Public Sector Cuts

[firsttimemum77]

More of a wwyd...

Public sector employees are currently being 'consulted' about where cuts could be made to maximise savings and minimising job losses.

What do you think / what would you do to make savings?

One of the suggestions I put forward is for Councillors not to be paid so much. In most LA's the members allowance bill alone is over a million pounds and most of these members have a fulltime job so earn a fulltime wage and then get members allowances say a flat rate of £10,000 then a special responsibility allowance I.e leader £31,000, deputy leader £21,000 a cabinet member £12,000 etc and the claim travel etc ontop! Surely being a councillor is a vocation not a job and these people choose to stand to be elected to serve their community , because they are supposed to care...?

Anyway where would you make cuts? I will be using the good responses to put forward at the LA I work for.

'Appraisals identify and give evidence of competent / incompetent employees-it seems daft to complain about a process which gets rid of 'dead wood'.'

Wah, that's ajoke right? Do you really think it ispossible to get rid of useless employess with appraisals? Hahahahahaha.
Short of fiddling with kidsor embezzling $$$$ they are there for as long as thry want to be andallthe appraisals in the world make eff all difference.

i remember reading that in past 2 years, thenumber of useless teachers who have had the chop is about twelve. 'Twelve^ out of the thousands of useless ones out there (and not singling out teachers-plenty in other professions too.)

Work in the NHS and agree with glitterkitty about appraisals - they are a week long performance for every staff member (but I dont think we've done them since 2007 :o) and also with whoever said about restructuring and new ideas. The amount of time and money wasted on the "new big thing" which is then dropped as soon as the next urgent priority comes along as shameful. I see this on a small level in my department and at an organisational level (in department's defence, the new "urgent" priorities usually come from above).

STOP RESTRUCTURING. PICK ONE. IT MAY NOT BE THE BEST BUT ITS BETTER THAN ENDLESS RESTRUCTURING. PICK ONE AND MAKE THAT WORK FOR AT LEAST A DECADE. only then can you decide if it "worked" or not, nothing else is getting a chance.

Agree that appraisals in theory are there to root out the dead wood but they have been made so ridiculously complicated (we have training courses to be an appraiser AND an appraisee ), lengthy and soul destroying that no one (and I bet that includes the Chief Executive) does them right. So they are pointless.

And actually appraisals aren't really involved in getting rid of dead wood, there should be no surprises - it's the disciplinary system that should do that.

I'm still sniggering at "The Golden Thread" - we had one of those too except that it was more Yellow Wool in our case.

I don't think I've ever seen an appraisal record being used in a disciplinary case tbh.

Coming back to wahwah's points. It's true that LAs have made savings year on year and have done more with less. But that doesn't make a blind bit of difference to central govt.

The efficiencies that people are proposing on this thread seem to relate mostly to pointless and ineffective central govt targets set for local govt, not front line services. Those targets and edicts from central govt are the things that create the bureaucracy. They spawn the requirements for appraisals, benchmarking, glossy Corporate Plans and pointless magazines. Local people should hold local govt to account - not some Whitehall mandarin.

Ah wahwah. If only. A lot of time it's dead wood who are doing the appraising, ime, or at least ordering that it be done. I have never had an appraisal that wasn't a tick box exercise done in haste on orders from a manager's manager's manager because it's a performance indicator on which public bodies are judged. I really don't think appraisals give a good indication of whether someone is any good at their job, generally speaking. Ime anything that is a performance indicator, particularly if funding depends on its completion, eventually comes to be enacted in this way, with very little genuine concern. It is one of the terrible ironies of life that policies put in place to ensure good-enough practice often end up being complied with on painting by numbers basis with no real sense of whether and why they are important.

Auto, I agree with every eloquent word you have written!

Crap teachers don't get 'fired', they go through competency proceedures and enforced resignation. (Complex proceedure.) I know more than 12 teachers who have been forced out in the few years I have been involved with the sector...so there is definitely more to that figure! But it does make for a shocking headline.

Oh well ,that is gratifying to hear!

The PS is fine; it wasn't the bloody PS that got us into this hole in the first place.

Incompetent teachers? - don't forget to include the Heads.

Incompetence, dishonesty, the profession to be in for security of tenure.

Cost to the tax-payer? Two consultant Heads running alongside the indiginous Head giving guidance and making sure she knows what she's doing!!

I'm sure this is not the only school in the country to whom this applies.

"I actually think we should get rid of councillors and let the directors and managers who are paid considerable amounts get on with the job, and be accountable to an independent body."

Hear hear

When I think of the waste I know councillors cause, if you multiply that across the country it must be huge.

Leader of the council in Nottingham not getting on with the hired Chief Execs and having to give huge payouts to get rid and try someone new. Link

Councillors voting against planning recommendations which then go to appeal and costs are awarded against the council.

Councillors refusing to entertain certain changes until after an election, no matter how much they're needed

There's got to be a better way.

I think there should be a limit on the number of jollies conferences that heads or deputy heads attend.

I also think that the amount that is spent on printing in schools in crazy. Why does everything need to be printed in colour? Why does every kid need a paper copy of the newsletter. Letters should be emailed home wherever possible.

Bringing in small bonuses for good performance and getting rid of performance related annual pay increases (good suggestion Igglybuff) could save a fortune over the longer term. Some large private sector companies brought this in some years ago now.

Councils, NHS etc spend a fortune translating documents into other languages. Why can't people pay themselves for something to be translated? If they've chosen to live in Britain is it so unreasonable to expect them to learn a bit of English? I doubt other countries are so accommodating.

Yes i agree DH and I were commenting on a hospital sign that was translated into 6 different languages - none of them Welsh or Gaelic, the other 2 indiginous languages.
i totally agree Topcat.