Off Topic YOUR VOTE COUNTED...

[carlthejackal]

One of the problems in IT procurement in the public sector is the system is put out for tender. The winning bidder has a track record of supplying IT systems to the private sector successfully but it does not work and arrives behind schedule.
often the reason for this is that Govt will have changed the priorities/targets to the sector which is purchasing the system so the IT company adds a chunk to the bill and does a quick bodge job this often happens 6 7 times the development life cycle plus the IT companies often don't fully appreciate the sheer size of some of the organisations they are dealing with which often means a wide variety of kit is being used by the staff some of which may be incompatible with the new system.
My experience was just to add to the problems the training packages supplied were often compiled during development and didn't match the finished product though it wasn't a given that you would even receive any training i on numerous occasions arrived at work on a monday morning to find a new icon on my desktop which was for me to adminster access to the system for all users in my area - pity no-one thought it worth letting me know there was a new system never mind give me instructions on how to build the staff in it .

as for the idea the public sector isn't used to change
in the department i worked a common theme from the staff was if they just left things alone for 12 months they would be amazed at the improvement in results but no either the Govt or senior management would insist on another reorganisation
by the end of my time i wasn't even sure what my job title was as even that kept changing on what seemed like a monthly basis

I attended a short management course at INSEAD (University near Paris) a while back. Given by academics from american universities like Harvard and Stanford. One of the points they made and which stuck with me was this:

In a private company (like Porsche, Ford, Microsoft and others), the main driver for increased productivity is the product sales and the profit generated. But in a public sector organisation like the NHS, how do you get people to improve productivity? How do you get people not to sleep on their laurels and not to stagnate as productivity is so difficult to quantify and the profit factor absent? The answer: constant reorganisation. This would (in theory at least) keep people on their toes, maintain standards, allow dead wood to be got rid of. We were told that even if there weren't any political meddling, for an organisaton as big as the NHS the cycle of reorganisation (every 5-10 years) was needed and would be part of a deliberate policy.

 

[DirtyFrank]

To keep this on topic...I've already said that EU bureaucracy is piled on top of existing red tape over load in the public sector. The EU has encourage an already too dominant culture within the Public sector on constantly having to show what you are doing rather than doing it.

But it also shows that leaving isn't going to see efficiencies...a down turn in the economy means more cuts, more vacancy control so public sector spends more time on catch up to provide the services they are bound to provide by statute and less time looking at how services are provided.

It also drains the organisations of people that are experienced and knowledgeable enough to effect any change towards efficiency.

As You say SA...too many cooks...an idea a week from outside the organisation as a token gesture to show things are being done that actually has the opposite effect.

Give us stability in staffing and resources..(I'm not even suggesting increased resources) and this generation of public sector workers will give you an efficient service. There's no more big fat pensions at 50, our wages have been frozen for a decade and are now behind Private Sector in terms of year on year increase. It's no longer the place to go and stagnate until early retirement. We like you have to work hard to get promoted...unfortunately at the moment this skill valued most is reporting to a multitude of high govt organisations for a sound bite or to justify this new policy or that....

 

[DirtyFrank]

I attended a short management course at INSEAD (University near Paris) a while back. Given by academics from american universities like Harvard and Stanford. One of the points they made and which stuck with me was this:

In a private company (like Porsche, Ford, Microsoft and others), the main driver for increased productivity is the product sales and the profit generated. But in a public sector organisation like the NHS, how do you get people to improve productivity? How do you get people not to sleep on their laurels and not to stagnate as productivity is so difficult to quantify and profit factor absent? The answer: constant reorganisation. This would (in theory at least) keep people on their toes, maintain standards, allow dead wood to be got rid of. We were told that even if there weren't any political meddling, for an organisaton as big as the NHS the cycle of reorganisation (every 5-10 years) was needed and would be part of a deliberate policy.

Except without experienced staff in the right jobs all that constant reorganisation does is distract from service provision...reorganisation for its own sake is counter productive.

Adding target upon targets that then change the next year when you are only a third of the way through the last policy development is pointless.

Simplify...go back to basics...what service/s at a bare minimum should each body provide? That's your target...what would that do? Get rid of about a million hours of consultancy and reappraisal and duplication between departments...

If you go back to the very simple service each sector should provide and hive it your ten years then it'll be done.

Now again this is a downside to much of the EU legislation...it's no coincidence that HR departments are now the biggest department in most public organisations...as well as viewed as the most prestigious? I mean really? In Education? A central HR department is now one of the biggest and important departments? Why? When Principals are now organisation managers with freedom of recruitment...why is the central HR department so big?...

Because there is so much legislation that it needs experts to decipher so law suits don't happen...

 

[Tobes]

Now again this is a downside to much of the EU legislation...it's no coincidence that HR departments are now the biggest department in most public organisations...as well as viewed as the most prestigious? I mean really? In Education? A central HR department is now one of the biggest and important departments? Why? When Principals are now organisation managers with freedom of recruitment...why is the central HR department so big?...

Because there is so much legislation that it needs experts to decipher so law suits don't happen...

This is indeed true, but I disagree that it's a direct result of legislation.

It's the result of whining ****ers who spend half their lives fighting against change and try to play the system, and the public sector runs scared of any form of potential litigation and ends up making a right meal of dealing with the issues and have bloated HR depts. as a result. My Mrs is now one off a VC in HE and has to deal with this bollocks every day of the week it seems.

 

[DirtyFrank]

This is indeed true, but I disagree that it's a direct result of legislation.

It's the result of whining ****ers who spend half their lives fighting against change and try to play the system, and the public sector runs scared of any form of potential litigation and ends up making a right meal of dealing with the issues and have bloated HR depts. as a result. My Mrs is now one off a VC in HE and has to deal with this bollocks every day of the week it seems.

TBF that's true too lol

 

[carlthejackal]

Except without experienced staff in the right jobs all that constant reorganisation does is distract from service provision...reorganisation for its own sake is counter productive.

Adding target upon targets that then change the next year when you are only a third of the way through the last policy development is pointless.

Simplify...go back to basics...what service/s at a bare minimum should each body provide? That's your target...what would that do? Get rid of about a million hours of consultancy and reappraisal and duplication between departments...

If you go back to the very simple service each sector should provide and hive it your ten years then it'll be done.

Now again this is a downside to much of the EU legislation...it's no coincidence that HR departments are now the biggest department in most public organisations...as well as viewed as the most prestigious? I mean really? In Education? A central HR department is now one of the biggest and important departments? Why? When Principals are now organisation managers with freedom of recruitment...why is the central HR department so big?...

Because there is so much legislation that it needs experts to decipher so law suits don't happen...

This.

This reorganisation as you say comes so frequently in the NHS that the staff gets demoralised and demotivated. Expertise and organisational memory are lost as senior staff retire en masse or move along to another organisation.

 

[Solid Air]

This.

This reorganisation as you say comes so frequently in the NHS that the staff gets demoralised and demotivated. Expertise and organisational memory are lost as senior staff retire en masse or move along to another organisation.

I was retired on medical grounds from the job i did but we had 2 voluntary exit schemes less than a year apart. There was 24 of our team by the end there was just 13 of those staff left plus the boss and her boss both left as well approx 250 years of expertise in our particular field due to disillusionment with both the direction we were heading topped off by our take home pay was less than 6 years earlier due to pay freezes and increased contributions towards our pensions.

i used to deal with outside contractors all the time and the idea the private sector is inherently better than the public sector is frankly laughable as many of them were incompetent as they did not invest in their staff to the point i regularly had to show them how to do their job

 

[LuisDiazgamechanger]

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[Ivan Dobsky]

As I've mentioned before, I work for the railway industry and 20 + years of privatisation has only seen over £40bn above and beyond the rate at which the old BR was subsidised siphoned off into the pockets of private companies, Railtrack had to be re-nationalised as it was a disaster, and, you the travelling public, despite subsidising the industry at a rate twice as much, accounting for inflation, since 1994, per passenger-per mile travelled. And yes, that is accounting for the exponential growth in passenger (especially commuter miles) travelled since 1994. The good news for the free-marketeers and neo-liberals is that the overall staffing has reduced from @120k to @55k. Far better, it appears, to make private companies richer rather than employ people.

As Major admitted - don't trust the Tories with the NHS. When they talk of 'efficiencies' they really means they have city spivs lined up to cut services and slash staffing, and in turn they'll reward the politicians and senior civil servants involved with cushy directorships in the future.

 

[BobbyD]

i'm inclined to side with the lefties on public vs private on certain assets such as rail. it is very hard to side with one over the other. I think it's better off having slightly less efficient systems and workers (not that this is the case) than having private institutions running it with skeleton staff and trying to maximise profits especially when there isn't an alternative. Normally privitisation is good when theres competition as that's supposed to drive down costs and increase in quality.

Efficiency consultants, re-organisations for me are just a big waste of money and whilst i believe there should be a little bit of monitoring on how well state institutions are run, i think there is far too much wastage on this and too much bureacracy.

With something like trains, people don't have an alternative and it doesn't matter if the service is good or ****, people will still have to use it.

For all the londoners here, Sadiq Khan in his first month has just broken his key election pledge to freeze TFL fares. Only single journey fares are frozen.

Travelcards will go up

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...fares-promise-public-transport-mayor-election

 

[carlthejackal]

No access to the single market.

No single market access for UK after Brexit, the German finance minister says.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ss-for-uk-after-brexit-wolfgang-schauble-says

Nobody is surprised. Why should the others like Germany and France make it easy for Britain? France apparently is even more hawkish about Britain. The assumption that because of the Britain has a positive balance with the EU makes tariffs unlikely is just plain pie in the sky.

 

[carlthejackal]

I see nothing to stop the inexorable privatisation of the NHS, tbh - in or out of the EU.

He has been for the wholesale privatisation of the NHS for years. For Boris to even pretend to put extra funding (from the EU exit!!!) to the NHS is a huge joke. No wonder politicians are so disrespected if they can tell such lies without batting an eyelid.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

I believe the french are voting for britain to get the **** out cos we are worse than isis after yesterday.

In short..... the french/german axis will be very vindictive. they have tortured greece constantly. If britain thinks it can sit on the side and get all the benefits with none of the costs...well they will make sure we dont

 

[saintanton]

I believe the french are voting for britain to get the **** out cos we are worse than isis after yesterday.

In short..... the french/german axis will be very vindictive. they have tortured greece constantly. If britain thinks it can sit on the side and get all the benefits with none of the costs...well they will make sure we dont

They've never been happy with our one-foot-in attitude anyway.

 

[Red Hadron Collider]

If we get to the Euro 2016 final and vote to leave, will we be kicked out of the tournament?

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

They've never been happy with our one-foot-in attitude anyway.

true.. the lack of euro support and blair and brown's maybe later pissed them right off.

 

[moreinjuredthanowen]

If we get to the Euro 2016 final and vote to leave, will we be kicked out of the tournament?

one of those things might happen... guess which?

 

[BobbyD]

I believe the french are voting for britain to get the **** out cos we are worse than isis after yesterday.

In short..... the french/german axis will be very vindictive. they have tortured greece constantly. If britain thinks it can sit on the side and get all the benefits with none of the costs...well they will make sure we dont

that's because the torturing of greece means they can sell off their state assets in a fire sale. Guess whos running some of the Greek airports now (ze germans)

 

[Red Hadron Collider]

one of those things might happen... guess which?

I wondered if anyone would pick up on that.

 

[Tobes]

that's because the torturing of greece means they can sell off their state assets in a fire sale. Guess whos running some of the Greek airports now (ze germans)

Have you ever been to a Greek airport?

I can't say I blame them.....