Bringing Arcadia to Whitehall

Paul

Labour are already saying that they won't take advice on fixing the public finances from a billionaire like Green.

No - so much better to believe everything someone like Gordon Brown or Balls say about finance and numbers(!) Sums up Labour really

EyeSee

Government is a group of men in a ship; 'Oh my God there's a hole!' 'Let's talk about it.' For me there is no clearer definition of where the rot starts than a conversation I had when a mere youngster in my first job. The company I worked for may have been nationalised and I had an instinctive reaction against it. 'No' said my boss,'if we are nationalised we can have all the equipment and staff we want.'

Will J

I love Labour-logic: a man being rich because he has made lots of money DISqualifies him rather than qualifies him for giving financial advice. Brilliant! How did we end up in this mess again...?

Pot Head

"There is no reason why the thinking in the public sector needs to be different from the private sector."

Great, lets get some talented mangers into the public sector and pay them, the AT LEAST £500K that they are paid in the private sector then. And without CH bleating that X or Y is paid more than the PM.. A grown up debate cuts both ways!

Bean Counter

Interesting (if somewhat obvious) reading with some sensible recommendations.

It's extraordinary that our government is founded on the principle that decision-making is centralised, whereas responsibility for expenditure is devolved to the point of being out of control.

A couple of questions spring to mind - (1) Notwithstanding the time / access constraints under which this work was undertaken, can one validly extrapolate universal conclusions from a such a limited number of examples? (2) Is Sir Philip not advocating a much more centralised bureaucracy as a means of driving efficiency? Would the current NHS serve as a 'good' example of this?

Edward McLaughlin

"Labour are already saying that they won't take advice on fixing the public finances from a billionaire like Green."

Who's offering Labour anything; he's advising the people in power. And anyway, surely a billionaire is precisely the type to ask about managing finances?

I listened to him earlier today and we could do with much more of his no-nonsense approach to cut through the bullshit.

Dave B

It does at least give them a programme to follow.

ROJ

If a commercial organisation were found to have such appalling lack of control, the finance would be fired. (Yes, it happens) But government departments don’t have finance directors. The permanent secretary glories in the additional title of “chief accounting officer”. Perhaps Sir Humphrey should be told firmly where the buck stops. But Sir Philip is too polite to do so, and he is more than kind to the civil servants with whom he worked, saying “Having carried out this review and discussed it with the senior Civil Servants I have worked with, they all believe that it is impossible for the Civil Service to operate efficiently with the current processes in place.” – in other words, “it’s not our fault, it’s the process”. To come back to my first point, at what pay grade in the civil service does anyone take responsibility for the proper use of public money?

ROJ

And another thing. We are constantly being told that the cuts will hurt (especially by the BBC) It is hard to see who would be hurt by the potential savings suggested by Sir Philip, apart of course various landlords, IT companies etc. who must be laughing all the way to the bank.

Indigo

Francis Maude isn't in charge of anything important, I hope. I have just heard him say on Radio 4 that Government paying suppliers promptly is "subsidising their [the suppliers] cash flow". No, it's paying for something that you have already received. Paying promptly helps to ensure that your supplier does not have to support its cashflow with overdraft facilities that the supplier, not the Government, has to pay for and which (in the case of SMEs) may be withdrawn at any minute on the whim of the bank.

TrevorsDen

The efficiency savings should not really be thought of as ways to reduce the structural deficit. Thats down to programmes initiated which the economy cannot afford.
Thay should be thought of as ways to reduce the cyclical deficit. Allowing the govt to either afford more over the normal course of the cycle and / or allow the economy to operate with a lower level of tax.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Sorry, but I don't think Sir Philip Green did such a good job with BhS and Dorothy Perkins, etc. More like a hatchet job, the property being of more interest than the fashions, etc. being retailed. Many of the bright, cheap but smart little shops he has taken over now look tawdry and shabby. But this is just a woman who is interested in fashion speaking, so I could be wrong. Oh well, as long as Sir Green doesn't insist on a Minister of Glad Rags post for Kate Moss.

Mike

When the Conservatives claimed during the election campaign that savings could be made through efficiency savings this was routinely smirked at by media types. It now appears that these sophisticates may actually have been wrong. Knock me down with a feather!

Roger Daley

Bottled water for the workers in County Hall, Hertfordshire - Hundreds of thousands of pounds per annum.

Let them have tap stuff.

Kittler

But then, I have worked, long time ago now, for companies, in the private sector, that were inefficient, wasteful, squandered money, and where some unbelievable things happened, all unknown to the outside world.

Occasional Ostrich

Yep, Kittler, wasteful inefficient private customers get their customer base snaffled by efficient companies, then they go bust and die. Evolution by natural selection.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong but "customers" (as they nowadays insist on calling us) of the public sector generally have nowhere else to go. With a captive market like that, there's no pressure to improve.

JohnBUK

Kittler "But then, I have worked, long time ago now, for companies, in the private sector, that were inefficient, wasteful, squandered money, and where some unbelievable things happened, all unknown to the outside world."

I'm sure you did, and so did I. However the key difference was that it was their own funds and they lived or died with the consequences of their actions.
The government departments are effectively trustees of the public funds and therefore have a greater fiduciary responsibility.

Peter Smith 1

Some good stuff in the report but centralisation of procurement is not a panacea - and haven't we just abolished Becta (a central procurement organisation)? It should be pushed for some spedn areas but it is not suitbale everywhere. Also some claims in the report are I believe plain inaccurate. And the stuff about extending payment terms is not in the final published report.... suspect the CBI got there first!
http://blog.supplymanagement.com/2010/10/a-green-view-of-government-procurement/
http://blog.supplymanagement.com/2010/10/a-green-view-of-government-procurement/

Kittler

Not always ostrich, Oil Producers after the 70's price hikes, so awash with cash that price did not matter, just get the job done fast and anyway most of that cost can be set off against tax.

EyeSee

I think the stuff Mr Green has highlighted could really be the domain of a £25K employee in the private sector and a £60K contracts manager couldn't do worse than the stuff government agrees to. Like when Capita ran the congestion charge. They asked for an increase in payments to them as they had miscalculated, the government pointed to the agreement and Capita said, 'oh well we'll stop collecting it then' and the increase was given. Contract, what's that?

Captn P

"Labour aren't taking advice from Phillip Green" Interesting quote, so why should this be important?

In my view the first reform needed is to have an outside performance review of all senior civil servants, followed by a restructure and sack-a-thon of the under performing, permanent sick and incompetent.

Thier replacements can start to efficiently run the government for the benefit of its citizens, instead of running an employment club.

Phil Pate

This investigation into Whitehall spending highlights a problem rampant across the private and public sectors. Staff should be as accountable for their printing costs as for their mobile phone bills, or travel expenses.

An easy strategy for specifically minimising the kind of printing waste that Sir Phillip has highlighted is to plan well in advance to control spend and regulate the volume of consumables being used. This service – otherwise known as managed print services, (MPS) - is already giving customers the chance to regain control of their printing requirements, driving printing waste out of our businesses. Managed print services can help organisations save on average 20-40% of hard cost related to print, improve employee productivity and decrease environmental waste.

To address the kind of problems Sir Phillip raises in this report, businesses need to be proactive and forward thinking – and reducing print waste is an excellent and easy first step

Phil Pate, Managed Print Services Director, Lexmark UK