Waste in the public sector

[mumzy]

AIBU to be incensed about waste in the public sector which we all pay for?. I was listening to the news about waste in the public sector which if reined in could fund essential services. I've worked in the public sector and in my time have come across shocking amounts of money wasted. Examples include:hospitals letting thousands of pounds of drugs to go out of date because fridges were'nt checked on a regular basis. Computer systems in the NHS which are so unuser friendly they are more of a hindrance than a help. A council department paying consultants mega bucks to come up with policies which were'nt fit for purpose when a perfectly good template was available free on the internet and we only needed to fill in our details. The same department paid a marketing company to come up with a promo event which we had to redo as users did'nt understand how to use it. Has anyone else come a cross similar waste in the public sector

YANBU to be cross about genuine waste. But I work in a department constantly being told to make 'efficiency savings' when we are already too bloody efficient and those eficiency savings lead to reduced services for people who need them.
Thankfully we are statutory so they can't legally reduce our team (without deciding that we can all do 3 peoples' jobs in 40 hours rather than just the 1.5 people's jobs we are expected to do at present)

The tories are dreaming if they think they can afford not to raise NI and can make up the £5bn shortfall that would create elsewhere with 'efficiency savings'. Pah.

YANBU to be cross at genuine waste but you should really bring it to people's attention and make yourself heard - as you say, managers are under massive pressure to save money but if staff just sit back moaning and don't SPEAK OUT then what can be done?

If a marketing company was taken on and was rubbish then they need to run their event again until it is usable, or not be paid. It's not in their interest to run a useless event as they won't be hired again.

TBH I think there is very little waste - although there are undoubtedly slackers in jobs - but what this really means is getting rid of staff.

How's this:

university lecturers are promoted according to the amount of grant income they get in, so there is an incentive for them to do expensive research rather than cheap research - if a researcher had a choice of 2 projects to do, one needing expensive equipment and the other not, the thing to do to advance his/her career would be to go for the expensive one.
Is that stupid or what?

Also the fact that in many organisations you can't carry over budget surplus so when you're heading for the end of the financial year you are frantically trying to spend money because firstly, you will otherwise just lose the money you didn't spend, and secondly, if you spend less you will run the risk of getting less money the following year.

And another one: people being in meetings that they don't need to be, or being forced to attend training sessions which take all day when they could assimilate the information online in an hour.

Morning, I have bought to attention areas where I think there is significant waste but usually these projects have been commissioned by the managers!

Seth agree re: meetings, the circulation list can be enormous do all these people need to take 2 hours out of their day to attend,but in local government if you don't attend it can be assumed that you are slacking rather than working on the frontline providing the service you were paid for!!

Also, many of the examples you cite - such as the NHS computer scandal - are the result of the public sector being forced to invite in private contractors, who bring their unrivalled efficency and no-waste approach to bear on the public finances.

SethStarkaddersMum ... end-of-year spending sprees are by no means unique to the public sector. First thing I was taught in my private sector profession was: the good manager never comes in under budget, because that means losing budget. Madness, of course.

There is horrendous waste in the private sector too, which is paid for by consumers (ie us). I loathe the way the private sector is held up as some shining beacon of best practice that the supposedly intrinsically hopeless public sector should learn from .

The problem is if they don't spend the money on something be it a rubbish marketing company or a leaflet then the funding is removed, therefore the most efficient councils/wards/services are penalized.

The difference with the private sector waste mablemurple is I can shop elsewhere if I don't like the price.

Oh yes, we're all a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing losers who should be shot.

I'm getting a little sick of the public sector bashing. Why not imagine life without public sector services for a minute?

No street lighting. No refuse collections. No teachers. No NHS, so sod you if you can't afford to get treatment. No public health; so no co-ordination of services in an epidemic. No protection of public monuments. No consumer protection, or trading standards, or environmental health. I could go on, but I won't. No one I know in the public sector went in for the money. Some, I accept, went in for the pension but hey, there has got to be some reward.

You say that you saw lots of waste in the public sector. What did you do about it?

YADBU.

Yabu. We are cut to the bone, then the bone is shaved. I've not seen any ineffciencies in my public sector employer and the Audit Commission agree
too. I am also sick of how the private sector get held up as something efficient- Christmas bonuses, paid for Christmas parties, free water coolers etc sound like a
fucking dream to me.

15'years ago we were lowly paid unimaginative, boring wage slaves, now they're all jealous that our jobs are essential and that we have pensions. Well they can fuck off with the shit stirring, we earned what we have.

I don't believe that people in the public sector work less hard or have over-generous budgets, but inefficiency is something else.

A friend of mine worked for an organisation once where she felt a lot of time was being wasted having, as she put it, 'to account for every paperclip. I might be wrong but I believe that kind of atmosphere is more common in the public than the private sector.

Wahwah - if you don't mind me asking - do you never feel you have had to spend time on unnecessary paperwork? Or sat through meetings or training courses lasting several hours of which only a few minutes were useful to you?
I have always imagined this kind of thing is more common in the public than the private sector, though I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise.

I bring it to the attention of the department responsible and 9 times out of 10 its brushed under the carpet and forgotten about or I'm told "thats what its like here, no one takes any responsibility",

Paperwork and bureaucracy are a feature of any large organisation, private or public sector.

I used to work for a stationary company,one of whose customers was a large NHS trust.Just before the end of their financial year,they would order huge amounts of office furniture,filing cabinets,desks ect.The delivery guys were gobsmacked when they were told to deliver it all into a locked storeroom,which was already piled high with office furniture.When they asked the staff what they were going to do with it all,they were told that they didn't need any of it,but if they didn't spend every penny of their budget,they'd get less the following year.

Shockingly wasteful.

Of course the public sector requires more accountability (accounting for paperclips etc)...otherwise how else will the public have sticks to beat us with? When spending public money this has to be accounted for...no?

I do feel common sense has gone out of the window in some areas, but more often or not in a drive to be more efficient or satisfy the public.

As a teacher, I see countless new initiatives appearing. All of which have the best intentions but do take time.

YABU to think this is purely the public sector though. There is a hell of a lot in the private sector too (I used to work 'in industry' before retraining) and in many cases far less safeguards.

I think the public sector is far too often the whipping boy when times get tough. All too easy to criticise whilst looking down on people who work in it...despite the fact that the services are essential and running/operating the country does take people and resources. If you have suggestions on how to improve the 'issues' you raise, YANBU so bring them forward. If you don't, then join the queue. And as I suspect that this thread is politically motivated: whoever is next in power won't be any better.

Oh, and as for budget spending...I used to run a £1.1M per annum marketing budget in my previous incarnation, for a very large private sector firm. If I didn't spend all of this (because I had been efficient elsewhere) it too would get taken. I couldn't afford for this to happen as contingency funding was always needed, so what would I do? Order a year's supply of branded pens. Add to the magazine subscriptions. Stock up on all branded materials. Get more brochures printed. Take out more advertising. Run an extra drink's party. Sign up to highly expensive events (that I could later back out of) etc etc etc...you get the picture.

Private isn't always better.

drinks

I am sick of constantly being told I'm an overpriced penpusher/deskpolisher. It's frequently overlooked that civil service pay is abated (reduced) by a minimum of 19% compared to equivalent private sector jobs. This reduction is because of the "job security" and "pension" perks we supposedly have. Even the Treasury have admitted this, in writing.

The media are whipping up hysteria about the civil service (although I would agree that the vast majority of the quangos are ripe for cutting, which is where most of the expansion has occurred).

And there's the current fuss about there being two military for each civil servant. That's because the Tories and Labour basically insisted that many "back-room" jobs were civilianised. And then, "efficiencies" means that civil service numbers in the MOD have been dropping steadily for years (but we all know that Gordon doesn't like the MOD, so doesn't fund it fully).

The work is still required, do you want to increase the military, only for those service people (who would cost the tax-payer more!) to spend their time sitting at a desk?

France may have 5 service to each civilian, but their service people do sit behind desks.

Meanwhile I go to work in a post that actually brings money into the MOD, not spends it.

I think the way that local authority spending is managed is mad. If you don't spend all your money in your budget then you lose and get a smaller budget the following year.

There is very little moviation for a public sector employee to work hard.

ILove,I think you might live near me.Are you in MM?

Public sector bashing does annoying me BUT I worked for an organisation set up by New Liebour which has wasted millions and has now been all but dismantled. In this instance, they refused to listen to people on the ground and just spent silly money on projects which were never going to work. It is a scandal.

However, I still work in the public sector and we are threatened now with cuts despite doing a good job and working very hard. Has just been very badly managed for too long now.

I work for a charity but we work closely with a couple of public sector organisations, where there has been eyewatering waste on policies which we (as experts) said wouldn't work.We have also witnessed overlavish expenditure on things like events, lunches etc. I think on the whole most civil servants do work hard though.

101, yes.

FWIW, I am pretty sure that many of the answers required in the public sector can be found (and quite creatively, too) simply by senior managers listening to their staff, instead of spending money on consultants, who then proceed to state the obvious.

that's just it isn't it Mintyfresh - it's easy to say we need cuts but what if they cut the wrong things (which they will)?
There are some useful quangos....

It isn't quite as simple as that millymollymoo. Time constraints, location, knowledge of other options can all limit how we can spend our money. Public sector spending has to be accountable, private sector can hide their inefficiencies and wastefulness. Until it all comes crashing down on our heads, of course .