Where to start cutting
David Blackburn 3:30pm
Michael Portillo believes that a future Tory government, like those that came before it, will not succeed in cutting public spending. I agree with Pete: public finances are so parlous that cuts have to be made. Demolishing the state is not an overnight job; it will take time and cost money, and so it should because the stakes are too high for a quick fix, cowboy politics solution. But, immediate savings are to be made through efficiencies.
‘Efficiency savings’ are derided as being insubstantial. Such an analysis is simplistic. Endemic waste is perpetuated by irrational systems. The Department for Work and Pensions runs an administrative budget of £2.7bn. That is colossal - half an aircraft carrier’s worth of pens, paperclips and endless forms, which trap claimants in the world’s most complicated welfare system. Rationalisation is the order of the day and Iain Duncan Smith’s dual benefit reform provides the answer to the welfare conundrum and gives £3.7bn in annual savings.
If anything that figure is modest: other savings will be made through simplifying the system. An unpublished internal DWP report estimates that £900m is wasted every year by claimants miscalculating their entitlement. Streamlining benefits would significantly reduce the chances of confusion arising. The same report found that nearly £900m is lost through deliberate fraud. The current welfare monolith is easier to exploit than a gaggle of inquisitive convent girls; reform should close loopholes and ease the pursuit of benefit thieves.
Possible efficiency savings at the DWP don’t end there. A separate report estimates that administrative incompetence, which the authors sweetly term ‘silly mistakes’, cost the taxpayer £2bn per year. Along with death and taxes, incompetence is one of life’s certainties, but £2bn is several cock-ups too many. Tackling entrenched public sector incompetence and the recalcitrant civil service make Francis Maude’s provocative civil service reforms necessary to enable essential and cost effective public service reform, all the Tories need do is adopt IDS’ idea and get tough on inefficiency.
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Dennis Churchill
November 21st, 2009 4:09pm Report this commentWhat about the political conformity departments in Local Government, Health Service, Criminal Justice, Education etc? You know the “Diversity Co-Coordinators” “Equality” units---hardly appropriate in a society that thinks of itself as a liberal democracy.
Anyone costed them?
Simon
November 21st, 2009 4:21pm Report this commentAccording to Fraser and Pete it simple. You just close hospitals and sack nurses etc and whats more a grateful public will reward you with an landslide victory! Glad to someone who is not in urgent need of medical attention is posting here at long last.
R King
November 21st, 2009 4:25pm Report this commentSome years ago I spent some time working alongside civil severvants and was absolutely appalled by their work culture and time keeping. It was endemic from top to bottom and the general policy was to arrive between nine and ten in the morning and be gone by three to four in the afternoon with an hour plus lunch.
If there was an urgent need to get some work done then they called a few contractors in.
It was called flexi-time!!
Cogito Ergosum
November 21st, 2009 4:33pm Report this commentThis can only be done by someone with a clear idea of what is being done, what we want to be done, and of how to get from here to there. Plus solid management nous.
Not many of those, in any of the political parties.
Blofeld's Cat
November 21st, 2009 5:02pm Report this comment@Simon - what utter tosh. It has been Fraser who has exposed Labour's denial of the need for cuts- he has never championed wholesale frontline service cuts, and you know it.
I work in Primary Care - my local PCT has exceeded its budget by £11 million and is blaming GPs for referring too many sick people to hospitals. It should examine the cost of renting space in a purpose built, privately owned Care Centre for its walk-in centre; it should examine the cost of the Darzi Clinic that is struggling to attract doctors to work to see patients that don't want to attend. It should ask why it takes 6 highly qualified nurses to man a swine flu vaccination clinic for hospital staff, (only 35% of whom turned up), when in General Practice, it can be done by one.
It is mismanagement that is causing wastage and draining resources, not the frontline services and that is what most CH posters would like to see addressed, including Fraser and Pete.
Walsingham's Ghost
November 21st, 2009 5:12pm Report this commentCameron needs to get Sir Peter Gershon back into Government - he is the only one with the balls to take an axe to the wasteful practices which infect the very DNA of today's Civil Service.
Under Labour, there was no appetite to implement the potential efficiencies he identified for fear of upsetting the Trade Unions. One assumes under the Tories, he will find a warmer welcome for his proposals.
There is also the added bonus that since he has already done all the 'homework', the Conservatives can hit the ground running from day one...
WG.
Walsingham's Ghost
November 21st, 2009 5:13pm Report this comment@ Simon
Utter tosh, as you well know...
WG
THX1138
November 21st, 2009 5:37pm Report this commentSurely we to prune the state back a bit not demolish it? Martin Wolf thinks we should wait until the economy is growing before putting the boot into public spending and hasty cuts lead to bad policies.
Wolf Said :
"Mr Osborne also talked of the need to be “open and transparent”. But he has been little more so than the government: the changes he announced deliver £7bn of the needed £100bn"
No much demolition there then.
Yow Min Lye
November 21st, 2009 6:56pm Report this commentOne example of pointless bureaucracy in the Department of Work & Pensions is the ES674JP form permitting (supposedly) Jobseeker's Allowance claimants to take up to two weeks holiday whilst still signed on.
To be treated as still looking for work you must declare a willingness to return home from holiday if the Job Centre phone you with the offer of a job interview - a bit of a problem if you don't own your own car and are spending a cheap week in a holiday chalet in Cornwall in the company of your relatives.
Of course, most people simple say "yeah, of course I'll return" and then either switch their phone off or take a chance that the Job Centre won't phone anyway - which, in my experience, they almost never do. Therefore, the system rewards dishonesty and penalises those who honestly declare that they are unable to return home by docking their benefits.
Meanwhile, some oik in the DWP no doubt has to spend his day shuffling ES674JP forms and inputting them into the department's database in order to monitor claimants' willingness to return for interviews that Job Centres rarely request anyway.
Why not simply scrap the ES674JP procedure, leave claimants to enjoy their holiday in peace, and reassign the paper-shuffling oiks to do more productive tasks instead - like touring the local pubs where every day the real layabouts can be found supping away from sun-up until closing time.
Colin Pritchard
November 21st, 2009 7:04pm Report this comment@Cogito Ergosum. This is tailor made for John Redwood but Cameron won't take any notice of him lest he frighten the horses.
Would that Redwood were leading the Tories. I know charisma (on the tv) isn't his strong suit but the public would boot Brown and Co out even if Ted Heath were still number one Tory.
What a mistake we Tories made when we elected the Heir to Blair in desperation because nobody could lay a finger on Blair himself. A couple of years on and Blair was a busted flush and we were left with a pale imitation of the real thing.
It's UKIP for me next time.
JohnBUK
November 21st, 2009 7:41pm Report this commentTHX 1138 "....we should cut the state back a bit not demolish it". Two things: 1. We cannot afford the "State" as it is. 2. I understand we now have some 800,000 more state employees since 1997 - doing what? We should reduce central government (as the Tories have said) and move to more local control (including local taxation). We will all see what it costs us locally to have various services and we can then decide what is "good value". At the moment all these costs are subsumed in a central pot and we have no idea of the "value". We will soon complain when LOCAL health, education and policing does not deliver what we expect or are willing to pay for.
RMH
November 21st, 2009 8:24pm Report this commentWell easy to save hundreds of millions.
Zero government or council advertising on Guardian websites.
Ban the use of recruitment agencies for perm staff.
Use jobs.gov.uk for all adverts.
David Priest
November 22nd, 2009 12:40am Report this commentWonderful to watch you all pontificating on what the Tories should do when they shortly assume power.
Whilst I do agree that its time they had a go in running things before they are inevita bly booted out again - as all administrations are by a disappointed electorate - I think you should consider the latest poll in the Observer and not get too excited just yet.
Tiberius
November 22nd, 2009 9:24am Report this commentYow Min Lye: your experience of the daily habits of the workshy seems to mirror that of mine a few mile north of you in Wolverhamption.
TomTom
November 22nd, 2009 10:34am Report this commentBurning Our Money Blog covers this issue frequently. However the basic fact is that the Welfare State has to be re-engineered - either benefit spending is cut or State Penions will be means-tested and that will mean the Middle Class will no longer bear the tax burden.
The fact is population is expanding fastest among benefit claimants and the influx of people is boosting the birth rate which is rewarded in the benefits system more than in the tax system. The taxpayers are not as able to afford child care or time at home as the benefit claimants who are rewarded handsomely for adding to population.
The Middle Class has been milked by The State yet receives low quality State services such as Education in return and must buy privately what it is paying for through taxes.
This system is unsustainable as an economic development model
gerry
November 23rd, 2009 5:51am Report this commentTomTom said: "The fact is population is expanding fastest among benefit claimants and the influx of people is boosting the birth rate which is rewarded in the benefits system more than in the tax system. The taxpayers are not as able to afford child care or time at home as the benefit claimants who are rewarded handsomely for adding to population."
He is correct. Pay nobody to reproduce. Tax cuts will ensue and massive savings in public expenditure all around.
Wily Trout
November 23rd, 2009 1:40pm Report this commentAbolish Local Education Authorities.
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