TUC National Demonstration Against Cuts

Coalition, re this and 'outreach workers'

A patient with HIV can survive at least 15 years so that's £450,000.

So to be cost effective an Outreach worker would need to prevent at least one infection a year and cost less than £450,000.

Or if they cost, say £30,000, then if they prevented one infection in 15 years they would still be cost effective.

I don't have any actual figures on this though.

That's just it though isn't it? No figures and nothing but an unshakeable belief that patronising do gooders actually do anything useful.

Every outreach worker/art therapist/story teller/reiki healer considers thier services to be essential. That's the problem, not the solution.

I hold my hands up.

You lot have opened my eyes and yes, it makes absolute sense to keep an outreach worker and yes, the pen pushers should go.

Aye, Outreach workers are a particularly poor choice for an example of jobs that we would be better off without.

Jogon I have to say that if you want to pillory non-jobs you'll have a stronger case if you start with council-employed press officers, not HIV prevention workers.

Personally I'd definitely rather pay someone £30K a year to help prevent the spread of HIV than to spam me with self-satisfied 'newspapers' full of spin about the latest pork-barrel local politics.

Gay is an identity, sex is a behaviour - but that's not really relevant to the point of if it is cost effective or not.

Manatee - which, is why, if I personally was allowed to run free with my morals - I would want as much social freedom as possible, but with a net to catch the vulnerable.

They're taking away the net because they want to, and leaving the most vulnerable people screwed.

For me that goes past what people would like as an ideal and into denying people their human rights because it's difficult for them to fight for them themselves.

This case could easily by considered a breach of the UN declaration of human rights, and I hope there are politicians out there with enough brains and common sense to realise that.

Jogon, in some communities there is a mantra "There is no such thing as a gay "

If you are a man in this community it's unlikely that you think you are gay. Partly because of the belief that being gay is wrong, partly because you belong to that community and therefore can't be gay because "there's no such thing as a gay..." and partly because if you did admit to being gay the consequences could be quite dangerous for you. Consequently the messages the rest of us get about safe sex simply don't penetrate. If you think "I'm not gay" then what you are doing isn't gay sex, it's something compartmentalised and internaly justified in other ways. Getting the safe sex message out to people who don't consider what they are doing is either gay or, even, sex, is very very difficult.

Quite frankly your comments are at best naieve and at worst quite offensive.

LaWeasel "And this certainly, amongst other cuts which have borderline motivations is all about changing our society to fit a conservative model, with individual control. Without any thought for the consequences for ordinary people."

I think you're right in the sense that the Tories are more likely to believe in a greater role for individual choice and responsibility, while Labour believe in more uniform, state-provided approach. Which one you think is correct comes down to your basic assumptions about human nature.

I guess the problem is that both approaches have their own pitfalls. If you believe in individual choice/responsibility, then the minority who really can't/won't sort themselves out may suffer. On the other hand, if you believe in uniform state provision, you risk entrenching a basic culture of dependency and actually reducing people's ability to sort themselves out. Again, which one you think is the greater evil depends on your basic assumptions.

Jogon - That's may be, but that doesn't mean they are not cost effective. In general we spend far too little on prevention in both health and social care. It is a lot cheaper to stop someone getting sick than to make them well. It's cheaper to stop someone offending than to lock them up for two years (never mind the poicing and court costs).

We'll need Outreach Workers telling people how to wipe their own arses next.

Ye gads, if people don't know by now to stick a bag on it if you don't want it to rot and fall off then there really is no hope for them.

Moondog - Hmmm. HIV treatment costs the NHS up to £30k a year per person www.aidsmap.com/Cost-of-treatment-and-care-becoming-sensitive-issue-for-UK-as-NHS-faces-spending-slow-down/page/1423541/

A patient with HIV can survive at least 15 years so that's £450,000.

So to be cost effective an Outreach worker would need to prevent at least one infection a year and cost less than £450,000.

Or if they cost, say £30,000, then if they prevented one infection in 15 years they would still be cost effective.

I don't have any actual figures on this though.

"Men who have sex with men Outreach Workers" are the ones who, often at no small personal risk, work within these communities to bring the safe sex message. These are the people who, at a small cost to the taxpayer, save the NHS millions in both treatment costs and saved lives. Hardly a non-job

How so Slug??
Where is the evidence that the existence of such a job is of nay worth?

I would believe you Manatee, I would believe it was all about face and doing things the easy way if it weren't for things like this:

the proposed removal of disabled children's right to education, this roughly explains how it's supposed to work

Now, I can believe front line workers get cut because the decisions about who to cut are largely bumped down to local government and local government has some pretty odd priorities - but what they're doing here is pretty complicated legally.

DC had a disabled child himself, I do believe that he honestly thinks this is the best way for parents of disabled children, but if you're a poor, or not well educated or supported parent of a disabled child, and without your respite which is also tipped to go, you're actually just going to be totally fucked, and really struggle to find a way to educate your child if the local state schools refuse to accomodate them (which atm, they are legally oblidged to try and do even if it costs them money) He's taping into the idea that parents of disabled children know best and can provide best for their kids, given a bit of money and the opportunity. Which I believe he genuinely agrees with.

And it is true, at some levels. But certianly at the early stages, parents don't know what to do, normally they aren't sure what is wrong or why or how to help their child, and they need the structured government funds and help and all of those support staff and outreach workers whose jobs look useless and they won't be there to guide them through that first bit.

It's utterly tragic.

And this certainly, amongst other cuts which have borderline motivations is all about changing our society to fit a conservative model, with individual control. Without any thought for the consequences for ordinary people.

This is what's so tricky about the debate. It gets reduced to 'So you want to cut the public sector? You really want fewer nurses, police officers and teachers? You heartless bastard!'. But I don't know a single person who's in favour of reducing the deficit and seriously believes this should be achieved by firing nurses or coppers.

In reality frontline jobs are far fewer, in proportion, than many kinds of administrator. But while it's easy to say 'Well then let's get rid of the administrators', to do so you need to get rid of a lot of the procedures, regulations, rules and paperwork they're employed to comply with, which i in turn means scrapping the laws that require them. And that in turn is bound to be interpreted as 'So you don't care about hygiene in hospitals/proper documentation for social services/whatever? You heartless bastard!' Then add to that the fact that bureaucracies tend to protect their own interests over the purpose they're supposed to serve, and you have a pretty intractable situation.

I find it frustrating that it seems politically easier to cut (for example) DLA than desk jockeys. But faced with the choice between having to get repeal bills or amendments through Parliament on umpteen different laws, PLUS paying someone to to through the civil service with a fine-toothed comb looking for possible redundancies in middle management (that the people in question will fight tooth and nail) PLUS being under pressure to show results quickly I can see how it ends up that way. It's shit. It makes me angry. But that's the reality, far more than some supposedly deliberate attempt by the Tory party to make the lives of already struggling people still more difficult.

Manatee... interesting that.
DD has lost her portage from the end of this academic year, despite it being hugely beneficial for her to have it up til school. That's not going to happen.

Reason for this is that within County there used to be five Portage Co ordinators, responsible for training and supervision of the Portage Volunteers (yes that's right, unpaid). Now there are only four, the volunteers are inadequately supervised so they've had to cut clients.

Portage Co ordinators are pretty essential to the provision of the frontline service, yet the step above there has not been cut.... for some reason it's not the done thing to have co ordinators directly answerable to County.... why not? There's a middle layer involved which isn't strictly necessary.

You know my stance. I believe cuts should be made, but they should be a damned sight more strategic and as I've said before slow so that the private sector can absorb redundancies as the economy recovers.

There IS dead wood in the public sector, but as the cuts are so generalised front line services will suffer....

It is the threat to frontline services and to those in society that cannot help themselves that I have an issue with. Not cuts in general.

I just did a quick scan of local government jobs in the Guardian. At a rough reckoning, for every advert for a frontline worker (social worker, teacher, police officer etc) there are five or so for bureaucrats, restructuring managers and other desk jockeys of various kinds.

But the tricky thing, as BoJo pointed out in the Torygraph a while back , is that it's not straightforward to reduce bureaucracy. Lots of it is created by bad legislation imposing new statutory obligations/rights/etc which causes public sector function creep (is it more important to have social workers or eco-awareness officers?). Then once a job is there it's hard to get rid of it without consultations, risk of employment tribunals etc etc. This is part of the reason people are losing libraries and SALT services while huge ecosystems of public sector middle managers continue unabated.

Let me tell yo a little, true story Jogon

A person I know well worked in a Children's hospital. He would, once a month or so, have a child with multiple, complex, unexplained illnesses. After many, mnay tests the child would turn out to be HIV positive. So how does a child become HIV positive? From the mother obviously. The mother wiould be called in and tested and lo and behold the mother would, inevitable be HIV positive as well. She would have no idea how this happened. Most commonly these would be women from a cultural group that puts a high value on women's purity and many of them would have been married and gotten pregnant overseas. Their husbands, however, were British. The husbands would then be tested. They would turn out to be HIV positive as well. How did the husbands become HIV positive? They would be having sex with men but refusing to admit to it as homosexuality is (fatally in some cases) frowned upon in their communities.

"Men who have sex with men Outreach Workers" are the ones who, often at no small personal risk, work within these communities to bring the safe sex message. These are the people who, at a small cost to the taxpayer, save the NHS millions in both treatment costs and saved lives. Hardly a non-job

Non jobs are those advertised on Wednesday in the Guardian that I always thoroughly enjoy laughing at reading.

Like the ones advertising for a " Men who have sex with men Outreach Worker".

In fact, any, " Outreach Worker ".

Let's define non-jobs.

Funny how my daughter can't even GET SALT despite being almost completely non verbal.... oh but don't worry it's not IMPORTANT is it?

I do think there is too much documentation. Perhaps the reason for that is the increased litigation? If that could be solved then perhaps it could be eased.

"In my area SALT has pretty much disappeared with no real discernible difference".

Discernable difference to who, londonone? Did you or your family use their services? Where do you go know?

They may well not have disappeared, anyway; merging with social services is very in vogue these days.

I don't work in the public sector, I'm an end user, so I don't really have any insight into the inner workings of the NHS or the police.

However, whilst it's not universally agreed, it's generally accepted I believe that the NHS satisfaction rate has gone through the roof. As a user, I can certainly say my experience last year was incredible and a far cry from when I had to go through a similar process in the early 90's. I have a breast care 'nurse' who doesn't wear a uniform, she doesn't do the rounds of a ward, she has an office. She is the single most important person I have access to whilst going through this.

Same with the police. Statistics seem to suggest that crimes rates have fallen significantly. Again, it's no doubt open to dispute, but certainly we seem to feel safer.

I worked in the private sector, in a large multinational organisation, tens of thousands of employees, the majority of who didn't actively deal with the product we sold, but were the back up, the structure that let those on the frontline get on with their jobs.

I'm not suggesting that there isn't a case for slimming down or that things are perfect, but I'm not sure it's as simple as saying we need nurses who nurse.

If we require cuts to be made as all parties proposed then hopefully some of the non jobs will go. However it might have to be much tougher cuts for that to happen as it will be human nature to protect your mate at the council on £50k who has a non job even if it means cutting 2 people at the bottom instead. it's only when your cuts get to a very tough level that you might start to be rid of the non jobs. It will be interesting to see if this Government really does get rid of many quangos without simply setting up more.

We need more bigger picture, more responsibility and much less box ticking. The Protection of Freedoms Bill which will abolish some vetting is a very good step along the way but is about 1% or less of what needs to be done.

Particularly when recent figures suggest a third of police are not involved in 'frontline' policing.

Well not quite.

Mre teaching teachers and nursing nurses.

Less time spent on pointless administration which is in itself a waste of, say, a clinicians time. It's madness to pay someone a good wack to fill out forms.

That would mean we wouldn't need the amount of people we are currently emplying in many cases as they would be free to get on with the job.

The books of David Copperfield and Inspector Gadget', two policemen are fascinating insights into the world of bureacracy gorn mad and will resonate deeply with any public sector worker.