived PPE Oxon. brain still intact.
December 5, 2022
Farage for getting Brexit.
UK would have left EU by now if anyone remotely conservative was in charge of govt. No one in their right mind would have accepted the rotten sell out agreement.
Last week waster MPs and speaker fauning over wife of president from Corrupt Ukraine while doing absolutely nothing about EU annexing N.Ireland and breaking our union!! What time was devoted to annexing N.Ireland? What time was set aside for EU taking control of our fishing waters? How about any time set aside for scrapping ECHR or ECJ having no place in British law?
Nothing to do with civil service, quangos or any other body Cameron said he would put on the bonfire. Not the fault of any public sector CEO who by now should be paid less than the PM, no. It is the socialist Tories who have consistently failed to deliver and repeatedly lied over key promises.
December 5, 2022
Nobody should go to The Lords without a majority vote of the People (yes maybe one or two every millennium). All the fake Lords should be removed. All the real Lords should be reinstated. That is the alternative to Starmerâs elected second chamber, which will require a third chamber to break the deadlock.
December 5, 2022
I’m not sure why anyone would expect anything other than a shrug of the shoulders ‘so what?’ attitude from the public sector.
I mean it’s not as if they have to be held accountable for the dire mismanagement, and I’m sure there’s an army of equally well paid union officials ready to turn the tables and turn them into the victims in the public eye.
The top echelons of public service seem to have been taken over by those hell bent on making sure the wheels don’t turn until the government they think we should have is in place.
Mismanagement of funds and staff seems to be the order of the day to paint a certain picture to the public, one of lack of resources.
I’m sure we’ve all witnessed appalling misuse of resources at a local level but the usual cry of lack of, comes in to play when questioned as to why an area is the way it is.
It is in part incompetence I’m sure, but I think it is mainly political and while no one has the will to do anything about it, then I’m sure things will carry on as they are.
December 5, 2022
M,
Not incompetence. The plethora of messes created and deliberately enacted by the Socilist Tories from LGBT army officers to Marxist Sex and Relationship Act to brainwash children of tender years that a man can be a woman even though scientifically and biologically without a man and a woman life would not exist! Trying to make the unnatural normal- brilliant article in con woman yesterday about the Great Reset which highlights bizarre changes to our way life accepted and implemented by Tories.
December 5, 2022
Private can do, Public can’t do.
Private recruit who can with experience, Public ask who do you know?
Private measure performance, Public expect more staff and more money.
Private set goals and KPIs, Public wring hands and moan.
December 5, 2022
Even the private sector is hugely diverted from productive activity by endless misguided red tape and government interference.
December 5, 2022
I see workers at the Met Office are threatening to go on strike. Can I suggest that if this happens the govt take the opportunity to close the met office and make them all redundant? There are plenty of free weather forecasts available around the world. And plenty of climate modellers – not that they have had much more success than economic modellers with their projections. We donât need our own met office, and we certainly shouldnât be caving into blackmail from its workers.
December 5, 2022
The Met office, yet another alarmist propaganda outfit like the BBC?
Doubts Remain About 40.3C âRecord temperatureâ at U.K. Airbase After Met Office Fails to Respond to Questions. I seems this was almost certainly a passing jet as it rose rapidly by 0.6 of a degree just for only few minutes and the gentle wind was in that direction. See the Daily Sceptic or the excellent Weekly Sceptic Podcast.
Still why let that get in the way of the climate alarmist devil CO2 gas agenda?
December 5, 2022
ABSOLUTELY!
December 5, 2022
That because we have become used to abysmal service from government departments! I for one did not clap the FAILED NHS.
I often begrudge them my money.
December 5, 2022
I didn’t clap NHS workers : after all, they were only doing the job they are paid to do.
December 7, 2022
i think you will find that most did 50% more than their job description and at present we are fighting in general practice at the insane insistence that we need more Drs. The Registered medics today don’t complete their jobs , they simply hand out referral and forms for others to finish. The more Drs , the more unfinished work. As an ANP i complete a full consultation , carry out my own physiological tests analyse them, review patients , prescribe , refer and treat the patient as a whole. Unfortunately with the insistence that more Drs are needed , more backlog of work will be created , more piece workers, more admin staff and where are you going to put these extra workers when practices and hospitals are overrun and closing down. I am at present trying to fight the ruination of another General Practice where supply doesn’t truly meet demand because private cant run a p .. up in a brewery. The powers that be are too thick to see beyond a title that was given out of grace and favour. It is what a person can do , not a given title for some outworn profession which thinks it has consultant status after a few years!
December 5, 2022
Most of the CEOs in the Public sector are second rate dropouts from the private sector just ticking along keeping their noses clean until retirement. They are overpaid and under incentivised and for them, the government at the time is an easy target to blame. In addition, we are awash with Quangos who work on ‘slow-time’ and Ministers use to duck their responsibility. Not all ministers I might add but certainly those who have come from the law as they are reactionary, not creative and most haven’t a clue how to run anything.
December 5, 2022
@ George Brooks – and who is it that hired them, jobs for the Boys
December 5, 2022
I think it’s down to where they come from.
Look at the comaparative backgrounds of Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Sir Simon Stevens and you’ll get it.
December 5, 2022
And yet public sector bosses (especially NHS chiefs) pick up huge salaries for essentially being glorified administrators. They do not have to generate income it is given to them
December 5, 2022
@Narrow Shoulders – and who is it that hired them, that has it in its gift to fire them, who is it that has the authority to change the systems the run – The Government
December 5, 2022
ÂŁ18bn project to link UK to huge wind and solar farm in Sahara delayed by a year.
The Xlinksâ executive chair, Sir Dave Lewis, a former chief executive of Tesco, warned that the recent political turmoil that has seen off three prime ministers in less than six months has stalled its progress.
Lewis told the Guardian: âWe spent a long time with the then business secretary [Kwasi Kwarteng] who said: âWe like it a lot but it needs to go through Treasury.â There was a review with Treasury, Cabinet Office and the business department, which was very positive. âThen we came back to them to start the detail and the political world exploded and, as a result, everything stopped. And everybody has changed, so itâs sort of like youâre starting again.
December 5, 2022
Sound like another waste of money anyway if you do the maths. Also will Russia or other just cut the cables if/when it suited them or will the panels get stolen or covered in sand?
December 5, 2022
Anyone, whether in the public or private sector, who thinks that making the UK dependent on a cable from Africa for our energy needs to be re-educated in the laws of thermodynamics, the history of Middle Eastern politics and the unreliability of offshore energy provision. Search on ‘oil shoku’ and ‘French nuclear policy’.
JF
Probably ‘educated’ rather than ‘re-educated’ for PPE graduates.
JF
December 5, 2022
It needs scrapped, it is a scam too far away , too much transmission power drop!
December 5, 2022
Sorry off message, but Sir John you once said you were speaking for England.
I see Labour, again, have hatched out ‘ Constitutional Vandalism’ the sequel, authored by the same person who inflicted disastrous changes on us 25 years ago, which shows they have learnt nothing from the mess they made last time, but intend to do more of it. More powers to Scotland , so embedding us English people as second class citizens and more attempts to balkanise England.
Will the Conservative party put up a whimper of protest about it? Unlikely
December 5, 2022
As if this is a new problem. People are appointed often for the wrong reasons, political thanks, diversity etc, even when previous performance is questionable. Add what looks like zero performance management combined with unsackability, MPs and Civil Servants who are addicted to spending as a solution and finally business people who wouldnât touch a public sector job with a barge pole because of the bureaucracy and you have got appalling service levels and tax increases to pay for them.
For me utter contempt for both the Sector and those supposedly in charge is the order of the day.
December 5, 2022
The public sector has the additional burden of net zero and diversity targets foisted upon it by virtue signalling polititions. Funding is diverted away from essential services. As we have seen in the last few weeks our children are being sacrificed on the altar of wokeness. I don’t believe the majority of voters asked for any of this so why are you delivering this costly nonsense? It’s time to get realistic on what taxpayers can afford and make sensible choices.
December 5, 2022
The ‘received wisdom’ in the public sector and amplified by the media propagandists like the BBC is that all their problems are due to lack of money. Just shovel loads more taxpayers’ money down their blackholes. Unfortunately for us, we have no real voice in Parliament speaking against this profligacy with taxpayers’ money just a bunch of virtue signalling spendthrifts happy to collect their pay, expenses and be part of the best pension scheme in the land. It has to change.
December 5, 2022
Itâs calledâŠ.
Gravytrainitis!
The official treatment is promotionâŠ
but in every case that exacerbates the condition!
December 5, 2022
The Private sector knows that looking after the Customers increase earnings for their Share holder.
The Public Sector the Management, the Customer and the Shareholder are basically the same entity â via the Government.
Sir John no matter how you dress it up the Government is the Public Sector CEO, it is itâs Management, they are put their by the Shareholder and Customer to ensure effective delivery of the Services being paid for, by the taxpayer. This is backed up by a Parliament that is there to scrutinies the Management of our services.
So the top line failure of management is those that attend the House of Commons, for not holding Government to proper account. The failure is the Political Class, not the lower ranking heads, that they along with Government hire and fire..
December 5, 2022
Disappointment is when the english football team do not play as well as expected. We know by virtue of the competitive nature of what they do, that they will work very hard to come out on top. In the nature of the public sector they might as well be playing netball, but whatever it is the cost of doing it never ceases to accelerate. For those who remember, they all suffer Longbridge Syndrome. They are there as of right, expect to be paid and cosseted for it while producing unmarketable crap.
My answer to it is a night of the long knives clear out including the ministries that nominally preside over them. Follow this with the introduction of a mere glaze of management who fully understand the principles of Kaizen and have experience in its application. It is a proven fact that an english workforce can compete with the World if involved in and led by a professional management.
Management in the public sector is on a ventilator, switch it off.
December 6, 2022
Would have been better moderated in time order or is this the new form of censorship.
December 5, 2022
Missed the âcost of governmentâ blog yesterday. Praise be! Starmer is going to get rid of the House of Lords. Itâs a start.
December 5, 2022
But he won’t, Mike, he’ll rule with the LibDems, the SNP, and the greens and back off unless it’s in all their manifestos, collectives just don’t deliver any program. Plus it will be replaced with an elected chamber, what will he do with those pesky Bishops, and hereditary peers, will they have to join up as a party to get themselves re-elected in PR?
December 5, 2022
If you believe that fairy tale Mike, I have a good beach for sale in Devon
December 6, 2022
If only it were true – he’d get my vote.
December 5, 2022
Funnily enough, the attitude you mentioned only really started to appear in public sector leaders sometime after 2010. Before that, from the very late 1990s onwards, they expressed pride in their organizations. Interestingly, the periods of pride coincide with a Labour government and the periods of disillusion with a Tory government. Coincidence? I think not.
December 5, 2022
A great example of why Thatcher was so right to take many concerns out of public ownership.
Clearly CEOs of state owned endevours do not have the incentive to think for themselves, innovate nor even accept responsibility for their failures – not surprising when they get their 6 figure salaries no matter what, and can always use the sloping shoulder approach to avoid censure.
Time the CEOs who are supposed to be working for our benefit did their jobs properly and gave us back some value, rather than pushing woke ideology or some other politically correct fad on us — Time Parliament created a system to keep them in line!
December 5, 2022
Sir John
Time and time again in your Diary and in Parliament you ask the right question.
The failure, which I suspect is in part to do with the niceties and politeness of parliament, when a Minister is unable to provide a full costing for how UK taxpayers money is spent â surely it is right not to just request but to âdemandâ a full transparent answer. Any fob of by a Minister should also require their resignation.
The PM and the Chancellor canât keep demanding more and more from the taxpayer if they and their Government cant account for every penny spent. They need reminding the are the CEOâs, the Management of this Country â the UK. They are responsible collectively, singularly and as such accountable for the use of our money.
December 5, 2022
@Ian B – you do wonder if we withheld our due taxes, would Government be so complacent and lax to the same extent when it came to collection?
December 5, 2022
Too right Sir, keep at them and push for an in depth investigation into the Civil Service as they are now telling elected Ministers what they will do instead of running their departments successfully.
December 5, 2022
cepr.org 17/01/2020 âThe impact of CEOs in the public sector: Evidence from the English NHSâ.
December 5, 2022
Very good and true comments from JR.
The public sector displays its failure like a badge of honour.
The solution is to sack the poor performing public sector bosses.
December 5, 2022
Joining the Civil Service used to be a highly selective process – only the “best” were once successful ; the system was scrapped some few years ago and the result in efficiency and motivation now shows . Becoming a Politician has no longer the attraction it once had and the result shows in the way the country the led . Putting the two of these conditions together results in how Sir John describes in the post today . The UK is not alone .
December 5, 2022
Hello Sir John,
The simple answer to CEOs in the public sector is they are not sacked for failure. They are not held accountable by Ministers when they don’t deliver. From top to bottom, our public sector is weak, sloppy & focused on doing the least possible. Why can’t Civil Servants working from home be told either they are at their desks from the 1st of next month or they are redundant? Nothing illustrates the weakness of Government Ministers better then the WFH nonsense.
December 5, 2022
Many issues are making it difficult for public sector managers to be effective.
Firstly they are responsible for delivering services which are not wholly within their control. Often responsibility for critical aspects of the service they are managing rests in other areas of government.
In theory the buck stops with the Prime Minister. But no one person can ever know the operational details of everything going on. The government machine is too big and covers too many areas; the result is inter-departmental politics and ministerial interference.
So when things go wrong, it is easy to blame it on someone else. Often this is correct and is one of the reasons it is difficult to sack underperforming managers.
They are also constrained by the one size fits all civil service rulebook for a vast range of issues including employment, procurement, project approvals, etc.
Their pay is constrained, so you will never attract top talent. You need a different skill set to deal with the above issues, so very often these people are unsuitable.
December 5, 2022
Too true
December 5, 2022
Says it all â the difference
Just announced
The chief executive of Vodafone will step down later this month following a slump in the company’s share price and warnings over job cuts. Nick Read will leave at the end of the month after the companies poor performance.
Like the Government he was the man at the helm the CEO, he was responsible to ensure best performance within each department and sector of the company. Unlike the Government the taxpayers CEO he has taken responsibility and owned management mistakes.
December 5, 2022
@Ian B – And in the comments section to above – With his obvious failure I’m sure a very well paid advisory position in government awaits, or a juicy quango. Such incompetence seldom goes unrewarded.
December 5, 2022
You can’t plat sawdust. Not many can manage the increase in people who can’t pay. The comparison is not equitable.
December 5, 2022
CEOs are answerable to their Board of Directors. In the public sector, that Board of Directors is comprised of politicians.
If public sector CEOs aren’t being asked the questions that John Redwood thinks that they should be, then that is down to the members of their Board of Directors – the politicans.
What John Redwood is highlighting is how bad politicians are at doing the job they were put there to do.
December 5, 2022
The civil service in the widest sense is failing the country but as it is responsible for its own
recruitment and internal promotion, the question has to be asked as to whether the right people are making it to the top positions and if the answer is “no”, then why? The most likely cause is nepotism, the basis of which is pretty obvious but for most people that is not obvious enough.
December 5, 2022
And then i read that Liz Truss is to stand for election again – but what an airhead? – it seems there is no end.
December 5, 2022
Who actually selects and approves these Public Sector CEOs? How do they decide?
Would in not be beneficial for this country to employ an experienced industrialist with a decade of success managing a large corporate and provide him/her with free reign to employ all those he/she considers amply qualified for the job at hand? And let them all do their jobs.
We only have to look back at the success of the vaccine distribution to see that such a management team works so very well, without any interference from the politicians and/or departmental Mandarins.
That should have set the precedent for the future but no, Downing Street, was again persuaded to revert to the sclerotic ways of the civil service old school. Just look at the state of our country now under the virtual control of the unelected and unaccountable. Our Nation’s future looks decidedly grim.
December 5, 2022
âTop Public sector management could do betterâ
No civil servant, quango or state employee ever gets sacked for laziness, negligence, incompetence, malfeasance, corruption, misbehaviour, insubordination or treachery, so why should they try to do better?
And whose fault is that?
December 5, 2022
Time to get back to your campaign for a voice for England.
Starmer considering Brown’s take on the constitution is dangerous,
Never mind this pandering to the SNP, it’s the Balkanisation of England that will not find any support. England has been a single country since 927AD, that’s 1,095 years. We are not going to let the likes of Brown and Starmer divide us just five years before our country celebrates 1,100 years of continous self government.
It’s not as if the SNP would accept further tinkering with devolution as a solution. They will take what is on offer, as long as it is paid for by English taxpayers, and still press for Independence.
All England needs is our MPs at Westminster to sit as the English Parliament, maybe with English regional select committees able to propose legislation.
December 5, 2022
Off topic, apparently Keir Starmer has finally realised the EU Single Market is of only marginal economic value:
https://order-order.com/2022/12/05/starmer-rejoining-single-market-wont-boost-economic-growth/
He could have found that out long ago if he’d followed informative comments on this blog, such as:
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2019/03/07/euro-area-growth-falls-away/#comment-1001064
“… the number for Ireland under their worst scenario being 8.16%, while that for GB is only 2.76% …”
âIn the scenario where the U.K. and the EU fail to strike a trade deal and fall back on World Trade Organization rules, the study predicts the U.K. economy would lose 1.7 percent of economic output over the long-termâ
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/23/some-questions-for-the-bbc/#comment-1231050
“[Michel Barnier’s] report is here:
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/c505dbb4-64f1-40a6-8062-ebdea6240bd4
â20 years of the European single marketâ
On page 13:
âEU27 GDP in 2008 was 2.13% or âŹ233 billion higher than it would have been if the Single Market had not been launched in 1992.â
But then in the table on the front page of this 2014 study from the Bertelsmann Foundation:
https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/fileadmin/files/BSt/Publikationen/GrauePublikationen/Policy-Brief-Binnenmarkt-en_NW_02_2014.pdf
the gross benefit for the UK was estimated to be about half of the EU average.
And that is before the high costs of the Single Market are taken into account.”
None of those comparatively low estimates of the economic impact of the EU Single Market were included in the OBR’s selection of thirteen studies which averaged out at that much-quoted loss of 4.0% of GDP:
https://obr.uk/box/the-effect-on-productivity-of-leaving-the-eu/
Buut a ridiculous estimate from the World Bank that it would cost us 10% of GDP was included.
December 5, 2022
[volcano threat to the environment more clear than the nonsense of 1.5 C in 50 years time.]
Indonesia’s Mount Semeru volcano has erupted, sending ash billowing into the sky and sparking evacuations on the country’s main island, Java. Authorities raised the volcano’s warning status to the highest level, meaning its activity had escalated. No injuries have been reported but nearly 2,000 people were evacuated from the area around the volcano. People have been urged to keep at least 8 km (5 miles) away, as “hot avalanches” of lava poured from Semeru.
The increased threat level from three to four also means the danger threatens people’s homes, a spokesman for Indonesia’s Center for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation (PVMBG) told a national broadcaster.
The organisation said a bridge being rebuilt after a previous eruption had been badly damaged.
Volcanic ash mixed with monsoon rain was falling on nearby villages and 1,969 people, including children and seniors, had been evacuated, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) said. At least six villages had been affected, it added. Videos of the event showed the sky turning black as a massive plume of ash blocked the sunlight.
Japan issued a tsunami warning for its southernmost islands after the eruption, but meteorologists said no tidal changes had been observed.
Mount Semeru, in East Java province, began erupting at about 02:46 local time (19:46 GMT), authorities said.
Indonesia sits on the Pacific “Ring of Fire” where tectonic plates collide, causing frequent volcanic activity as well as earthquakes.
December 5, 2022
I note on todays news that Starmer has directly taken Corbins job of destroying Great Britain.
The union communists will love that announcement !
December 5, 2022
I recommend that you watch âdied suddenlyâ which reveals the governmentâs complicity in the covid scam, locking down the country, destroying the economy, shipping In millions of 3rd world illegals
As Savidge Jabbit said âso whatâ
The rats are leaving the sinking ship and with a bit of luck you will loose your seat but no doubt you will be well rewarded, probably a seat in the HoL?