Ministerial post 'dehumanising' for Digby Jones
Digby Jones - the most prominent of the 'goats' (government of all the talents) elevated to the House of Lords and made into ministers by Gordon Brown - has just butted those he once worked with. 
The former Trade Minister Lord Jones told the Commons Public Administration Committee that the job of junior minister was "one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences a human being can have".
He described the civil service as honest and stuffed full of decent people who work hard, but he believed there were too many of them:
"Frankly the job could be done with half as many. It could be more productive, more efficient, it could deliver a lot more value for money for the taxpayer. And the levers of change, the ability to affect change are so rare, because of the culture. I was amazed how many people frankly deserved the sack, and yet that was the one threat that they never ever worked under because it doesn't exist as long as they're being not criminal or whatever."
Ouch.
PS: I've had a few comments questioning whether I or the BBC generally overdid the Shriti Vadera story yesterday. When I've a little more time I'll pen a response.
I'm 
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~49~RS~)
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"I've had a few comments questioning whether I or the BBC generally overdid the Shriti Vadera story yesterday."
From Mandelson and Brown no doubt!
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Ministerial post 'dehumanising' for Digby Jones.... should not be the head line
It should read:
Country could be run by half as many civil servants.
We need a lot more businessmen in government and a lot fewer lawyers.
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Of course there are too many civil servants.
This was part of Gordon's grand plan to keep the unemployment figures down.
The irony is that they will never be in fear of losing their jobs - unlike the rest of us!
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I seem to have problems understanding his comments taken as a whole.
If the Civil Service is "honest and stuffed full of decent people" then how are they working hard if "the job could be done with half as many"?
If the Civil Service is over-staffed by 100% then the only way the staff can be working hard is if they are done a lot of work that doesn't need doing!
Perhaps the person who wrote up the article miss-heard and what was actually said that the civil service is "full of decent people who hardly work" :-)
I do think he has a valid point, that there is a lot of waste in the public sector and a business in the private sector would never be competitive if they employed twice as many people as they needed.
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Not just too many Civil Servants, but far too many centralised in Greater London and South east England (the same thing has happened in South East Scotland), a situation exacerbated by Nu Labour. At least Wilson and Callaghan understood the need and economic common sense to spread Civil Service jobs around the country.
This also provides lopsided thinking. After the terrible flooding in Yorkshire 2 years ago there was much talk of protecting coastal defences and improving drainage etc. The Dept of Environment response? London would need a second barrier across the Thames estuary.
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Digby Jones described the civil service as honest and stuffed full of decent people who work hard, but he believed there were too many of them and then said, "Frankly the job could be done with half as many.”
Doesn’t this sound like an oxymoron?
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PS: I've had a few comments questioning whether I or the BBC generally overdid the Shriti Vadera story yesterday. When I've a little more time I'll pen a response.
It was probably taken a bit far, but then the same was true of the coverage of George Osbourne's sailing trip :)
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Interesting, because Obama has just said that he went into politics because he wanted to shape his daughters lives,i.e by working to enable them to achieve happiness,get opportunities e.t.c.
The pusuit of happiness is of course, a false one.
Just ask people after Xmas/New Year. Did they have a jolly nice time. Yes,yes.
But ask them if they wanted this all the time, and they say....... no.
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To be fair he's only saying what's been obvious to most of us for a long while!
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I'm not surprised a character like Lord Digby-Jones didn't go down well with Gordon Brown
Too honest with the truth to last long there.
I'm sure he took the job because he really believed he could really do something for Britain's exporting companies
Until he realised that this PM isn't interested in business because he knows sweet all about it.
Must be so frustrating for such a jolly chappie to know what's wrong and needs putting right to come up against such a brick wall like Brown.
Never mind I hope he finds a better place in a Tory government. He has a lot of experience that shouldn't be wasted.
We need more of the old school who know what tough times really are.
By the way I heard Mandelson actually admit on Newsnight that the lady had been rather niaive and she wouldn't be saying 'Green shoots' again
That's you vindicated then Nick.
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Certainly if you've worked around them long enough... the word "dynamic" isnt one that tends to spring to mind, particularly at middle management level.
Mind you, I mustnt grumble. If they were dynamic enough, made management decisions rather than keeping their heads down, if they had the technical depth... I'd arguably be on the scrapheap.
Theres an old saying about simians and peanuts. Granted there are a few high flyers who are very capable people coming through, but they tend to be young thrusters in their early-mid 30's and dont have real power yet. The power rests at a significantly higher level than them.
Digby Jones is right. It is a cultural thing, a mentality they have.
Sorry guys, if you're a civil servant... Just calling it as I've seen it over the last 5 years. I'm not saying the commercial sector have a better mentality; in many ways they dont. Each sector has its own cross to bear.
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"..how many people(in the Civil Service) frankly deserved the sack."
A man after my own heart - I have long advocated sacking Permanent Secretaries when something bad happens on their watch.
Yet, what usually happens is they get their 'K'! (K= Knighthood, by the way - see the Treasury this new year for example!)
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Nick,
Did you ask him if this was the reason why he left his post as a goat?
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Yes, I remember when I was a civil servant. Once you become Established it is virtually impossible for them to prise you out of your job. Very safe, very secure, all sorts of holidays for inauspicious occasions, Queen's birthday and so on. When I was offered a job at the House of Commons I was told I would have Friday afternoons off, all the parliamentary recesses etc etc. Wow! Anybody's dream job. Fully paid of course.
I have to say here though that the Local Councils are just as bad. They have six weeks bereavement leave - well ours do - which I find an absolute scandal. When I was in commerce I only had two days discretionary leave when my mother died.
So much for working out of the public purse, eh?
Digby has quite rightly highlighted this issue.
PS Not to worry about the green shoots statement. Gave rise to more debate anyway!
This flipping runway is going to run and run though......
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The conservatives must be rubbing their hands at this.
Now they can point to this as an example of how spending can be cut with out the depressing zanu-labour prerecorded reponce of "of course, the conservatives want to cut teachers, policemen,..."
Or have I mis-understood? Serious question btw!
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So....
..'Come and work for me and I'll give you a knighthood'
didn't work out too well then ?
We can see that Brown is trying to build his own Government which excludes the
'MP's of no Talent'.
(Moots as opposed to Goats)
But it looks like even the Brown knighted cadre might be considering Brown to have lost the plot.
Funny how long it takes for the politico world to catch up with the real world.
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As a Civil Servant, I agree with the comment about running with half the staff. Most of these could come from the Senior Manager Grades, that are overpaid and underworked.
However it has not been detrimental to his progression has it?
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Dear Nick,
There are meny stories that you could write about (Are you a columnist or journalist?) and all deserve your (Or your source's) veiws.
Ireland/Iceland and IMF, Mandyson and a big house, GB and his green shoots, Ken Clarke coming home, Heathrow etc etc.
However, what you choose to write/comment about is really up to you but sometimes we do wonder.
Xxxx
ps t's not about green shoots but blooming easter eggs that are now on sale....!
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I know this is one of the stories, but we do have the man who picked up the mace
Isn't that political enough? whom does it embarrass the most?
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Hear, hear, Lord Jones.
Wonder what Gordon thinks of him now?
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As a former Civil Servant, now retired, I feel I must respond to the "Goats" outburst.
He is quite correct that the jobs in most departments could be done with considerably less people and much more efficiently. But there is a very big BUT that must be added. A considerable amount of unnecessary work is created by Ministers who are continually bringing out new initiatives, continually re-inventing the wheel because they cannot stand delivering the previous incumbants programmes. What they should do is to encourage the development of existing activities, help to make them work and not keep bringing out new initiatives most of which are ill thought through and often dropped within months !
He says that there are people who ought to be sacked. Yes there probably are but who created the employment framework that makes it so difficult to sack people. With a process that is so long and cumbersome that many Managers give up or move on themselves. Also, if he felt that, why didn't he do something about it at the time !!
He says the Civil Service is stuffed full of decent people who work hard .. how right he is on that one. He might like to reflect that if it were not for his Civil Servants he would not be able to deliver anything.
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StrongholdBarricades wrote:
Nick,
Did you ask him if this was the reason why he left his post as a goat?
Maybe it was because he wasn't a sheep! (sorry!)
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Can anybody answer the following:
What is the justification for someone given a working peerage to retain that peerage when they cease working for the Government, i.e. why is he still Lord Digby-Jones? Does he draw a salary for attending the House of Lords as a backbencher (asssuming he does attend the HoL)?
As regards the bloated civil service, if the government was serious about dealing with the current problems, they would be slashing costs through both compulsory redundancies and wage cuts across the board. Most civil service pay reviews are for a number of years in advance and assume a certain level of inflation. As the expectation now is assumed to be deflation, these awards should be revisited.
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50% more staff than are required in the Civil Service?
Tell us something we don't already know.
But of course you have to have twice as many to cover the generous holidays sick leave flexi time and of course meetings.
Lots and lots of time wasting meetings
That means 50% more golden index linked final salary pensions.
All paid for by the taxpayer.
Point this one out to Gordon and no wonder he was shown the door. By the civil servants.
Time for more repeats of 'Yes Minister' I think.
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Looks like Barking Derek has just clocked on
Any answers on the MP wielding the mace?
What about the Education figures?
How about MP expenses?
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mmmm ... just studied the photo of Lord Digby Jones - looks exactly like the sort of overfed complacent upper middle class male empty suit that we have way way too many of in positions of power and influence - in ALL sectors, not only the civil service
part of the problem, in other words, old Digby is
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#6 "Doesn?t this sound like an oxymoron?"
No, not really.
Just cause they're all working hard and are good employees doesn't mean we need them all.
We could employ another 100% of civil servants, equally as good, but we don't. Why not?
Because there is an optimum level of civil servants to do the job efficiently.
However, Gordon Brown views the civil service as another way of massaging unemployment statistics. Of course he does not care about the extra salaries and gold-plated pensions that will have to be paid in the future (not on his watch, of course, much like the huge debt burden he is saddling our children with).
But this is of course not a surprise. Gordon is a spendaholic. When he begins to understand the obvious, namely that it is OUR money he is spending, and we are NOT happy about it, he will understand that he will need a new job from 2010 (I'm assuming he is too chicken to call an election earlier - an election that he would likely do better in than if he leaves it until 2010. Mind you, given the authoritarian leanings of this government, there might not even be an election. A Reichstag-style incident is probably in the offing....)
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Ummm Derek so why did Brown choose such a dangerous dinosaur to be one of his great and good? This man was a Labour Minister choosen because of his knowledge and understanding of the business world.
Surely your not saying that Brown was in error!?!
But I thought that Brown was incapable of making mistakes! You have just shattered my illusions, next you will be telling me the tooth fairy doesn't exist!
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No Nick, you did not overdo the Shriti Vadera story yesterday! It was a case of an attempted spin that backfired. May we know who has suggested that the story was 'overdone'?
In contrast, there are some other stories which are perhaps 'underdone'.
For example, Yatchgate. Why do we still not know what discussions (if any) the former EU Commissioner had with his Russian host about EU tariffs?
Another puzzling story is the Damian Green affair. Why did the letter from Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick to Jacqui Smith appear to contradict the statement made by the Speaker to the House of Commons? Just to remind everyone, Ast Commissioner Quick wrote that the officers "were satisfied that the Serjeant at Arms understood that police had no power to search in the absence of a warrant ". But the Speaker said: "I have been told that the police did not explain, as they are required to do, that the sergeant was not obliged to consent".
They can't both be right! So which one is correct?
I think we should be told....
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#24 Derek Barker.
"Digby opposed the national minimum wage."
I know it's hard for socialists like yourself to fathom Derek. But we live in a GLOBAL economy now, as you keep pointing out , so do the maths:
* Imposed minimum wage
* Companies' costs increase
* Cost of companies' produce increases
* Companies' lose sales to more competitive companies
* Companies' go under
* Minimum wage becomes a P45 and zero wage for employees.
There is more than one country. Just because we feel that someone working in a particular industry deserves more, doesn't mean that automatically giving them that salary is the answer to the problem.
Typical short-sighted policies from a jaded party, ripe for being thrown out on its posterior.
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"PS: I've had a few comments questioning whether I or the BBC generally overdid the Shriti Vadera story yesterday. When I've a little more time I'll pen a response. "
Cool - could you, when responding, advise:
1 WHO told you "she was referring to the fact that the bond market had begun to open up for bigger borrowers and also to the good news from retailers like Morrisons and Tesco's who this week promised to create thousands more jobs"; and
2 Did whoever told you contact YOU directly or did you contact THEM for clarification?
It would be interesting to see into the world of spin!
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I agree, Digby Jones contradicts himself. I dislike the man so am pleased he sounds like a buffoon.
Although he's keen for all these hard-working, intelligent civil servants to be sacked, what about the management consultants, outsource firms (who lose our data) and PR firms? I imagine they probably cost the exchequer rather more per head.
Oh, silly me, just remembered he's ex-CBI. Of course he must be in favour of businesses ripping-off the country.
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#2 spot on
#21 agree on the constant messing and changing of everything - worth a quick history lesson:-
“We had trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams, we would be reorganised.
I would learn later in life that we tend to meet any situation by reorganising – and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress whilst spreading confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.”
Ciaus Pertonius; AD 66
Gordon & co - if it aint broke, dont fix it....
But then again, if you did that you couldnt justify your jobs could you....?!
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#21 RaytEssex wrote:
"As a former Civil Servant, now retired, I feel I must respond to the "Goats" outburst.
He is quite correct that the jobs in most departments could be done with considerably less people and much more efficiently. But there is a very big BUT that must be added. A considerable amount of unnecessary work is created by Ministers who are continually bringing out new initiatives, continually re-inventing the wheel because they cannot stand delivering the previous incumbants programmes."
So it is quite easy to say that the civil service has very hard working people, but - if they are working on stuff that is completely fatuous - still be over-staffed.
For example:
"Ministers are looking at requiring public bodies to recognise and tackle inequalities stemming from social background in the same way as they must already do for race, gender and disability.
Class was still the source of "persistent inequality" in British society, the government said in a white paper on social mobility published on Tuesday."
How many civil servants will be beavering away, trying to dig out facts (often having to create new statistical elements - hence more cost) to support this initiative?
And what's the point?
If someone comes into the JobCentre, will he/she have to provide a family tree to show which "class" they fit into?
How will "social background - or class" be determined?
It's obviously not about money. (Plenty of people from all sorts of backgrounds have made big bucks over the last couple of decades. Centuries, actually! And quite a lot of people from "old families" have lost fortunes.)
So what is the point of this?
It will keep a lot of civil servants occupied for a long time. Possibly resulting in even more public employees having to go through a bunch of stuff that helps nobody.
If a bright guy or gal turns up for interview in business, it's the knowledge and potential that someone looks for.
Time was, the person from a "socially deprived" background would stand out. With a desire to get on.
Problem has been for a while that children have grown up assuming that they have entitlements. (I passed 4 A levels at A grade, so... I've a degree in whatever, so...)
Are local councils expected to check on the social background of a householder before deciding on the council tax-band?
Are they going to place "better" candidates behind ""seems to come from this social background" candidates, when appointing accountants?
It's the sheer profligacy of government that gets me.
I've worked in businesses with awful management. With HR departments exercising far too great an influence on people doing stuff they simply don't have a clue about.
Eventually, these folk get their comeuppance...
But they don't use tax-payers' money to go through their idiocies...
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Congratulations John McDonnell for his protest, in parliament, against the undemocratic 3rd runway at Heathrow.
Have you got anything to say about this Nick Robinson?
Are you going to rubbish him as you did with David Davis?
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24. At 5:22pm on 15 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote
===
Why didn't you say any of this a year ago when he was your man's choice of Trade Minister?
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#24 derekbarker wrote:
"Baron Jones of Birmingham, former CBI chief from 200- 2006, As a lawyer his law firm made countless expenses from industrial related accidents.
Digby opposed the national minimum wage.
A man who thought that one pound an hour was sufficient for some workers? Is it any wonder this leech and extremely wealthy person thinks unemployment is an efficient way to manage the economy?"
Sorry Derek.
I was never a great fan of Digby Jones. But quite a good communicator.
However, perhaps you'd like to remind us who brought in him to a ministerial role in government?
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#21 RaytEssex
I commend your post. We shouldn't be criticising public sector workers as individuals, many of whom, like my wife, work hard. However, we should be looking at the structural problem of public sector employment: overstaffed, over-generous pensions (at a time when Gordon has trashed private sector pension funds), a lack of accountability, and perhaps most importantly of all a sense that a significant minority of jobs in the public sector make no worthwhile contribution to the economy or society at all.
I have tried to write this fairly. The villian of the piece is not the individuals working in the civil service, but rather Gordon Brown's frenzied feeding of the public sector. It is not in the long-term interest of public sector workers for Gordon to set out to destroy the wealth-creating segment of the economy which ultimately funds public sector employment.
I pointed out on an earlier post that the Irish Government was trying to cut public sector pay.
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This is what you would expect from a Tory brought into a 'Labour' government.
Consider what Civil Servants really are. They are not just the people that Digby Jones would have come across, they are people like Job centre staff; outsourced, ut or overstretched, especially in light of the rising unemployment the country faces.
This is what the likes of Mr.Jones wants, for people to turn on each other (eg the wider public on public servants) rather than blaming the unrestrained business culture that got our country into this mess.
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In this blog and many previous, I've read unnumerable attacks on so-called 'fat-cat' civil servants and their supposedly grossly inflated lives and pay.
To be fair, I'll agree that civil servants DO get a good pension scheme and good annual leave, and better job security than most.
HOWEVER
Most civil servants definitely are NOT on the gravy train. For junior and middle-echelon civil servants (the vast majority) the pay is a long way behind the private sector and there is rarely much in terms of genuine investment in people - training budgets are always pared to the very bone and any attempts to improve infrastructure or working environment have to move mountains in order to get approval. Career development and progression are glacially slow.
And since about 6 or 7 years ago, new entrants DON'T get that wonderful pension - they get only a watered down average salary pension that pays substantially less than the 'classic' scheme.
The current government has done much to politicise the civil service and many of the 'advisor' posts that it has created in central government are far removed from the rank and file of the civil service. So please, don't tar genuine civil servants with that brush.
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I love Digby Jones hes one of the few people who can talk about recession and he makes you feel as though everything will be OK in the end.
I suspect hes far too honest and outspoken for Brown though, I wish he would join the conservatives he reminds me so much of Ken Clarke.
He really is only saying what everybody knows that because of a strong union base its virtually impossible to get rid of people in the public sector even though we need to. The private sector is taking the big hit at the moment, but cuts in the public sector who ever is in power are inevitable.
Im one of the only ones, I suppose that does not think you overdid the green shoots story. Strangely enough I think the public will pick up the message that Labour secretly think the economy is getting better and remember it, and when the economy does not pick up, the comment will come to mind. They will think that Labour was completely out of touch even at the height of recession. But I guess you are being leant on by Mandelson.
I see that Labour are now pinching the Conservatives high speed rail link idea when they said it was rubbish before. Thats 3 policies this week they have stolen from the Conservatives. I wish the Conservatives would become the do nothing party, Labour would have no policies then.
Another thing I was interested in I have not seen the full story, but that we are using tax payers money to shore up credit companies in order for people to purchase cars. More Government debt I suppose.
John McDonnell was wonderful I like people who have that kind of conviction.
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#24, #27 (quote, just studied the photo of Lord Digby Jones, etc)
All sorts of personal insults against Digby-Jones. Interesting that Labour-supporting bloggers play the man rather than the ball. Don't address the serious issues, they're too uncomfortable. Kick the man instead.
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#21 RaytEssex
For a while there, it did seem that there was a missing disc or file every week that was going missing from government departments.
Then Hey! presto! it all stops. Hmmmm
Stranger than fiction?
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I think he is in a catch 22 - having supported business and industry for so many years he can see a recession comming and lots of ministerial rhetoric washing about in an attempt to talk up our flagging economy.
A def move out of government just before we headed towards recession meant he can now speak his mind and thus he has.
Time for a Prime Minister that is elected rather than one given the job as a long service award me thinks....
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It was a little odd that Nick chose to go with the question of whether there are too many people doing unnecessary things in government, rather than the Heathrow decision. (Or maybe the "good day to hide bad news" dislosure on MPs expenses...)
The French built Charles de Gaulle airport because Orly was too enclosed to grow.
40+ years ago, discussions took place about finding a new site for a London-serving replacement for Heathrow.
All pushed aside.
Heathrow suffers from a significant threat. Access to three terminals is via a tunnel under the north runway. Not a good idea.
As the winds are more often westerly, this means a lot of aircraft have to fly directly over central London to land. That's a threat, as well...
(Actually, if you followed some of the daft interpretations of Health and Safety rules, Heathrow should be closed down tomorrow. If, for example, a local council doesn't allow hanging flower baskets as they could fall on the heads of passers-by, how on earth could you permit aircraft to fly over 8 million people?)
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"Yes, I remember when I was a civil servant. Once you become Established it is virtually impossible for them to prise you out of your job."
I think that a political party has the nous to explain to the public WHY this is the case, and proposes measures to combat this unfairness, they will have the next election in the bag.
Salaries of civil servants are widely seen as inflated as tv and radio stars in this country. The party that curbs these either by law or taxation will gain votes.
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sagamix @ 27
That is a truly unpleasant posting, and thoroughly unworthy of this forum. You successfully combine sexism, outdated and discredited class envy and the kind of remark that in any playground would be considered bullying.
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Government is too complex and has become increasingly complex with the Golem in government. Why have something simple when you can have something complex. If it's complex it needs more people to handle it and since they get it wrong, even more people to sort the mess out.
The Golem's job creation scheme, I guess.
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27. At 5:42pm on 15 Jan 2009, sagamix wrote:
mmmm ... just studied the photo of Lord Digby Jones - looks exactly like the sort of overfed complacent upper middle class male empty suit that we have way way too many of in positions of power and influence - in ALL sectors, not only the civil service
part of the problem, in other words, old Digby is
===
And John Prescott was what, exactly?
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Some-people made a very healthy living out of Industrial related accident and diseases.
Wow! some people even thought that Industrial related diseases like say! "ASBESTOSES" was a condition payed for in the wage packet.
Many miners were effected by a condition called "ANTHRACOSIS" some people questioned whether such a disease existed?
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I am truly astonished to hear such open public honesty.
BUT
IF we are to get the economy back on track then we really need more of these jobs not fewer. It’s a great way for the government to filter the freshly printed notes into the economy far better than giving to a bunch of real wasters on the dole.
I for one would jump at the chance.
Where and when do I sign up?
We will never EVER see a reduction in the number of civil servants council workers or government hangers on NEVER.!
So such wonderful public honesty will equal NOTHING!
Do you think Nurses will get the money of those lazy ones?
I’ve just seen a flock of pigs.
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Been saying it for ages, the public sector is HUGE and needs to be viciously pruned.
The massive tax burden in this country can't be a helpful factor in our current crisis.
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Gosh, could we really do with half as many civil servants?
And in other news, we can reveal that the Pope's religion is Catholic.
I assume that the reason why no-one has done anything about it is that the "Yes Minister" stereotype is all too true, ie ministers cannot do anything if the civil servants don't want them to. Let's face it, why would civil servants go along with a plan that would put them out of a job? They may be inefficient, but they're not stupid.
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I heard Sir DJ's comments during my commute home with a feeling of savage vindication. I have twenty years experience of working in contact with the Civil Service and I feel such views are more than justified and long overdue. My father was a senior Civil Servant and his comments on the Civil Service were of a similar nature.
What I want to know is what is going to be done about it and when.
It really is like "Yes, Minister". The problem is, this is no joke as it's our taxes paying for it.
Talk about "a good time to bury bad news", I can't believe Gordon Brown will sanction staff cuts in this economic climate. Oh Well...
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Sounds about spot on and yes I have worked in the public sector.
If you set up scrutiny committees and have lots meetings with no actions and no individual responsibility you can soon fill your time working hard, whilst engaging in various flawed, naive and mis-guided social engineering schemes.
Working hard to maintain the bureaucracy or working hard to deliver improvements for everybody. The two things are quite different.
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#6 - thecuckoosnest
Most of your post I understand. Where did 'oxy' come from?
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Not just too many civil servants; too many people being paid by the taxpayer. Politicians, civil servants, titled and double barrelled named heads of quangos ,council chief execs., heads of finance, planning, etc. all duplicated on six figure salaries and very few giving value for money. It's doubtful if a single council in Britain operates within budget ,yet these people continue to fill posts because there is no mechanism for the taxpayer to remove them from post. Even the elected councillors do not have this power and are ridden over roughshod by what is technically their employees at any attempt to curb the power of the unelected. All of the quangos, now appear to have more power than parliament when it comes to making decisions that affect the public.
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Nick
Do correct me if Im wrong, but:
Remember the clampdown on MPs expenses which was promised after it emerged Derek Conway was paying his sons to work for him? Full transparency and an end to the John Lewis list? Well a year later, and on a busy newsday, Harriet Harman has announced the watering down almost all the restrictions.
According to a document unveiled with no fanfare on the same day as the Heathrow announcement, the House is preparing to block the publication of all receipts for MPs expenses, which had been ordered by an Information Tribunal
Can this be true, have you not heard about it?
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Ahh here it is
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
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Hey! while we are on the subjedt of CV's
lets take a look at the "PROFUMO AFFAIR" In 1961 the secretary of the state for war,
John Profumo, had an affair with a show girl, namingly "CHRISTINE KEELER", Profumo denied the affair in the house of commons and used the parliamentary privilege code to silence the affair, however in 1962 the affair was released by the press which led Profumo to admit he miss led parliament but Hey! not until 1963, the whole affair had put real pressure on the conservative PM Harold MacMillan, who would resign only months later citing bad health. I should also point out that Ms Keeler was also having an affair with a certain Russian spy called Yevgeny Ivanov.
Good people from good back grounds Eh?
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The evidence for this at all levels of government has been screaming at us for years.
In education the last Treasury spending report indicated each secondary school pupil costs the nation about £5,600. Ask any headmaster what they see of it and you will rarely get much above £2,600 per pupil to actually deliver the classroom experience. Why not just give the money to the headmasters and if all the LEA and DOE staff are doing such an added value job for the education of our children I'm sure the heads will be rushing to hire them rather than extra teachers etc ....... ?
But if all civil servants are doing such great jobs why is almost every significant government project I can find is billions over budget, years late and often not up to standard? Try running projects to that standard in the private sector and see what your carrer prospects look like.
Of course Gordons "money go round" systems just add to the problem. Employ civil servants to raise taxes and employ even more people to devise and staff ways to give the money back again in the most complex ways possible, minus of course the administrative overhead. This is not only costly in terms of Civil servant wages, offices, pensions, paper and yet more paper etc but is hugely costly to the "customers" in terms of the time and effort that needs to be put in to try and understand and comply with all this Byzantian regulation. This really is a vast waste of total resource in our society which is little more than employng one group of people to dig holes and another to fill them in again. It is primarily of benefit to those employed in administering it rather than any of its recipients.
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#27 sagamix wrote:
"mmmm ... just studied the photo of Lord Digby Jones - looks exactly like the sort of overfed complacent upper middle class male empty suit that we have way way too many of in positions of power and influence - in ALL sectors, not only the civil service."
Oh, come on, Saga.
Take a look at photos of John Prescott.
How the dickens could you distinguish between him and Digby Jones in "class" terms?
Overfed? Well, we paid for one, but the private sector paid for Jones.
If you want to look at peculiar things, why don't you wonder why the UK Navy has more Admirals than ships?
Is that because recent governments like to keep people being promoted (getting getter salaries at tax-payer cost), or because recent governments have shrunk the number of vessels available?
(And have decided to streeeetch out the delivery timetable for new aircraft-carriers.)
So much for injecting funds into high-tech projects.
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Hi Nick,
Digby Jones was appointed to the Upper House by GB. So was Baroness Vadera and Mervyn Davies. They both report to Lord Mandy. None of these were voted into ministerial office by the public.
Come to think of it, they all report to Gordon Broon, and no one voted for him as Prime Minister.
If you want to trim fat, start there.
BWT: You did NOT over-report the Vadera green-shoots story yesterday. What we have here is a central pillar or GB's economic team that claimed to see what no other economic expert can. That tells me that she should not remain in post.
To make matters worse, she actually apologised for people misunderstanding her. How this became MY fault, I do not quite understand.
See you in the pub.
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NOW THIS IS VERY INTERESTING
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
And it was made in early 2007
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all jobs are dehumanising
a career path, training and annual raise should be standard practice for company loyalty
retraining and alternative or part-time employment should be offered instead of unemployment (unless people want voluntarily redundancy)
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"Did you ask him if this was the reason why he left his post as a goat?"
"Maybe it was because he wasn't a sheep!"
Ewe must be kidding!
...Taxi!
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#54 derekbarker wrote:
#29
"David, the man was brought into government as a business mind to create new emplyment and wealth.
Not to eradicate employment?
Some people hold themselves in high reguard, they even get titles but Hey! when it comes to delivering the goods, they simply offer an alternative political view, rather than raise their game to the challenge.
GB didn't employ Digby to criticise government, he was employed to deliver more wealth.
Why do you turn every thing on GB , christ, look up Digbys CV quite impressive but Hey!
at the end of the day, its just words on paper."
Derek, the business mind has to focus on delivering a product or service that is wanted by and affordable for the end-user / customer.
Seems to me that should be the objective of governments.
After all, businesses have to find someone - or a company - willing to buy their products or services. So revenue (income) is only sustained if what you offer is still wanted. Woolworths just died because they didn't adjust their business model to maintain adequate income.
Governments know that they can always tax the citizens. But they should have a similar thought process. That is to take as much or little as you need to deliver things that can be of proven use to the people paying for it.
If you want to include more and more people into government or the public service, the only way forward is total state control.
I can remember when the UK state owned electricity, gas, steel production, coal-mining, car manufacturing, telephony, etc. It wasn't very efficient.
I can remember working for a time in New York, years and years ago, when I moved into a place and wanted a phone. And just amazed that someone said "will you be at home this afternoon, so we can fix it?".
Derek, I have always admired the work of genuinely motivated, state-employed people. But I do not believe that I and my children should pay for totally unnecessary roles.
I've seen quite a few private companies with far too many people chasing about and being "busy", doing nothing of any real worth.
Difference is that the private companies absolutely depend on someone out there deciding to use a company's product or services. But, governments don't worry about "gaining a market". They just impose taxes.
Then the responsible ministers wash their hands and walk away from any financial problems.
Often crawling into private comanies, who should know better than to hire people who failed to deliver to their "customers" - us, you and me - the tax-payers.
I'm quite happy to accept that Brown, Blair, Clegg, Cameron, Attlee, Bevin, Churchill, Thatcher, Wilson, Foot, Heath etc had a good vision. And probably a genuine concern for their families.
But, I EXPECT governments do use my tax take (and yours) sensibly.
I just don't get it that Gordon Brown snatched away the 10p tax band.
Do you understand why he did it?
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I have no time for this man. It was obvious that he would not stay in this position long enough to have a greater understanding of how the civil service works in this time. It was quite clear to all around him(GB), that Lord Jones would be a backstabber. The only person not to see this was GB himself...Bless!!
It has been widely known for years that the civil service was overstaffed, with some 'managers' overpaid, and sadly so badly politicized that it can no longer function the way it is suppose to.
Maybe if the opposition actually had ideas or policies regarding the future direction of the civil service, then Lord Jones' word could be taken with less than a pinch of salt.
As for the business minister's gaffe, is that really the sum of reporting these days?
Less of that rubbish please, more on what real politics are about like the protest by the labour Mp in the house today, eh?
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derekbarker 63
I'm not sure what point you were trying to make about John Profumo, but it might be fairer to complete the story.
From a short time after his resignation through to his death, Profumo worked as a volunteer at Toynbee Hall (a charity working against deprivation in the East End). He actually started there cleaning the toilets, and required a lot of persuasion to take on a more prominant role. Most reasonable people consider he salvaged his reputation through his charitable work.
In the circumstances, you might like to review your last paragraph, which seems rather unworthy as it stands.
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#63 derekbarker wrote:
"Hey! while we are on the subjedt of CV's
lets take a look at the "PROFUMO AFFAIR" In 1961 the secretary of the state for war,
John Profumo, had an affair with a show girl, namingly "CHRISTINE KEELER", Profumo denied the affair in the house of commons and used the parliamentary privilege code to silence the affair, however in 1962 the affair was released by the press which led Profumo to admit he miss led parliament but Hey! not until 1963, the whole affair had put real pressure on the conservative PM Harold MacMillan, who would resign only months later citing bad health. I should also point out that Ms Keeler was also having an affair with a certain Russian spy called Yevgeny Ivanov.
Good people from good back grounds Eh?
---------------
Well, Derek, if you really want to go back to the 60s... You may like to recall that Profumo accepted the fact that he had misled parliament and resigned. He spent the great part of the rest of his life doing very good charitable social work.
Did that excuse his lies in Parliament? No.
Did it prove that he was a BAD person? Maybe not. Or that he was BAD because he was a Tory? Well, absolutely not. Just get a quick phone call in to John Prescott...
I have no idea what your point is.
Background is irrelevant. If it were, you would certainly have voted for David Davies as PM, since he came from a difficult background and made his own way.
Let's see, when was the last leader of the Labour party someone from a working class environment? Blair? Brown? Smith? Foot?
Look back at Tory leaders. Cameron had a gilded background. First for a long tme.
Goodness. You don't have to be BORN into a way of thinking. That would make it purely Darwinian.
Inheritence can affect height, weight, musculature, bone-mass, eye-colour, possibly the way the brain works (although that seems very unlikely).
As far as I know, nobody has ever been born with any genetic imperative to be a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or whatever.
Or a Labour, Tory, Liberal, Democrat, Communist, or whatever.
Perfumo did wrong in his personal life. Does that mean that any cause he subscribed to was wrong?
If so, Labour should be killed off because Prescott did wrong in his personal life?
There are good people, weak people and downright bad people who join with a political idea.
If the idea makes sense, it can survive.
I liked the ideal of a socially-sensitive, commercially viable state.
Still do.
But if the "commercially-viable" bit gets lost, all the rest falls to pieces.
Just like a family.
f
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There should be a continual re-examination of what is appropriate to be done by the State, private or 'third' (charity) sectors.
For example, somebody on this thread mentioned Government run Job Centres.
A couple of recent letters in The Times pointed to a horrifying lack of professionalism by Job Centre staff but these staff do not have any particular driver or motivation and apparently are not easy to dispose of and as public servants, presumably have decent pensions awaiting.
Whereas a close relative who works for a private sector recruitment company frankly works long hours like a slave, has to meet targets, which if not met will result in a miserable wage, has no pension and is quite likely to be fired in the current climate even if he achieves everything asked.
Given this, it seems that the best approach here would be to close down the Government run Job Centres and let the truly motivated private sector perform this function.
Other areas, especially regarding oversight of regulations are probably best served by some Governmental organisation.
The key is not to let political dogma be the driver as to who does what.
I think that many English people have a deep distrust of 'authority' in general and therefore Government would be best served if it ticked away silently in the background, just concentrating on doing a few key things really well and leave the rest to us, the English people.
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63/ Barking
Yes, things move on - we don't have people climbing on rooves without scaffolding now c/o Health and Safety.
The Profumo affair was a pimple on a pumpkin compared with people's morals now, in and out of parliament.
Learn the lessons and move on. Totally inappropriate to bring THAT up in today's very different world.
You really are digging up the dregs now.
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Why doesn't the government appoint a quango to review the number of civil servants employed in the various branches of government.
To make sure it works we'll second senior civil servants, their private secretaries, their sub-private secretaries to the quango - and of course we will have to employ other civil servants to replace them at their original departments.
To make it fair we should also appoint some businessmen - Sainsbury for one to discuss matters.
Now let them meet once a month and I'm sure they'll be able to claim expenses and eventually sort matters.
Then again . . . maybe not.
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73#
Really well put.
(63#) He's done you good and proper this time Derek.
Get out of that. ;=)
(payback for abandoning me to the Braveheart Republican Chapter, 2 blogs back).
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Some one once said all moments in history are defining and over the course of the years there have been many.
Jonathan Aitken or lord Archer may also fall into the category of moments in political history where self thought out-strips their actual purpose.
Of course is far to easy for some-one like Jones just to walk. when the going gets tough, those who can afford it simply smile and say goodbye.What use is that in a productive sense.
I hope we never go down the road of designer babies and A.I., I ALSO HOPE WE NEVER RETURN TO A SITUATION WHERE ONLY THE PRIVILEGED GET TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
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Hold on a minute. This guy's got elevated to to house of lords, swanned around whitehall for a few months and then given up the ghost (or is that goat?). What has he achieved while in government? Then again he did get out before the green shoots of recovery started sprouting.
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Just as in the physical world there is a 'court of public' opinion, then likewise here ... a 'court of bloggers' opinion, if you wish.
One wrong step in these blogs and ones reputation, such as it is, could be shredded forever.
I've sailed close to the wind a few times myself so I guess the moral is, be careful what you type because you could be metaphorically 'toast' in an instant.
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#75
flamepatricia,
If it was coherent I might have responded differently.
As it goes! scaffolding on rooves?
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Try not too hard into kidding yourselves that what the former Trade Minister Lord Jones said about the dehumanising clicking culture of "if you are my friend....you can do....." and the so called irresponsible and corrupt and so called "networking" trends and more recently the working in "Partnerships" initiatives and the "me, me, look at me or blowing your own trumpet" ethics of work AND lets not forget Academia, are no so true and painfully close to the mark.
It simply is!
It's happening right now!
Across any governmental orientated organisation, including the NHS.
Why is this occurring? Again simply because too much tax payers money is being thrown around to "unlimited" fat cat budget holders who in the majority of cases stiffle any degree of correct reason and proper action and functioning of any division.
There is no accountability, rule of law or code of ethics.
Nothing!
It stays with the who is my friend and who will tow the line and who will not say anything.
And they do not say anything,
BECAUSE financially is better being part of the dehumanisation machine ....controlling everything .....because it pays the good lunches, the good old expense accounts, ....etc.
Sounds familiar......
Yes, you know is TRUE......
But heck ....who cares?????
Zimbawe, Burma here we come we are pretty fast catching up with you! ... not long just wait a little longer for us ..... I love corruption! Great Stuff.....
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#71 spdgodofcheese
Brown may have made a bad call by inviting Digby Jones into a ministerial position.
But, surely, if you want to expand the thinking methods, you have to take a chance?
I was brought up to believe that people in civil service (tax-payer funded) roles did a good job. Don't doubt that. Never did.
But if governments hire people to do really useless things, you have to wonder. Not about the civil service - just about the idiots who need to hire people to examine completely hypotheses...
I bet that any decent commercial management (that obviosuly excludes most bankers) would question why we - the tax-payers - have to pay for all those advisors around ministers.
Brown is now talking in billions. A billion here, plus a billion there, and it soon amounts to a reason income...
I bet that you could take GBP20Million out of ministerial advisors and make no difference to effective government.
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derekbarker
Clearly the points made above regarding your Profumo post are too subtle for you.
Just to be clear therefore, you should withdraw what you wrote at 63, and an apology wouldn't go amiss as well.
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#84
jrperry, If your unhappy with the post then refer it? Look, what he did after the deed is of a latter reference.
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#63, 78 derekbarker
Prescott
Hain
Mandelson (Twice, third pending)
Blunkett (Twice)
Straw
Woolas
Vaz
Blair
Robinson
Cunningham
Byers
Jowell
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6. thecuckoosnest
Some more Oymorons for you:
Public sectors workers
Ministerial accountability
PrimeMinsters question time
Labour Party mainifesto
Peter Mandlesons disclosure
Gordon Browns Prudence
Ohh Im off to bed.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
85 derekbarker
You wrote an historically inaccurate, pejorative post about a man who earnt back the respect that he had earlier shed by his own actions. You did so in order to make a cheap political point. A point which was therefore incompetent.
There isn't any point in referring it - it doesn't actually break any of the forum rules. For example, it isn't libel, since the man is now dead.
I think your thoroughly rotten post 63, the subsequent reasonable criticism of it, and now your disgraceful inability to apologise for it, serve as a suitable monument for the final shattering of the last vestiges of your reputation as a blogger.
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I agree with Digby all the way. I've worked in the both private and public sector and I have to tell the commentators on here that the pay is most not less than the private sector.
There are a significant number of low paid roles but the pay is no different from equivalent roles I saw in the private sector. This endless bleating about public sector being paid less is frankly a complete myth the began in the distant past but certainly doesn't apply now. For their overall package public sector workers are compensated well enough with the real public sector fat cats only existing really at the civil service top. At that high level the civil service employee really has their piggy face in the trough.
That said, the fact remains there is gross overstaffing and real privilages in particular the inflated pension that those in the private sector can only dream about. There will come a time when that resentment of public sector employee benefits boils over forcing the government to change the benefit structure.
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I worked in the Border and Immigration Agency for a year, and I agree with Sir Digby. It's the worst atosphere I've ever worked in, but the plave is staffed with great people.
But managers seem to favour radical motivational fads (all of which cost a fortune) over traditional management methods and thus have little connection with the staff who process all of the work applications from real people.
This leads to a worse service. People stop trying, instead working to hit the bare minimum targets and filling the day according to their pay- which is set to a very basic 12-14k. Not exactly inspiring.
Yet good people do their jobs every day, trying to make something better. I couldn't take being treated like an idiot by the top level management, so I left. Being back in the private sector was like a breath of fresh air: I was welcomed to the real world again.
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87. At 11:12pm on 15 Jan 2009, CarrotsneedaQUANGO2 wrote:
6. thecuckoosnest
Shame! I was on the other thread and missed this lovely oxymoron game:
Civil servant
Nu Labour socialist
Lord (sic) Mandelson
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the civil service are to productivity what Stalin was to democracy.
More proof of Nulabours 11years of taking from the productive and giving to the unproductive.
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Nick ,
I notice on your blog there have been quite a few comments on here about you overdoing the bias towards Labour, I wonder if you have a spare moment you could pen your comments.
PS any updates on Mandelson and his mortgage or even his friendship with certain russians?
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Well done! Digby Jones,
You have exposed some of the wasted unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer's money of non-performing parts of overblown departments of government on non-essential part of the economy, this has to be paid for by "hard working' non-governmental (workers in the productive part of the country). Someone who has the guts to say what many of the ordinary over-taxed non-guaranteed pensioned workers in the private think, has my admiration.
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89. , jrperry
I'm sorry, but you are maligning derekbarker, who is in my opinion an acurate reporter of this sordid tale. I remember the case well, and there is no point in shooting the messenger. Even if Profumo was not dead, there could be no cause for crying 'libel' since only truth is stated.
You write, in an earlier posting .....
From a short time after his resignation through to his death, Profumo worked as a volunteer at Toynbee Hall (a charity working against deprivation in the East End). He actually started there cleaning the toilets, and required a lot of persuasion to take on a more prominant role. Most reasonable people consider he salvaged his reputation through his charitable work.
Perhaps you will not find me reasonable, for I see something very disturbed in his anxiety to clean toilets. I have studied psychiatry, but here is not the place to expand on this. In certain conditions, the scourge can render the sinner a clean conscience, and the lavatory scourer obviously served this purpose.
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63 Derek
Im glad you mentioned sleaze Derek, heres a list of your heros to chew over:
http://www.labour-watch.com/sleaze.htm
night night
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|Concerning Derek and an apology for the Profumo comment.
True to Nulabour they do not do apologies only blame.
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Dear Nick (All)
Please do not go and start complaining about the openness of MP's over their expense claims.
Nothing will change and there is nothing us tax payers can do about it, and they know that.
This bunch of 'Honourable Members' have snouts well and truly plastered in our money and will keep on going until the end.
Xxxx
Next election, DO NOT VOTE for anyone!
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#97
Morning Carrots, In return.
http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/blog/2007/11/tory-sleaze.html
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Dear 97 and 100,
Please note,
The only difference between CONservatives and (Za)Nu(Improved)Labour is that one party has CONVICTED crooks in it and the other is peopled by HONOURABLE(?) members.
The party in power is innocent until booted out.
Even Mandyson is unconvicted.
Xxxx
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Nick, I am going to refer to you as 'Chemical Ali' from now on - the enemies are coming in through the gates, all is lost and you are predicting that (your employer) will be victorious, because that is your job.
You did not over-play the green shoots comment yesterday, in fact 50% of your article refers to someone 18 years ago making the same comment..... is that fair and balanced reporting??
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Derek
Intersting story that if I recall
Aitkin given 18 months for perjuy, essentially lieing about a stay in a hotel (who paid for it)
His life was destroyed as he became bankrupt, divorced and imprisoned.
In prison, Aitken turned to God and on his release he studied theology.
Inside he became "the geezer with joined up writing", and wrote letters for his fellow cons.
Now Im dead against sleaze on all sides, but just for a second compare this story with Peter Mandleson or the many other sleaze stories in my list on Labour.
Both as sleazy as each other but comapre the punishments and rewards of say the Aikin story and the Mandleson story.
The other point thats woth a mention is that Aitkin was signed up to head a review of prisons
Doubt he was even paid for it and if he was it wouldnt be taxpayers money and all this after after 8 years of being in the wilderness. Such rewards.
Now compare this with twice discraced Mandleson and his lucrative posting to the EU, his one million pound golden handshake, made a Lord and effectively installed as deputy PM a few years later.
Derek.. you shouting about Tory sleaze is akin to Gordon Brown telling me not to waste food just before he flies off for an 18 course bankquet to discuss world poverty.
In short....... TOTALLY POINTLESS
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Wonder if Nick will lead with this today
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2009/01/a-good-day-to-a.html
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#104
Carrots, I referred to an incident in the 1960's. You then decided to turn the issue to sleaze.
By the way. If someone commits a crime as a policeman do they get an Inspectors job when they are released from jail?.
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" I was amazed how many people frankly deserved the sack, and yet that was the one threat that they never ever worked under because it doesn't exist as long as they're being not criminal or whatever."
This is is common across all government. I work in an NHS department and this statement could apply to 50% of the people here too.
It's a cliche because it's true - you cannot get the sack from a government job short of doing something illegal. Certainly you need never actually do your job properly.
The most that will happen is that you may get transferred to somewhere where your incompetence won't actually kill someone, probably as a promotion.
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105
Yes, If your name is Peter Mandelson
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Re #343
Bang on!
Plus, unfortunately for Labour Mr Digby Jones has just told everyone exactly where £50bn could be found!
This is a real kick in the teeth for Labour. They can no longer say the Tory sums don't add up. He is stating that 230,000 should be booted out of public sector jobs because they are a waste of space.
At an average of £17,000 a year, which is an underestimate, this is a saving of £4bn per annum. Labour have been in charge for 11 years now - so have wasted £44bn.
Tories only need to find £6bn over the next 10 years - the sums do add up. Scrapping ID cards should do it.
Much as it pains me to say it, because neither are electable!
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Unfortunately for Labour Mr Digby Jones has just told everyone exactly where £50bn could be found - the cost of the loan guarantee scheme if everyone defaulted!
This is a real kick in the teeth for Labour. They can no longer say the Tory sums don't add up. He is stating that 230,000 should be booted out of public sector jobs because they are a waste of space.
At an average of £17,000 a year, which is an underestimate, this is a saving of £4bn per annum. Labour have been in charge for 11 years now - so have wasted £44bn.
Tories only need to find £6bn over the next 10 years - the sums do add up. Scrapping ID cards should do it.
Much as it pains me to say it, because neither are electable!
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105. derekbarker
By the way. If someone commits a crime as a policeman do they get an Inspectors job when they are released from jail?.
No.. if I had my way it would be one strike and your out for politicians and I would not let them regulate themselves.
But Aitkin isnt back in any form of position of power is he, he isnt even being paid.
He just got to head up a think tank on a problem he knows a bit about.
So your point is?
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......and while everyone was concentrating on Digby, and the Baroness' comments about 'green shoots', this was what was really happening.....
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2009/01/a-good-day-to-a.html
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...sorry Carrots - just seen your comment. I'm half asleep - late shift.
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Ok off the bat here but what does a 1960’s scandal have to do with the price of fish? Or Lord Digby’s comments? The pointless meanderings about someone from the moneyed classes simply because they were a Conservative MP holds no relevance here. As far as I am aware no one is claiming that there is a scandal with Lord Digby, especially one with affairs and Russian spies.
I think most reasonable people can accept that the civil service is bloated, 50% is probably too high (goodness I hope it is) but that type of figure gets people’s attention. I am not surprised that Digby had difficulties adjusting to working with the civil service, he is a powerful man who expects people to jump when he says. I am sure certain of the mandarins took great pleasure in putting him in his place, after all he was only a junior minister. Secondly the civil service is a bureaucracy and works differently from the private sector, I am guessing there was a culture shock.
Derrick I fail to see why a backbencher whether in the House of Commons or House of Lords is being disloyal in criticising the civil service based on their experience. Please note he was not criticising the Government, even though backbenchers (not actually in the Government) hold this right indeed the duty to hold them to account.
Now I don’t particularly like Lord Digby he displays many of the characteristics of a successful businessman (not surprisingly) including a level of arrogance and ruthlessness that I find slightly repellent. However, that does not mean that I don’t respect him, nor that I simply ignore his statements. As stated before I, unlike some here, do not ignore opinions of those I dislike or do not agree with. Blind loyalty to either party I find as foolish as any other kind of blind faith, examine all the evidence so you can make an informed stance
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If Digby Jones thinks we should sack the hardworking civil servants, I wonder what he thinks of those people running our banks and big businesses?
A spell in the stocks perhaps? Followed by an eternity in the debtors prison?
Perhaps not, they're his mates so he'd probably tow the government line and blame it all on America.
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Nick,
I think that yesterday we actually witnessed the last rites of this most discredited parliament in history. I do not exagerate because we should know better. Past parliaments had the excuse of deference and obedience this one is shameful.
Yesterday John McDonnell was expelled because he moved the Mace. We are now approaching the 40th anniversary, 16th January, of the suicide of Jan Palach, who burnt himself to death in Prague because of the Soviet/Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968.
The link is that in 1969 the Czech authorities attempted to keep the suicide of Jan under wraps, not to let it be known why this man set himself alight and subsequently died of his injuries. They tried to bury bad news. The news was spread by word of mouth, the people could not be silenced.
The news that Hoon released to parliament yesterday about the new runway at Heathrow is just typical of the man. He is an afront to the democratic process, of course there must be a vote in the House of Commons. Just as we were lied to over the War in Iraq and the reasons for the attack this is comparable. None of these shamed politicians will be around when the damage to the environment will become apparent. They talk about 2050, I mean I will be a hundred by then, what are they going to do, stand up and say I am so sorry I got it wrong. But hey don't worry somebody will work out how we destroyed the planet.
Link with your blog on Digby Jones. I wish that he, and anybody like him told the truth whilst they could actually do something about it. A bit like General Sir Mike Jackson who now makes money out of the disaster in Iraq. Who was the Minister of Defence (War) when the war was at its worst, why Geoff Hoon. Who paid for the war, the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, unelected as leader of the labour party who took over the premiership as a result of a coup.TAG.
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yellowbelly1959 wrote:
27. At 5:42pm on 15 Jan 2009, sagamix wrote:
mmmm ... just studied the photo of Lord Digby Jones - looks exactly like the sort of overfed complacent upper middle class male empty suit that we have way way too many of in positions of power and influence - in ALL sectors, not only the civil service
part of the problem, in other words, old Digby is
===
And John Prescott was what, exactly?
Um... lower class, well until he got his seat on the gravy train! Choo! Choo! Next stop the croquet lawn!
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But Aitkin isnt back in any form of position of power is he, he isnt even being paid.
He just got to head up a think tank on a problem he knows a bit about.
So your point is?
Oh, if you want political irony I would forget about Aitken or even Archer. Why would you concentrate on such small-fry when you have Tony Blair, co-instigator of Iraq War II, as a 'special peace envoy' to the Middle East.
Now come on - that is funny. Isn't it?
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Always interested to read your articles, Nick.
Mind you, I always suspected that there were too many civil servants. Gordon Brown is one te country can definitely not afford to keep!
ps. What's the exact situation now regarding Damian Green?
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#27
just studied the photo of Lord Digby Jones - looks exactly like the sort of overfed complacent upper middle class male empty suit
You need to take off your class-warrior specs there. I can confirm that that Digby Jones fills every stitch of his suits to bursting.
Unlike Gordon Brown who appears to own suits several sizes too big for him (for his big head to grow into perhaps). Or maybe his depth perception is shot what with being a myopic, economy wrecking lunatic and all.
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> derekbarker
There is no need to go back into the last century if you want example of lying to Parliament.
Tony Blair provides ample recent evidence with his WMD fabrications.
Profumo had an affair with Mandy and Christine and then resigned and took up charity work.
End of story.
Blair told Parliament his fabricated story about WMD which in turn led to death and destruction.
Not the end of the story
NuLabour legacy.
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Copied below is the leading comment from a Public Accounts Committee meeting in December
"The Department’s planning and management of this important project have been extremely poor. This case is one of the worst this Committee has seen and
responsibility for these serious weaknesses rests firmly with some of its top
officials. Regrettably, other cases before the Committee in the recent past have
shown similar poor performance by departmental senior management. To secure proper accountability, the Department must define and communicate clearly the
incentives for success and the penalties for failure in projects such as this, including
the expectation of the termination of employment contracts and naming those
responsible."
Yesterday we have another report from the same committee
The implementation of Defence Information Infrastructure has suffered from major delays. Whereas 62,800 terminals
should have been installed by the end of July 2007, only 45,600 were in place at the end of September 2008. The main causes of delay were the Programme’s over-optimistic assumptions about the condition of the buildings into which DII would be fitted, and the consequent selection of an inappropriate and unresponsive methodology for
installing terminals. The DII Programme also provides a range of core software such as word processing, email, internet access and security to run on the new system. This should all have been available in June 2006, but less than half of the requirement had been delivered two years later in June 2008.
Does this sound like Civil service competence? Will any heads roll?
Nick , it's obviously up to you how you question ministers but surely they should be made to respond to continuing fiascos like this. There are literally dozens of reports like these from the PAC during the life of this administration and yet no-one ever seems accountable.
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Digby should never have left Dan Dare to fly with Crash Gordon.
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derek
You want a good example of the lies and deception of this government?
Dr. David Kelly.
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"Frankley the job could have been done with half many"
So you see the Tories can do cuts to save the tax payer money.
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The Telegraph includes this comment:
"A Commons committee report published today said that the complex system of interlinked public bodies, funding sources and rules for skills training is a "dog's breakfast", impenetrable to everyone apart from possibly a few civil servants and a handful of academics."
I'm sorry to say this is a good example of how governments get things wrong.
If the individuals who need skills training, or the companies who want to organise it for their staff, find it hard to work out exactly who can offer what and when, then the system is a mess.
This administration has always confused "change" and "progress".
I can go along with quite a few of the "ideas" dropped into sound-bites, but the delivery has been absolutely rotten.
In government (just like in business), it's not what you say you're going to do, it's what you actually deliver that counts.
That's my main beef with this lot... Far too much money being wasted on badly thought-through "initiatives".
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123. Dan Dare, Crash Gordon - love it!
He certainly thinks Black Ace will help soon!
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I spent 26 years as a civil servant in the Department of Employment, mostly in Head Office. I found it demoralising because much of the work was pointless. People got stressed because they wanted to do something worthwhile but the system pretty much prevented them. But I can say that when elements of the work were privatised, the cost to the taxpayer became higher still. The only positive action that can be taken is for governments to do fewer things. Not much chance of that, whoever is elected.
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The Heathrow decision is certainly interesting.
One aspect of the submissions in evidence was that new aircraft would be introduced with specific configurations and fuel efficiency/ emission levels.
When challenged on TV, the spokesperson from BAA admitted that aircraft manufacturers had no plans for such aircraft.
No doubt this was taken into consideration by the Minister... (and his hard working civil servants).
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derekbarker wrote:
#97
Morning Carrots, In return.
http://www.richardcorbett.org.uk/blog/2007/11/tory-sleaze.html
So your response to a long list of articles about Labour sleaze is a single blog article (written by a Labour MEP!) that attacks the Tories for appointing 1 ex-minister to an internal group simply because he was jailed for perjury?
I would have thought that getting jailed for perjury would be an occupational hazzard for an MP - on the whole they hardly seem the most honest of people!
I am sure that if it was New Labour they would have spun it as the party doing their best to help an ex-criminal who has served his debt to soceity!
I have to say that is a pretty weak response and it isn't even a recent article - how long did you have to search to find it? I would have thought that there would be a lot better stuff out there and certainly more recent!
For a political party this level of sleaze would be close to saint hood!
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#114
David, just making the point, it's not always how it seems?
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=afdsL23fa5s
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116 T A Griffin
Well said Gordon Brown will be 101 in that year. Lets hope when he dies they dont have to dig him up to build a runway.
Also I have just Wikipedia Our PM and his name is James Gordon Brown. Now never trust somebody who has to change their name.
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Ignore derek everyone, it is just another smokescreen diversion to deflect attention away from the real issues.
Yesterday, for instance, the announcement of a third runway to expand the capacity of Heathrow, from the Government telling us to switch to non-incandescent lamps to prevent climate change. Apparently all the additional planes at Heathrow must be emission-free?
And on the day that MPs decided not to publish full details of their expenses, on top of the odious Jack Straw amending the Fredom Of Information Act so that requests to release the information cannot be made under the FOI either.
Truly despicable.
Oh, and "derek" is obviously various people using the same nom de plume, compare the structure, grammar and punctuation of his post at #105 with some of his infamous ramblings. It's all a diversion tactic.
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We, the taxpayer, employ MPs. What other employer would allow their employees to decide their own salaries, let them claim expenses larger than their salaries, not insist on seeing receipts for justification, allow them to hide that information, and let the employee have a pension scheme paid for by the employer far better than the one the employer has themselves?
Snouts in the trough!
Oink, oink.
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The maggot on this forum who brought up the Profumo affair ,by way of excusing labour ,should know that he was forced to resign because he LIED.Harold Macmillan could NOT believe that someone would LIE in parliament.
Changed days eh?
We all KNOW we are being LIED to on a regular basis,
But the BIGGEST LIE was the one about Iraq, "This is NOT about Regime change, this is about WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION capable of deployment in 45 minutes"
A Mars bar to the first person to identify the LIAR who said that!
PS Profumo went on to atone for his " sin ", will our Tone even acknowledge his?
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If not misquoted at least we now know why our country is in such a mess!
Capitalists care about money not people and Digby-Jones exposes the extent of a major problem in Britain. To many people being paid for doing nothing, or nearly so.
All bull, not forgetting of course, the waste product, bullsh** While he may be able to make money, he apparently can't talk without contradicting himself.
If the civil service could be reduced by half in size we must have 100% of that 'workforce' doing half a job but getting full pay! And that's honest?
Oh! I forgot. John Major told us moist politicians were honest, sincere hard working people too!
Forget New World Order - the truth should finally dawn - they think we are all THICK.
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129 fairlyopenmind
Perhaps there is going to be big aircrafts made out of paper that are pushed of tall buildings.
No noise, no pollution and then James Gordon Brown will wake up and have his Coco pops and read The Beano before a hard days work.
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Another interesting snippet from the Telegraph...
"...Public bodies which responded to Freedom of Information requests from the (TaxPayers) alliance included the Office of Fair Trading, English Heritage and the Rural Payments Agency.
Three quarters reported an increase in their communications budgets. The biggest rise was at the Identity and Passport Service, where the number of PR staff rose by 17 to 56. The PR spend increased by £700,000 to £8.5million.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence saw its budget increase by 14 per cent to £4.4million and numbers of staff were up by 10 to 50."
So, QANGOs obviously need a bit of PR.
But does anyone doubt that costs could be reduced at the drop of a hat (or a spin-merchant)?
Of course, with so many graduates in "Media Studies", I suppose someone has to think they are a "great investment in the future of the UK"...
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#130
I would have thought that getting jailed for perjury would be an occupational hazzard for an MP - on the whole they hardly seem the most honest of people!
Indeed I see Aitken getting jailed for perjury whereas Blair et al are still at large as further evidence of the breakdown of law and order under this Labour government.
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Dear Nick
I totally agree with Digby Jones as an ex E.O in the civil service i can honestly say, That Civil Service Upper Management is extremly por, and that applies to the very top,
MOD procurment and I.T. departments are at the top of thelist.
AND, ------BBC political journalists rank on par in terms of letting Politicains off the hook when interviewing .
Interview Questions nver hit the mark you are too soft,Especially Andrew Marr ---------- Gordon Brown????
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Surely the issue to be addressed here is not Lord Jones' comments per se, but the message contained within them?
I think he said that during WWII the British government managed well enough with half the number of ministers we have today. Lord Jones also suggested that we could probably manage with half the number of civil servants currently on the state payroll (I seem to recall that there are now more bureaucrats in the MoD than there are soldiers in the British Army).
One wonders if/when we're ever going to take a knife to our bloated public sector? We must start taking some of the strain off people like me in the private sector finding it increasingly difficult to handle the fact that such huge amounts of our tax are wasted on public sector profligacy.
Worth bearing in mind that if you include all of the weird off-balance sheet stuff and other liabilities that this government is so keen to (try to) hide from us mere mortals, then UK debt stands at some 157% of GDP and will rise to 251% of GDP by 2010 (http://tinyurl.com/5c63cy)
How on earth are we supposed to accommodate this level of national debt whilst Gordon Brown remains hell bent on sustaining his land of milk and honey aka the public sector?
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132 maggyisgod
Not surprised Gordy changed his name.
James Brown eh?!
Git down wit' yo baad self.
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142 shellingout
He could be the Godfather of Parliment.
But why change the name?
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maggyisgod wrote:
116 T A Griffin
Also I have just Wikipedia Our PM and his name is James Gordon Brown. Now never trust somebody who has to change their name.
Now that is unfair - it is obvious why he changed it, can you imagine the jokes if he was still called James Brown?
Although, it is hardy changing his name as plenty of people go by their middle name (in my Dad's family he is the only one of the 4 who was known by his first name!)
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Unfunded Pension Liabilities ( copied from The Market Oracle)
Whilst private sectors pensions are determined by what the market will pay at retirement on the basis of the pension fund values and annuity rates, the tax payer picks up the tab for public sector worker pensions that receive up to 2/3rds of final salaries.
The public sector has no growing pension fund which means public sector pensions are paid out of the current contributions with the shortfall made up by the tax payer, which has resulted in a huge pensions time bomb that is estimated at a liability of £996 billion and growing, as more public sector workers retire into longer retirements, so will the gap between contributions and pension payments widen which will result in a pensions time bomb exploding that will hit tax payers hard and act as an annual public sector pensions tax on tax payers.
........................................
Why hasn't anyone at the BBC picked up on this - are you all half asleep? This really is disastrous for the economy!
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143 maggyisgod
He could be the Godfather of Parliment.
..............................
Er...no thanks. I just got a mental picture and it ain't pretty.
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114 T A Griffin
Sorry, but look at the jokes he tell every week when he has changed it.
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#105 derekbarker
If someone commits a crime as a policeman do they get an Inspectors job when they are released from jail?
In a word, NO.
They don't go to jail, evidence is lost, not collected, not tested and is destroyed. 'Independant' judge dismisses case and all involved get to retire early on medical grounds, and with payouts of between 44,000 and 66,000 pounds sterling.
I refer of course to the death of Christopher Alder.
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Waste and inefficiency isn't found soley in the public sector. Every private sector company has the same situation - staff who could easily be let go with little impact on the profitability of the company. The credit crunch arose from irresponsible lending in the private sector, after all.
The big difference is, of course, that if a private company is wasteful it doesn't affect us too much whereas we are all paying for public sector waste. Plus of course all those gold plated pensions, which will be accounting for and more of our tax as the years roll on.
Gordon will never do anything about this as the public sector (along with the welfare underclass) is one of Labour's main voting blocs. He would also rather keep people in non-jobs than see unemployment figures rise.
Until the tories get in we'll all continue paying for non-jobs, and having less money to invest in our own retirement to pay for someone elses.
Rather unfair, whichever way you look at it.
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Yellow Belly. Re proposed runway, it's interesting to hear that BOTH our London mayors, Boris and Ken, oppose it.
The argument about the planes being emission free - I gather we will still be using the same planes as now, in twenty years time, ie NOT enviromentally sound.
On Question Time in Leeds last night there was applause for a third airport in that area to redress the balance of everything being down here.
I don't know what Brown's thinking / motive is, but I really don't trust him.
Re: Barking. He is almost illiterate and it's a case of "they're coming to take me away haha" with him.
Best to give him the thumbs down and ignore, the men in white coats will get him soon and confiscate his PC.
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So....absolute U-turn on the freedom of information regarding MPs expenses.
And where is Nick NuLabour Robinson?
A mace protest in the house, over Heathrow plans.
And where is Nick NuLabour Robinson?
Hasn't been given his story yet by Mandelson and Draper.
Time for an election.
Time for a change of staff at the BBC.
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BBC can't even be bothered to put the expenses or mace protest story on the front page.
Instead we have more American news.
What a surprise.
The BBC is no longer fit-for-purpose, and should be dismantled.
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DukeJake wrote:
Until the tories get in we'll all continue paying for non-jobs, and having less money to invest in our own retirement to pay for someone elses.
Rather unfair, whichever way you look at it.
No matter what party gets in there will still be people paid in the public sector who have non-jobs.
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Not surprised Gordy changed his name.
James Brown eh?!
Ohhhhhhhhh.
Just another million or so unemployed (give it till September) and the Tories can print up an new poster borrowing from their 1979 'Labour's not working'......
James 'Gordon' Brown - The Godfather of Dole.
I thank you.
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Regarding BarkingMad....quote
"Wow! some people even thought that Industrial related diseases like say! "ASBESTOSES" was a condition payed for in the wage packet.
Many miners were effected by a condition called "ANTHRACOSIS" some people questioned whether such a disease existed?"
Nobody in their right mind can give the person that wrote this any credence as it has no pertinence to the subject being discussed .
Just like his diatribe against John Profumo.
I've said it before..and say it again...
Ignore him..retaliation only feeds the ego of a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
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De-humanising ? He should try being a civil servant. I've just retired as one.
I'd be interested to hear if he meant all grades of civil servants cut be cut by half because my experience of 3 main departments I worked in would not support what he says.
In the early 90's I did recommend in a paper that the Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise should merge as parts of both did the same thing to the same people but my idea was rubbished by senior civil servants. Protecting their jobs ?
Finally I am always amazed that people like Digby Jones and other private sector promoters highlight the cost to the country of employing civil servants but keep quiet about the even greater cost of lost revenue through the black economy.
Every day I come across self employed and business people who are not declaring income for tax purposes. This problem is a massive one that is not being tackled. And these people are the ones who moan the most about civil servants, illegal immigrants, benefit scroungers etc.
Sure these other problems need to be addressed but why doesn't Digby-Jones talk about tax fraud in the private sector.
I've suggested abolition or major reduction of income taxes and major increase of road fuel duties which these tax dodgers can't avoid. Legitimate people could then claim rebates through the tax system.
If these private sector criminals paid their dues the country would be in a much better state.
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yellowbelly1959 @133 wrote:
"Oh, and "derek" is obviously various people using the same nom de plume, compare the structure, grammar and punctuation of his post at #105 with some of his infamous ramblings. It's all a diversion tactic."
'derek' provided autobiographical background information that indicated that he was a chippy socialist Scot.
Surely there can't be more than one....
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Regarding the Heathrow expansion, I have heard alternative proposals which seem to make more sense.
They are to build a brand new airport in the Thames estuary, away from the population centre of London so there is no fly over (can anybody imagine an airline pilot trying to land a stricken airliner on the Thames as happened in New York yesterday on the Hudson?).
This could have state of the art facilities, lower environmental impact, and it would be easier to keep an airport flood-free than the barmy Prescott plans to build housing there.
Heathrow could then be re-developed as housing and business, with good transport links already in place, M25 and light railway link to London.
It would be a nice big construction project, lots of jobs which are needed at the moment, give London a safer, more environmentally-friendly airport, and provide a site for housing expansion where the infrastructure is already in place.
Simple, really.
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OnTopic – Maybe moist politicians can be trusted, it’s the dry ones that a bunch of lying bar stewards!
Sorry, I hang my head in shame
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Nick,
I can see no point in you responding to any criticism of spending too much time on the Baroness Vadera case, as you never respond to similar criticism of non-stories involving Conservatives, instead you usually produce another non-story involving the Conservatives. I would suggest that your previous blog is simply redressing some of the balance to your posts, and should be left without further examination.
In response to Lord Digby Jones view of the Civil Service, it is odd that on each occasion when politicians seek to reduce waste, it seems to result in yet more civil servants, and yet more government intervention.
Rather than start from the view that there are too many staff for the current workload, why not seek to ensure that the activities of government are beneficial in the first place, and if not then remove those areas from their remit. Perhaps then we might see a reduction in the public sector. Yet again, I am not holding my breath.
ATB
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Regarding our glorious Leader - James Gordon Brown.
Makes all those trolls on here who refer to the shadow Chancellor as Gideon look a bit foolish and hypocritical, doesn't it?
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I do enjoy Derek Barking's posts, it's like a New Labour Lord Haw-Haw.
He should quit while he's behind but I'm glad he doesn't.
I'm sure there's an equivalent to Derek in Zimbabwe who says, "that Mugabe - slag him off, but he's pretty good when it comes to the economy".
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yellowbelly1959 @ 158
I agree with the proposal for a brand new airport in the Thames Estuary but The Times leader today scoffs at that idea because it says the location is 'too far away'.
It is not far away all at ... if one considers the option of using the existing waterway that is, the Thames itself, to shift people from a new Estuary airport into the City of London.
Such poverty of thinking from the Thunderer is quite unusual but maybe there are other vested interests at play ... that often turns out to be the case ... once the 30 year rule has elapsed.
Who put the 'moc{k}' in democracy?
Seems highly likely that the English did.
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#158
Yellowfellow, reality or what?
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/directory/c/cameron.asp
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#154
Godfather of Dole - genius!
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The Heathrow expansion wheeze (more a con really) will not work at all well. All large international airports in the world have an even number of runways, mainly for safety reasons - one for landing and one for takeoff.
Using the third runway for landing and takeoff is a major headache and very stressful for Air Traffic Control and airplane pilots. With the high number of planes stacking in the South east of England waiting to land at Heathrow, Northolt, Gatwick, Luton, Stanstead, City Airport the pressure to get the plane down first time is immense.
The added proposal to extend opening times for the airport does not wash. Domestic UK flying is governed by the availability (opening times) of the other UK airports. Bit pointless flying from Heathrow to Glasgow at 1 am when Glasgow Airport is closed!
Secondly most international flights take off and land at similar times as per the destination. Flights to north America are mostly slotted between 10 am and 3 pm. The plane makes the return journey after a few hours and arrives the next day. This will not change.
As for Heathrow being the business hub, and being essential for economic growth, this is complete hogwash. The terminals are grotty, overflowing toilets or urinals are too common. Eateries are overpriced, higiene is an after thought. The arrival halls are too small and cramped, and for the reasons stated in the para above 3 or 4 flights worth of baggage will be on one carousel.
Heathrow is a thoroughly depressing experience, the only good thing is the Paddington Express. I am seriously considering Eurostar to Paris and flying from Paris Charles de Gaulle the next time I go to North America. I am aware that many British businessmen do this already, hence BA's desperation to have more runways. Yup, you don't think that BAA and BA will settle just for a third runway do you?
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Yay first post referred to the Mods!
Right cannot mention the word bar with a particular other word beginning with s, especially in jest and about politicians.
Either that or don't make poor jokes!
On a more serious note, see the Tories are warning businesses off investing in the 3rd runway. Hmmm not sure how I feel about that one, then again if the Government can just decide these things without a debate I supose its fine.
So it could be enviromentalist voting blue and big business voting red, how the world's changed!
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This is a man who has worked in business all his life and he is telling the truth. He has nothing to gain or slant to add politically or financially from these comments and it paints a terrible picture. The sooner we can slim down government the better.
As for overdoing the comments yesterday, finally you are seeing what we are all seeing. You have a duty to report and embarrass where required. It is your prerogative to report and rightly so I say, especially following the comments during a week that 40k plus have lost their jobs. At best it is highly insensitive and showing a lack of judgment.
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Re 156
Sorry but you are conflating two quite distinct issues.
Certainly its not OK to condone tax evasion but that actually has little to do with the efficiency with which the raised taxes are then spent!
The only correlation I can find is that if we could capture the available efficiency savings, then taxation could be reduced which would immediately reduce the amount of tax being evaded!
Inefficiency does no-one any favours, but especially those who pick up the bill.
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Although he's keen for all these hard-working, intelligent civil servants to be sacked, what about the management consultants,
They do the job that the Civil Service Managers Should be doing.
outsource firms (who lose our data)
As do Civil Service people, ministers etc (Laptops, Trains anyone?).
and PR firms?
Plenty of those introduced by the current Govt
I imagine they probably cost the exchequer rather more per head.
Quite possibly, but think of the unemployment if they werent used.
Oh, silly me, just remembered he's ex-CBI. Of course he must be in favour of businesses ripping-off the country.
*Cough* and MP's Expenses dont do this?
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@ no. 48
Salaries of civil servants are widely seen as inflated as tv and radio stars in this country. The party that curbs these either by law or taxation will gain votes.
I'm a civil servant. I earn less than 20K including London working. Is my salary vastly inflated? If I want to progress from my grade I have to take a test, which they have a lot of restrictions before you can take that. the next grade up is only paid a grand or so more.
Digby Jones worked in a very small government department, staffed mostly by the senior grades. Most of them could be got rid of because from what I've seen management is useless.
I don't mind getting rid of staff if there is a need for it. What I object to is getting rid of long serving staff and then employing expensive consultants for more than double the cost. However that's ok because they don't appear on the payroll figures or staffing levels, the consultancy costs are paid from a seperate budget.
Ask a government department how much they spend on consultants, contractors, special advisers etc and they won't be able to give you an accurate figure. I can guarantee it is a darn sight more than the wage bill.
If people want to go after waste in the civil service, fine but go after these expensive consultants, and contractors first. A lot of them are complete wastes of space. If you think it is difficult to sack Civil Service it is exactly the same for this lot and they are costing the tax payer even more.
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To be fair I thought Digby-Jones dehumanised himself by taking the job in the first place. All he could ever be was a fig-leaf for an indecent government.
I agree there needs to be reform of the Civil Service but the first task is to depoliticise it. There are many exceptional civil servants who do a difficult job and it is improper to disparage people who work in an institution that this government has done all in its power to undermine.
All government in this country is expensive. Much of it is inefficient and some parts incompetent. The reason for that is poor management which is everything to do with national attitudes and culture. The nature of Digby-Jones' outburst is as much part of the problem as well.
Corruption tends to be found more in how political parties operate and local government than anywhere else.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
71. At 8:43pm on 15 Jan 2009, spdgodofcheese wrote:
It was quite clear to all around him(GB), that Lord Jones would be a backstabber. The only person not to see this was GB himself...Bless!!
You mean he doesnt even spot his own behaviour patterns in others?
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Nick,
let's build a new airport in the Thames estuary. On the same day a plane in America is brought down, apparently by a flock of geese.
What habitually live near river estuaries, why geese and other birds. I know let's kill all the birds, they are threat to our economic future.TAG.
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As the BBC have kindly hidden their video of the mace protest deep in their archives already, or even removed it, less than a day after it occurred, here's a link:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XTJL1h74tQU
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Ouch? OUCH? Is that all you have to say? One of the top business minds in the country (apparently... according to Labour and the BBC at least, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions there) thinks that the civil service could be cut by half and the most you've got to say is "ouch."
It's our money paying for these people, our money paying for their gold plated pensions.
Perhaps Digby Jones should do a stint at the BBC. I'm pretty sure he would be able to make the same assessment. Bet you'd have more to say than "ouch".
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Clearly the initial comments attributed to Digby Jones are what he really thinks, his subsequent contradictory explanations are a furious backtracking exercise in an attempt to unruffle the feathers of his Political masters. Stand up for yourself man!
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136#
"Moist politicians?"
Ewwwwwww........ Dont think I want to go there..... :-)
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Has Mandelson been on the phone then?
If you pen a response to the Vadera comments, perhaps you will also respond to the comments that you overdid the Osbourne story? I can but dream of such a thing...
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#166 Barking Derek
Cartoons, eh?
No matter how you dress a turd, it's still a turd.
And the public has seen the Labour party for what it is. Bring on the election.
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173#
Being a contractor currently working for the civil service, I recognise what you're saying to be true. There is a lot spent on contractors.
But how did it get that bad? Why does the expertise have to be brought in from outside rather than existing in-house?
Civil service pay on offer not attracting the level of new talent needed?
Or, a lot of works being project based only for a finite lifetime, hence lots of people in and out of the redeployment pool? I was a manpower sub for a job recently where it was business critical and despite being a C2 grade, there was not even a sniff of interest in over 26 weeks. I took it on for 3 months, enjoyed it, 4 people applied for it; 2 of them never bothered turning up for the selection centre (another stifling peice of bureaucracy if ever there was, to engineer the figures and create more work), and the two that got through to interview didnt answer the questions the way they were supposed to. You'll know what I'm referring to.... but they wouldnt extend my contract because there were 4 potential candidates.
That left me scratching around for another contract because mine wasnt extended. And, now there were no candidates, the mission critical post is gapped. Again.
Address the deficiencies in capabilities and training gaps and there might not be the need for so many contractors.
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Where's the story of the expenses being hidden from us?
Nick, hello, are you there?
Or do you only surface to rubbish the Tories, and when it comes to holding our elected government to account, you're down the boozer?
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This is a bit odd: (taken from the guardian):
Civil service union chiefs branded the peer "narrow-minded, naive and insulting", forcing Gordon Brown to step in to quell the row.
"I think you will find that the civil service is full of honest, decent people who work hard," the prime minister's official spokesman said.
Giving evidence to a public administration committee hearing on good government, Jones said underperforming civil servants were moved sideways instead of sacked and that taxpayers deserved better value for money.
"[Politicians] come up against an organisation, the civil service, which is honest, stuffed full of decent people who work hard, but frankly the job could be done with half as many," he said.
Is 'Honest, decent people who work hard' the standard government line on the civil service or something? Why was the government spokesman's response almost exactly what Digby said? How is that any kind of rebuttal?
"I think civil servants are lovely, but the same output could be achieved with half of them"
"How dare you, I think you will find civil servants are lovely"
"Yes, I said that, but they are not actually achieving much"
"I'm not here to discuss facts, just to say that they are lovely."
I've got work to do.
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#173 fomerworker
I agree with you about the consultants. If you bring them in you have to monitor them rigorously otherwise they walk over you, do not deliver the promised product. They will promise the impossible just to get their foot in the door especially on IT projects.
A company I used to work for brought in consultants to replace a mainframe. Total cost GBP 2.5 billion. Result mainframe not replaced; new system for new business only; easy calculations adding and subtracting worked OK; anything complicated like multiplication and division was a big task for them; surrender penalties had to be worked out manually. The company sued and got back GBP 700 million in an out of court settlement. I will not get away with naming the consultants, but they have done a lot of IT projects.
As there have been quite a few IT projects making the headlines for all the wrong reasons, why have Whitehall not sued? Remember the De Lorean car factory fiasco in Belfast? Thatcher banned that consultancy for 15 years, but then somebody let them back in again. And not only did the sun shine but they have made lots of hay!
Lets also remember that the consultants frequently use foreign sub contractors to do the actual IT programming etc. So the financial benefit of work done is lost to the British economy.
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#173 fomerworker wrote:
@ no. 48
"Salaries of civil servants are widely seen as inflated as tv and radio stars in this country. The party that curbs these either by law or taxation will gain votes....
I don't mind getting rid of staff if there is a need for it. What I object to is getting rid of long serving staff and then employing expensive consultants for more than double the cost. However that's ok because they don't appear on the payroll figures or staffing levels, the consultancy costs are paid from a seperate budget."
..."If people want to go after waste in the civil service, fine but go after these expensive consultants, and contractors first. A lot of them are complete wastes of space. If you think it is difficult to sack Civil Service it is exactly the same for this lot and they are costing the tax payer even more."
A very good point.
I worked for a consultancy-led information services company. Some very bright and smart people there. Some with a working background in the industries in which they performed consultancy. And some with good a "academic" base and skill, but absolutely no idea about how business works outside of their own company.
It is sad that Blair was convinced that external consultancy was an absolute necessity for this to be changed in government. (There have been some consultants working in specialist IT or other areas for years, but the tidal wave was encouraged by Blair - and funded by Brown...)
If you use a consultant sensibly, you can gain benefit.
(I've been engaged with international air logistics for decades. Deutsch Post - now the biggest logistics operator - called in a very famous consultancy to help it re-align products and services after a recent major purchase. After a couple of months they threw them all out. As they said "We want people to come and help us work out how to do better business. We don't want to pay very high fees to teach you what business we're in!!!)
It's always possible to throw out consultants. If they protest, just ask if you want to make a public announcement about their lack of understanding of the business area into which they sold you a service....
Question is: Why do minsiters so distrust themselves and civil servants to work out what to do?
Answer may be that they come up with half-baked ideas and need some external body to massage these into shape.
A good consultant can take a bl**dy silly idea and make it sound sensible.
But, if you took home a similar scheme, you're wife would probably bin it - and you - in minutes...
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I've seen it all before..
The government decides there are too many civil servants. Departments are forced to make 'headcount reductions' of, say, 20% which are normally achieved by voluntary means. Programmes are cut accordingly. Then a minister has an uncomfortable interview with Jeremy Paxman or someone over something that the government should be doing, but isn't doing. The minister asks his civil servants why something isn't being done. They reply that this 'something' had to be cut from the work programme due to the reduced resources. It is agreed that 'temporary' consultants should be brought in to cover the work that was previously dome by civil servants. The consultants cost about three times as much (and sometimes use the expertise of the civil servants who had previously taken redundancy). Eventually it is decided that it will be cheaper to take on some of the consultants on a permanent contract rather than continuing to use them as consultants. The size of the civil service therefore starts to increase again.
The government decides there are too many civil servants. Departments are forced to make 'headcount reductions' of, say, 20% which are normally achieved by voluntary means. Programmes are cut accordingly. Then a minister has an uncomfortable interview with Jeremy Paxman………
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fomerworker wrote:
I'm a civil servant. I earn less than 20K including London working. Is my salary vastly inflated? If I want to progress from my grade I have to take a test, which they have a lot of restrictions before you can take that. the next grade up is only paid a grand or so more.
It would really depend on what you do. I am sure there are jobs in the civil service where 20k would be vastly overpaid.
However, if you were running MI5 then yes you should probably put in for a pay rise!
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Please read Office Life by Keith Waterhouse, but just substitute Civil Service for Office !!
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Sorry...
Fingers were too quick to hit send.
My comments about consultancy was supposed to have final conclusion...
While a good consultant can make a silly idea look good, the consultant you would want to invite back would probably say "I don't think this will work". He/she would then try and work with you to "bend" an idea into workable shape, or reluctantly conclude that it would be a waste of the client's money to continue...
That's a hard call for people who make money by selling service. But it avoids them (as well as the client) being made to look rediculous later!!!
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I thought I would write something a real Numpty would write, but it looks like DB beat me to it!
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Jones' attack was actually 2-fold:
1) The civil service is inefficient, and individuals are often negligent, have ridiculously large costs (eg index linked guaranteed pensions), and there's never any threat of being fired when they're clearly not fit for the job.
2) Ministers move departments too much, which means that they never have enough time to learn anything about what their job/department entails.
This means that both the civil servants and the ministers are all hopeless and also overmanned and way too expensive per person.
He was entirely correct; if the civil service was a private company they'd have gone bust many years ago because they'd have no customers/money left.
Everyone in the real world has to constantly prove their worth to keep their job, we don't get index linked guaranteed pensions, and we only get to keep our jobs if the position is absolutely vital to the company, and the threat of redundancy hangs over the head of everyone in the private sector regardless of their ability/experience. Sadly for the government the total opposite is true.
Add to that the fact that the private sector is paying for 100% of those overpaid/inefficient/negligent government posts and that nobody in the government is willing to fix things, it breeds a hatred of the civil service and government from a lot of private sector workers.
Good for Jones for saying publicly what everyone else in the private sector already knows.
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TAG @ 177
Obviously an airport built near or on an estuary would have a potential problem with birds.
However, there are proven devices around e.g. the 'Airport Bird Wailer' which has been found around the world to be effective at moving birds away from the airport and its immediate environment.
In England there is often a pervasive attitude of 'can't do', which literally does not get us anywhere.
We English need a revolution in our heads first.
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195 fairlyopenmind
"While a good consultant can make a silly idea look good, the consultant you would want to invite back would probably say "I don't think this will work". He/she would then try and work with you to "bend" an idea into workable shape, or reluctantly conclude that it would be a waste of the client's money to continue..."
That's very true; that's our company's approach too; the way we see it is that people contract us for our skills in the subject that they're getting us to look at rather than simply to physically do exactly what's requested; we don't simply do what's asked, we analyse what's being asked and see if there's a better way of doing it. If the request doesn't make sense then we say so, and (if we're being paid) we explain how to improve things. Decent contractors will be prepared to be honest with their employer; often turning down work from someone to keep their reputation and to let that client realise that they're a trustworthy contractor for future projects.
When I see companies have bids in the 10's of millions for a government computer system accepted, and I know that that system could easily be analysed/developed/tested/released by a handful of true experts within 12 months it makes my heart bleed, but the government likes big bids from big companies; they don't like contractors who know what they're doing.
That's why all the government IT systems are so expensive and always fail. In fact that's why the entire government and public services run at such an insane cost; there are no experts in the government to know when they're being conned.
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yellowbelly1959 @133 wrote:
"Oh, and "derek" is obviously various people using the same nom de plume, compare the structure, grammar and punctuation of his post at #105 with some of his infamous ramblings. It's all a diversion tactic."
Well either that or he sobered up.
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Spending by quangos on PR up a quarter despite looming economic downturn.
Nice to know that whilst the rest of us get a kicking, Duff Gordon lavishes money on these worthwhile causes.
Carrots, have you had your wedge yet?
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""I'm a civil servant. I earn less than 20K including London working. Is my salary vastly inflated? If I want to progress from my grade I have to take a test, which they have a lot of restrictions before you can take that. the next grade up is only paid a grand or so more."
You are a perfect example of the point Digby Jones is making. If you had either talent or initiative you would get of your backside and find a another job that paid better. But you prefer to spend you time whining and waiting for your nice index-linked pension , paid for by other people's taxes.
As Norman Tebbit rightly said: "on your bike".
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Could Digby Jones' comments be applied to the Commons and the Lords?
Surely these worthies could sustain a 10-20% cut, with the survivors working harder to look after voters' interests in constituencies neigbouring their own?
An excellent way perhaps for them to share the pain of the rest of us?
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There are generaly two types of consultant:
1) Technical types who have been involved in their field for a long time and who know their job inside out and are employed for specific skills
2) Management/PR types who will agree to sell you a service. Generaly these types know little about your business but will promise you the world anyway!
In my area (telecomms) consultants are widely used. Mostly because projects are short(ish) term and it makes sense to use them for those projects. The other reason for hiring them is also because of their technical expertese in certain areas
I have heard just about every argument from contractor versus permanent staff and have worked on both sides of the fence
There is a myth that contractors cost more - this is not true in a lot of cases. If you imagine the cost of employing HR departments, paying holidays, sick leave, insurance and then pensions (mostly final salary in the civil service) these are massively expensive. Certainly the company I work for now openly admits that it is more expensive to hire people directly than to use contractors (but a lot of this is because of the employment laws in the country I am working)
Granted this is not true for all businesses, some will be cheaper to use permanent staff - however - please don't paint all contractors with the same brush
I think we could all agree that most of the government contractors are probably taking money for old rope, but they are contractors: If they see an opportunity to make money, they will - it's the nature of the beast!
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#185 Brigidier Saunders wrote
"Being a contractor currently..."
[selling services to the public sector where, unlike regular staff, I do not receive pension or other benefits, holiday pay or sick leave, in return for a marginally elevated daily rate which relects my knowledge and experience and which goes to support the running of my business]
"...I recognise what you are saying to be true"
[Gulp] I fear our paths might have crossed in a parallel universe (not the Civil Service, I hastento add) - do you PCG?
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Having worked alongside civil servants several times during my career I can only support Digby Jones' comment. Sure, most work very hard; but their work is mostly created internally in order to justify their own existence. There is a stifling culture of ar*e-covering and responsibility-avoidance which consumes at least half of their time and ingenuity.
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This could be the start of a new policy area for the Tories and I for one would applaud them if they took up the challenge. Take one of the failing Labour Councils Tower Hamlets for example and turn it over to the private sector. Their remit would be to reduce the council tax by 10% and to still operate at present or increase level of services. With the amount of dead wood and half witted job they have they could probably get rid of 60% of the staff and still run a more efficient service. This country needs turning on it's head and the way it delivers services to the general public. I am not saying there should be no council elections just get rid of the dross providing the service or should I say none-service.
You can not get a job with the council if you show the slightest hint of intelligence as the Muppet interviewing you is probably sh one t that you will take their job of them. So better to take on an idiot then someone who may be able to do the job.
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173 fomerworker
Consultants don't cost more; they're cheaper than permanent staff in virtually every case, and infinitely more flexible.
Also you can contract them on an hourly or daily basis (no pension/insurance etc to fund) and fire them on the spot if you don't like what they do.
If the government/civil-service had any idea how to run things, they'd have a few permanent in-house experts (very highly paid; they need to be very good quality people and they need to be retained) to draw-up/manage/oversee the contracts/projects, and then farm out absolutely everything to the private sector on contracts. They'd virtually half the public services bill overnight if they did that, and it wouldn't adversely effect any services if they did it properly.
But the government/civil-service don't have such experts because the government/civil-service isn't willing to pay the going rate for competent staff; the contracts they draw up are a joke, and the people signing them on behalf of the government have no idea how the world works.
Saving money by having tons of cheap staff/managers who have no idea how to do their job is a false economy; better to get a much smaller number of people on much higher wages instead; it'd save a fortune.
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WildGardener @202,
Very true.
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203. At 3:44pm on 16 Jan 2009, iainburnshill wrote:
Could Digby Jones' comments be applied to the Commons and the Lords?
Surely these worthies could sustain a 10-20% cut, with the survivors working harder to look after voters' interests in constituencies neigbouring their own?
An excellent way perhaps for them to share the pain of the rest of us?
===
Tories plan to cut Commons by 60 MPs
By George Parker and Jean Eaglesham
Published: January 12 2009 23:18 | Last updated: January 12 2009 23:18
David Cameron plans to cut the size of the House of Commons by more than 60 MPs, under a plan radically to redraw Britain’s parliamentary map that could make it easier for the Conservatives to win elections.
Mr Cameron said an incoming Tory government would aim to cut the size of the Commons – with 650 seats at the next election – by at least 10 per cent. Safe Labour seats in Wales and the inner cities could be axed.
===
Vote Tory!
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Some of these comments are a little unfair on Civil Servants.
I'm surprised that there aren't hordes leaping to their own defence.
Ah, sorry, forgot - it's POETS day. All gone home.
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53. At 6:53pm on 15 Jan 2009, the1beard wrote:
'..We will never EVER see a reduction in the number of civil servants council workers or government hangers on NEVER.!...'
= = = = =
Oh yes we will!
If Brown doesn't do it, the IMF surely will. 'Cos they're just getting their hats and coats on and will be on their way shortly.
Seen Barclays share price today? Another one that will bite the dust unless Our Great Leader can save the day!
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"Mr Cameron said an incoming Tory government would aim to cut the size of the Commons ? with 650 seats at the next election ? by at least 10 per cent. Safe Labour seats in Wales and the inner cities could be axed."
I think that trimming the commons slightly is a good idea, however I think it is best to at least try and weight it so that each MP answers to the same number of voters.
And I wouldn't be surprised if any changes benefitted the Tories (and Lib Dems) because under the current boundaries it takes a less voters to vote for a Labour MP then a Tory or Lib Dem one (Labour have previously organised boundary changes!)
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Of course one of the reasons for the perception that the Civil Service is over-staffed is the mantra "xxxxx is an equal opportunities employer".
The First Law of Recruitment states that "in all matters Mrs Dromey-Harman must be appeased by recruiting representatives of every ethnic minority, orientation, ability and just about every other distinction known to the human race".
(A bit like the cast of "Survivors").
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201. Roll_On_2010 wrote:
Carrots, have you had your wedge yet
Lord yes, it all came months ago, plus the Yachts on order and my plan to sale the coast of England marketing carrots to families on beach holidays is all set to go this Summer.
Im resting and preparing for the trip at the moment. Its going to be gruelling.
But hey ho A Carrot Quango Chief Execs life was never going to be easy was it.
Look out for me this Summer folks Ill be the orange one on the horizon with a big carrot shaped sale.
Oh yes and I should be in the Med in Sept on the EU funded part of my marketing program.
Any ideas on how to market carrots on the ski slopes of Austria this Feb. would be very much appreciated. I have a hole in my schedule and a large wedge to spend by year end.
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53. At 6:53pm on 15 Jan 2009, the1beard wrote:
'..We will never EVER see a reduction in the number of civil servants council workers or government hangers on NEVER.!..
No your wrong its just starting, but doubt it will catch on.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/recession/4231336/Local-councils-plan-thousands-of-job-cuts.html
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213. At 5:35pm on 16 Jan 2009, Mark_WE wrote:
"Mr Cameron said an incoming Tory government would aim to cut the size of the Commons ? with 650 seats at the next election ? by at least 10 per cent. Safe Labour seats in Wales and the inner cities could be axed."
I think that trimming the commons slightly is a good idea, however I think it is best to at least try and weight it so that each MP answers to the same number of voters.
And I wouldn't be surprised if any changes benefitted the Tories (and Lib Dems) because under the current boundaries it takes a less voters to vote for a Labour MP then a Tory or Lib Dem one (Labour have previously organised boundary changes!)
===
That is exactly what Cameron's proposal is about. Here is the link:
http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/79671/Tory-bid-to-slim-down-number-of-MPs
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201. Roll_On_2010 wrote:
Carrots, have you had your wedge yet
Lord yes, it all came months ago, plus the Yachts on order and my plan to sale the coast of England marketing carrots to families on beach holidays is all set to go this Summer.
Im resting and preparing for the trip at the moment. Its going to be gruelling.
But hey ho A Carrot Quango Chief Execs life was never going to be easy was it.
Look out for me this Summer folks Ill be the orange one on the horizon with a big carrot shaped sale.
Oh yes and I should be in the Med in Sept on the EU funded part of my marketing program.
Any ideas on how to market carrots on the ski slopes of Austria this Feb. would be very much appreciated. I have a hole in my schedule and a large wedge to spend by year end.
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I am one of these Civil Servants that Mr Digby refers to. At the lower end of the Civil Service, we find ourselves making decisions which should be made by those above us, working at double speed, to cover holidays and sick leave, as there is no money available to take on more staff, and putting staff under pressure to preduce mors and more. maybe he should have tried being at this end of the Civil Service, (he is welcome to come to my office for a week!), I think his opinion may have been different!
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#217
Sic or thick? what does it mean?
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/yellow-belly.html
I hope we can meet up one day? please?
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#217
Dontcha just like the kids dance?
Ho...Ho....Ho
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TCIp7E90RgU
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Brown is surrounding himself with the chosen few doing a Blair only these are egg heads and Digby Jones well what can you say about this man, all wind and pips comes to mind the mouth piece for Brown I watched him the other night and blinded by science came to mind. We are deep trouble and we are pouring money into banks who are keeping our money so we own the banks but not according to these fools and Jones and Baroness Muck who came out and got all green it did not matter to the general public because like Alistair Campbell she had no right to be on the BBC saying anything and if she is what passed for those who know how money works well like Jones we are in the trouble we are because of them.
Brown I did have hopes for but he worked with Blair and it rubbed off on his delusions of grandeur
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This shows the innate problem Gordon Brown had when he came to the PMs office and set up the GOATs: the GOATs themselves expected change, thats why they are so successful; they get things done.
Stick them in the sticky mire that is "government" and they lose the will to live thanks to the entrenched waste and sloth.
It just shows the difference between the private and public sectors. The private sector shed lots of middle management layers in the 90's and the slimmed down management model has worked well.
The public sector model is to have front-line staff managed, assessed and observed by a whole army of non-productive staff.
Thats where a brave government can make real savings, by tackling the problem of bloated middle management and unproductive administrators.
The problem, as in the 80s is tacklng the public sector unions.
We need more front line staff, less blanket beaurocracy and less navel-gazing, league-table assessing, middle management.
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220. At 6:57pm on 16 Jan 2009, toffy22 wrote:
#217
Sic or thick? what does it mean?
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/yellow-belly.html
I hope we can meet up one day? please?
===
I have no idea what you mean, but if we do meet up you could tell me all about your successful company. ;-)
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#220, #221
Sitting next to each other are we, you aren't very subtle, are you?
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Too many civil servants is very true.
Also, why do we need two leaders of the government. Its either Brown or Mandleson, one needs to go. And what does Harriett Harman do, does anyone know.
This is a waste of taxpayers money when all is said and done.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#225
Have they got many CABS where you live
maybe if you rearrange your CABS you might find its true meaningful direction.
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Words like dehumanising, goats and half as many. Is it satyr or satire? Sounds Greek to me.
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If the private sector is so well run and so efficient why is it currently floundering and having to be bailed out ?
Why are the banks so useless that they nearly collapsed ?
Why didn't the pits work under Thatcher after the over-manned National Coal Board was "slimmed down" and sold off. Where are they now ?
Why aren't the railways super efficient now that they're privatised ?
Why are electricity, gas and water supplies so expensive ?
It's because they're no better than the public sector.
Privatise the monarchy and get rid of half of them
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230
Perhaps the answer is that the private sector is having to make enough money to run itself plus pay all the taxes to run the incredibly inefficient public sector too. Its just now reached the point where the public sector parasite has sucked out so much of the blood of the private sector that it is about to go belly up too.
And exactly what do you suggest the public sector will feed off if the private sector ceases to exist and pay taxes?
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218 carrots
I hate correcting anyone as I make many mistakes myself but boats and boating have been my life so not sale please try sail Ah! thats better, good luck with your trip.
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"As a Civil Servant, I agree with the comment about running with half the staff. Most of these could come from the Senior Manager Grades"
Agree - bit lose the 'senior' bit...
The Civil Service is a haven for the lazy, over-protected wasters who wouldn't survive one week in the 'real' world and that's why they stay for years thinking the world owes them a living.
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So after over 40 years serving the country and upholding it's laws with many noteable successes I am described as a time waster.
Meanwhile people that I see every day robbing the country are free from criticism.
The jobbing builder claiming benefits while working every day and not paying any taxes.
The funeral director diverting large amounts of income away from the books to evade taxes. His wife operating as a full time mobile hairdresser and not declaring her income.
The business producing and selling local cider on a large scale not declaring income.
And that's not to mention the large numbers of illegal immigrants working and not paying any taxes.
And I'm a parasite ?
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234 boggym1999
If you see so many people robbing the country why not report them.
And I think you will fine that the ones who describe civil servants as time wasters are the ones who pay their taxes. The ones who pay their taxes are just as fed up as you with people milking the system for what they can get.
But James Gordon Brown is the real time waster by letting this get out of control.
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I've been a civil servant, did a couple of years in local government, worked in the private sector and now run my own business. Like boggym1999 I thought when I worked in the public sector that I worked hard and gave value for money. When I moved to the real world ... what an eye opener!
I'm sure there are people in the civil service who could hold down a real job if they had to. But so much "work" in the public sector comes down to attending meetings and writing reports designed to ensure no-one is individually responsible for anything. And if someone screws up they are just moved to another post, not fired. Not to mention the 9 to 5 culture.
I'm sure Digby is right, but no government of any colour has the guts to really tackle the civil service because the bureaucrats have the power to make or break any government - or minister.
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Just come back from Windsor which was draughty! Doesn't seem to be much problem there, commerce wise, with lots of shoppers buying (no, not tourists, English people).
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237
Buying what though?
And I'm sure Windsor does not give a true reflection of the rest of the country.
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Buying in all depts. in the department store, Daniels. Buying in M and S, Holland and Barrett, and so on.
Have to say though that Whittards is a shell and Woolworth's gutted out.
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236. Julian Moss
You are dead right. A lot of civil servants - and local council workers - are not up to the standard of those in commerce.
I have often mentioned it but we have extensive contact with the council as we have a disabled son. Their disability social workers (locally) do not have any idea of the law surrounding their jobs, frequently take advantage of the fact that many disabled and old people have no advocat to speak for them (or don't have the wherewithall to find one), take weeks off due to sickness, stress and bereavement leave (three cases I know where each person took six weeks off when a family member died!).
If these people worked in commerce they would have have the statutory verbal, written warnings and undoubted dismissal.
We had a letter before judicial review sent to ours and they backed down. Another group took the council to court for not knowing their job (social services dept.) and the Social Services lost and had to pay GBP 800,000. Public money! OUR money!
Do you know we have to pay GBP58 per year out of our council tax towards their pensions?
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The fact people are working hard doesn't mean they are doing anything useful. People working hard compiling statistics while other people work equally hard compiling a different view of the same statistics come to mind.
This government loves managing by statistics, and it must take an army of people working very hard to massage them to make the government look good on paper. Of course the fact that the average working man or woman sees a very different version of reality doesn't seem to cross the minds of those in charge.
So it's entirely possible to slash public spending while at the same time hiring MORE nurses, teachers, police officers etc.
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Like so many other bloggers - of course we all already know that there are too many civil servants, there is no shock in the statement other than the fact that it has been made.
I was employed in local government for a while - but there was actually no job to do, so I made myself "busy" and "worked hard" for the ten months I was there, then I quit out of frustration.
I do however think that Digby should try a few other jobs before saying that the one he had was
"one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences a human being can have".
There are some really awful jobs around that people have to do to put bread on the table. No matter how much people may better themselves, the horrible jobs still have to be done by someone.
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I have reported some of the people I mentioned but it would become a full time job to report them all. In any case the culture and scale of tax fraud and the deception of the relevant authorities seems to be accepted by most of you.
As I've said I would drastically reduce income taxes, have a massive rate of road fuel duty and an annual personal road fuel duty allowance against this through the tax system. Anyone not declaring their income to HMRC simply pays their dues as fuel duty.
Oh, and I've now retired from the civil service and doing a bit of work as a bookkeeper (all income declared) and writing a book so I'm now happily part of the private sector.
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Oh yeah and there's builders, so renowned for their laziness, lateness, poor work and high cost that this is cited for the popularity of employing foreign builders, e.g. Poles. Ours never turn up when they say they will, never work a full day and never declare all their income for tax purposes.
I suppose they're civil servants ?
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243. At 00:19am on 18 Jan 2009, boggym1999 wrote:
I have reported some of the people I mentioned but it would become a full time job to report them all. In any case the culture and scale of tax fraud and the deception of the relevant authorities seems to be accepted by most of you.
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Please justify this scurrilous comment with evidence.
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244. At 09:06am on 18 Jan 2009, boggym1999 wrote:
Oh yeah and there's builders, so renowned for their laziness, lateness, poor work and high cost that this is cited for the popularity of employing foreign builders, e.g. Poles. Ours never turn up when they say they will, never work a full day and never declare all their income for tax purposes.
I suppose they're civil servants ?
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As a former civil servant I am sure you did a preliminary fact find, obtained references, looked at other work they had done, drew up a contract with them that stated their working terms, over run penalties, etc. ?
If you knew of the problem, why not get Polish builders in?
The difference is, I am not paying for your malingering builders, but I do pay for malingering civil servants.
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244 boggym1999
When I was in the building trade I did everything that was right. That way I could sleep at night and the ones I work with did too. I'm not saying all builders are like this but when you hear of our hardworking MP's taking what they can I must admit I did think why should I do it by the book if our MP's can take the ---- out of us.
And then you look at managers with their nice bonus. How can that be fair?
And as for having a Pole do my building how you know that they are insured to work? Who you call if it goes wrong and you need them back? Like everthing you get what you pay for, some people want everything but want to pay nothing.
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Yers!!! Well Lord Digby Jones the plain fact is that we could do with half the bankers for a start and they can't be sacked either.And its funny how they turn up at the door looking for a "secure job in the Civil service."Not to mention the CBI, funny lot they are- managed to get Prudence to set up a little thing called the Gang Masters which imports illegal and not so illegal low paid workers to do what the English won't- work for peanuts. Mind you we can't included the scots in this- they actually run the civil service- oh and the country by the way. I can just imagine Lord Digby demanding that his entire entourange be sacked on some fatuous whim and then calling Baroness Vadera to pour his tea-"Shall you be mother then?" What a scoundrel he is. Nor is he the only freeloading failure from the private sector to be asked to work in the Government. Actually the accronym "goats" is a fair one- by the time goats have finished in a pasture it is bald, devoid of any greenery. So much so that if Shrieky Shritty can actually find a green shoot Lord Digby must have failed...again!
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Moderators, why has my post at 246 been moderated?
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249
Was your blog the truth?
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ahem. Now we are on about people's jobs and professions what about dentists?
I have never seen a poor dentist but why is they all moan about NHS and decide to take on private patients only?
Also, why is it every dentist I have ever had has got me to sign the form for their payment for treatment (NHS) BEFORE they do the work. Presumably they fill in the details of the work AFTERWARDS and can write anything!
I am not knocking dentists, it's just that I suspect some rip-offs against the NHS.
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Is its just me or do most these comments read like jaundiced spleen ventings cut and pasted straight from Daily Mail editorials?
Civil Servants do what they are told to by the government in power. Often what they are told to do is overly complex so it takes lots of people. Tories were just the same.
If your correspendents really think Civil Servants are overpaid, work shy layabouts, how come they have not jumped onto the gravy train?
Answer: because there isnt one.
As for the private sector running things: Don't they run the banks?
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#252 I take it you are a civil servant then?
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#250
Yes maggy, it was just something to do with boggym1999 and his builders, about serving him right if he got builders in who didn't do the job properly if he hadn't drawn up a proper contract with them, with penalty clauses, etc. something along the lines of he should have known better if he was a civil servant.
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254
Perhaps he didnt give them a cup of tea.
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254. yellowbelly1959
Good evening,
Wasn't going to post until tomorrow, but couldn't resist this one.
Yes maggy, it was just something to do with boggym1999 and his builders, about serving him right if he got builders in who didn't do the job properly if he hadn't drawn up a proper contract with them, with penalty clauses, etc. something along the lines of he should have known better if he was a civil servant.
=========================
Come off it mate! The only contact builders understand, is one straight out of the movie "The Godfather". They make you an offer you can't refuse.
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#255
Or offer to pay them cash in hand? ;-)
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Digby Jones has, as usual, hit the nail on the head.
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258
To be fair if Digby swung a hammer he might have a heart attack if he did he would would more than likely hit his thumb.
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"I have reported some of the people I mentioned but it would become a full time job to report them all. In any case the culture and scale of tax fraud and the deception of the relevant authorities seems to be accepted by most of you."
===
Please justify this scurrilous comment with evidence.
--------------------------------------------
Dear yellowbelly,
Which part(s) do you consider scurrilous, that I have reported some people, that it would be a full time job to report them all or that the "culture & scale ... seems to be accepted by most of you" ?
In the case of the latter I took the lack of any other comments on this subject as sufficient to infer that there was general acceptance of the situation.
What is your position on this ?
I apologise to anyone who similarly feels that they have been wrongly accused of accepting widescale tax fraud.
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I once invited quotes for work from 3 local builders who all knew that I was at the time a VAT Inspector.
One said he would not quote for a Vat Man as I would just try to trip him up.
Another quoted a price including VAT and told me he would not charge VAT if I paid cash.
The third quoted including VAT and got the job. His parents were friends of my in laws. He kept going and doing other jobs but eventually got the job done and the quality of his work was good. However, on his final invoice he had stamped "Deregistered from VAT 31/03/1989" but the invoice still showed VAT being charged. I paid the total excluding the VAT and asked him to discuss it with his accountant who told him I was right as he could not charge VAT after he had deregistered. He said neither he nor any other local builders would ever work for me again. And after my wife had made him endless cups of tea AND sandwiches as well.
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Having worked for more that 10 years in each of the two sectors, I would say that the differences between the two are probably exaggerated. The main thing I noticed was than people working in the private sector are probably more obsessed by money, whereas people in the public sector accept that they are never going to be rich but console themselves with the hope that their jobs will be more secure and with better pensions. One poster commented that people in the public sector tend to be less 'dynamic'. That may be true, but from my experience of the private sector, 'dynamic' people have a tendency to leave a trail of destruction behind them. I imagine there were plenty of dynamic people working in the banking industry.
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TV licence fee cash guarantees house prices of relocated BBC staff
"The prices of hundreds of homes owned by BBC employees in London will be guaranteed by licence-fee payers under a relocation package aimed at enticing staff to Salford.
Employees will also receive £5,000 in relocation expenses, up to £3,000 to pay for new carpets and curtains and will keep thousands of pounds in London weighting allowances, it emerged yesterday. The decision to use the licence fee to underwrite property values in a falling housing market has been condemned as unacceptable.
Under the “guaranteed house purchase scheme”, employees on permanent contracts will receive up to 95 per cent of the market price for a property. The BBC will incur any loss on the price when the property is sold and will pay for solicitors' fees, surveys and stamp duty, home information packs and building society charges."
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Funny, this isn't on the BBC news website?!
And, shouldn't the last sentencce start "We the mugs that pay the TV Licence will incur any loss on the price......"
Green shoots indeed, but only if you work at the Beeb.
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Iantownhill
The reason that people in the public sector are probably more obsessed by money, (as you put it,) is because we do not have the security of a life-long job. It doesn't matter how inept a person is, if they work in the public sector, there is no way they will be made redundant or fired, and they will have a cast-iron pension when they retire.
People in the private sector do not have that luxury. We have had our pensions taken from us when we have been frugal and saved, and our jobs are hanging in the balance.
If public sector workers had a very uncertain future to look forward to, I expect they would feel exactly the same. Living in Britain is extremely expensive. I am well aware of this as I am now on a 2 day week with a mortgage to pay.
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#264
No possibility of redundancy in the public sector? It only took me a few seconds to find the attached example (900 compulsory NHS redundancies)
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-153543343.html
and I'm sure there are many more examples. I don't dispute that public sector jobs are generally safer, but there's no such thing as 100% safe.
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Iantownhill
Yep - It would be a great article if it weren't 3 years old.
I think you'll find that the last people yo be made redundant will be public sector workers. Not least because Gordon needs to keep the unemployment figures as low as possible and this is an area he can control.
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266 shellingout
Touche.
Iantownhill must work in the Ministry of Tractor Production Statistics ;-)
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I don't think it is true anymore that public sector workers never get made redundant. Councils are cutting back all over the place, the Civil Service is outsourcing as much work as possible and closing and amalgamating jobcentres, tax offices etc.
Personally I have worked in both public and private sectors. At the moment I am struggling to set up my own self employed business. I know it's the wrong time, but it's the only way to get away from imcompetent management of which both public and private sectors were equally guilty.
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#268 snow-lass
No, it's exactly the right time. If you can set up and survive this, you will be well-placed when things do get better.
good luck with your venture.
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I guess the moral of this discussion is: If you really think the grass is greener on the other side, then move to the other side .....that's if they'll have you.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#271
Sorry, it is SWAT Valley
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