Examples of waste in public sector?

[Hammy02]

I started a 3 month temp contract and they put me on a 2 day induction course. I didn't need to know the minutae of the organisation for a 3 month contract.
Had to fill out a form to get a book of stamps.
Had to fill out a form to get space in Outlook increased. No-one was EVER turned down for this so what was the point in the form?!

blimey i could add a few more examples to that list that would make yer hair curl

I could give you loads. Dh is police.

IPSA

Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority

or

I Pay Sod All

Every single thing it does makes my life more difficult, every form, every need for hard copies, every ridiculous regulation.

ah. but that's because the public DEMAND to know what their money is being spent on by profligate parliamentarians.

tis your own fault, dammit.

you want to spend a day in the military.

book of stamps? ha ha ha.

A few bad eggs abusing the system has led to this nightmare though. Forms for absolutely everything, hard copies for everything, if a Member or their staff submits a receipt that is wrong they are named and shamed even if it's for like £2 or accidental and they withdraw the claim - worse still even when IPSA are wrong on appeal. The admin costs are probably higher than expenses now. It takes weeks for new staff to get paid. Oh god it's terrible.

"Had to fill out a form to get space in Outlook increased. No-one was EVER turned down for this so what was the point in the form?!"

Seems quite reasonalbe to me. You IT person will not know you from adam and may not be able to respond to your request straight away. If a request is written down then he/she is less likely to forget.

Also form filling makes people try and solve their own IT problems before calling IT support.

I think a lot of building projects waste money. Ie. hospital ward refurbished and then closed within months. Or where I work, an extention is built then then size of the school is reduced so there are spare classrooms.

Paying temporary staff more than a permanent member of staff would earn.

Stationary wastage.

Double the amount of money paid for things like light bubls.

Overpaid managers.

Oh my word, I can think of so many!!!!

I worked for a Quango which had loads of money. At least once a year (been know to happen twice a year) our entire directorate (about 80 people) would be sent on an Awayday to bond as a directorate.

The cost would include:

• travel for 80 people to some random destination normally in the midlands,
• two days conference facilities,
• 80 hotel rooms for one night,
• dinner and WINE for all delegates on the overnight stay.

I cam to this quango from the police and my eyes were on stalks at my first meeting. Platters of exotic fruit and patisserie cakes being passed around in 90 minute meetings.

There is more, will think!

So - there's procedures for things you don't need - and then massive waste caused by lack of system where it is needed.

For instance - if an elderly lady is admitted to hospital, taking her medicines and prescription with her, wouldn't you think there'd be some sort of system to stop it from getting lost? And that having been lost, there would be a system for getting the details of the prescription from the GP?
No, not on a Saturday, 24 hours without blood pressure meds, just a coincidence she then has a stroke so causing vastly more expense to NHS?
This leads to the next huge waste - lady in hospital 'bed blocking' for over a month because of insufficient rehab/assessment places to get her home.
And the next - having waited for such a place, she is about to be transferred when : 'oh, we don't take diabetics' - wouldn't you think there'd be a system to check suitability of patients before putting them on a waiting list for a particular facility?

Fabulous care by all the nursing staff, but what a shambles.

Where I work it is a running joke that if you are efficient, good at your job and essential to the organisation, then you are on a temporary contract. You will be put on a series of rolling short term contracts that are never renewed until the last possible moment.

The upshot of which is, that anyone with any self respect gets to the end of one of the contracts and leaves. No need for a notice period when all you have to do is wait until the contract expires. This leaves the organisation suddenly without a vital member of staff. They then have to frantically grab the first person they can recruit, on a temp contract naturally, who is either so useless they end up costing the place large amounts of money or is good, and consequently leaves the minute they realise they will probably never get a permanant contract. And so the cycle starts again. The idea that a permanant contract would be a way of stopping the waste seems to go over their heads completely

Contrary to my experience working for a public body. Yes it's beauracratic but it has to be if you're spending public money

We are, and always have been, run on a shoe string. Our pcs are 10 years old, you'd have to be v v v important to get a laptop. No company mobiles, catering for meetings just not the done thing, if it's over lunchtime bring your sandwiches. Constant pressure to reduce costs and justify expenditure. It's always been like this. I do wonder if it's just us and everyone else is living the high life or if it's all just a big rumour put out there by the conservatives so they can get their mates in to do the job and pocket the money

£7000 on a business class fully-rebookable ticket for a flight to Fiji to arrange a funeral (soldier killed).

Could have bought and cancelled 10 non-refundable economy class tickets and still spent less money!

DH - contractor for govt dept - has to hire a car to drive 1 hour to a meeting in another office because it's in their environmental policy that people can't use their own cars if the drive is more than 50 miles return. Hire car is delivered to our door from a city which is also a 50 mile round trip away, the day before. He is also not allowed to use said hire car to drop DS off at school on the way, so has to use own car for this, then return home and get the hire car to continue to meeting.
Ludicrous. And this is only one example of about a hundred.

Sadly a lot of these procedures and training requirements have sprung up over the years where I work because there have been a trail of dickheads who think that their job gives them the right to live out their leisure and personal lives at work, surfing for porn, nicking stamps, giving contracts to their mates, chatting to relatives on company time on company phones - and then blaming 'lack of training' and 'absence of supervision' at Employment Tribunals when they get caught out. And often that has been true...

Private sector:

• Over lengthy meetings? Yup.
• Refreshments for each? Yup.
• Paperwork heavy? Yup.
• Ridiculously expensive awaydays? Yup.
• Ditto staff teambuilding? Yup.
• Temp contractors paid more? Yup.

This happens across the board to be honest, the Public Sector is no better or worse...it just has to be more accountable hence more beaurocratic.

What's your point ninkynonker? No one said those things don't happen in the private sector

I think there are big differences between some parts of the public sector and often even between different departments in the same local authority.

For example, in one LA I know of Social Services couldn't afford the number of desks they needed so they fitted a cheap kitchen worktop round the room that staff use instead of desks.

Elsewhere I know teams where staff get new desks every couple of years, work mobiles, etc.

I too have been ins situations where I am astonished at the amount and quality of free food and drink. Quangos seem to be the worst by far. And I think it si becoming less common, but is still there.

My point (I would have thought it was fairly obvious) was that there is waste across the board, it isn't limited to the public sector but these threads always seem to presume that it is. You rarely see threads entitled "Waste in the workplace"...

Anyway, was just a comment, nowt to get knickers in a twist over.

A teacher friend of mine (a head of Department) often tells me tales along those lines LeQ, if she doesn't spend it all her budget is cut accordingly the following year, which could prove to be a problem. Would be better if any excess went back into the pot and the following year wasn't cut, if you see what I mean.

Not so much of a waste for her as she always needs more text books etc.

Ninky, those things only happen in the private sector if the company can afford it. Come harder times, either the policies change pronto, or the business folds.

Um, my knickers are fine thanks

Just wondered why you bowled onto a thread about the public sector and started blathering about the private sector.

Please believe that not all public sector employers are like this. I work at the bottom of the levels of local government and we are very disciplined and careful with our council tax payers money.