| Not a single river healthy on 21:17 - Mar 27 with 1121 views | DJR |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:15 - Mar 27 by redrickstuhaart |
I find that quite offensive.
You are effectively claiming I am lying.
I can assure you I am not.
There is an obsession with statistics and massaging them to satisfy the folks higher up, who have no clue and/or dont care what the end product is like so long as they can show 'improving' figures. |
I apologise. |  | |  |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:20 - Mar 27 with 1094 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:17 - Mar 27 by DJR |
I apologise. |
Acknowledged- thanks. I can understand being protective of the public sector. I think we are on the same side tbh.
Let me be clear- I am not denigrating the public sector in principle, or the vast majority of people who work in it. But the culture from the top, and the political requirements and pressures, combined with the constant cuts, rapid staff turnover and low morale, are a toxic combination which the ordinary folk just have to put up with, until they can find a better job. Totally counter productive imo. |  | | |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:27 - Mar 27 with 1090 views | DJR |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:20 - Mar 27 by redrickstuhaart |
Acknowledged- thanks. I can understand being protective of the public sector. I think we are on the same side tbh.
Let me be clear- I am not denigrating the public sector in principle, or the vast majority of people who work in it. But the culture from the top, and the political requirements and pressures, combined with the constant cuts, rapid staff turnover and low morale, are a toxic combination which the ordinary folk just have to put up with, until they can find a better job. Totally counter productive imo. |
I couldn't agree more with what you say in the second paragraph, and am just glad I left the Civil Service over a decade ago.
EDIT: I worked in a specialised legal department in the Cabinet Office, and when the Tories came to power, there was a clear hostility to the Civil Service and an obvious desire on their part to use the Great Recession as an excuse to shrink the State, the full consequences of which we are seeing now.
I just feel sorry for my former colleagues, all decent and hardworking civil servants, with all they have had to put up with, especially since 2016.
The contrast with the way Ministers in the previous Labour government treated our office couldn't be greater.
[Post edited 28 Mar 7:35]
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| Not a single river healthy on 21:29 - Mar 27 with 1082 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
The best alternative is to have properly invested public services run for the good of the customer rather than the benefit of shareholders or whoever else. Currently we pay a lot more for worse services as a result of privatisation. Rail fares have not reduced and the service provided is not especially any better (aside from while the unions genuinely did hold the Government to ransom but that issue has been largely dealt with through legislation). People seem to think the alternatives are a return to the 70s or complete privatisation. There are alternatives. |  |
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| Not a single river healthy on 21:40 - Mar 27 with 1057 views | jayessess |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:29 - Mar 27 by Nthsuffolkblue |
The best alternative is to have properly invested public services run for the good of the customer rather than the benefit of shareholders or whoever else. Currently we pay a lot more for worse services as a result of privatisation. Rail fares have not reduced and the service provided is not especially any better (aside from while the unions genuinely did hold the Government to ransom but that issue has been largely dealt with through legislation). People seem to think the alternatives are a return to the 70s or complete privatisation. There are alternatives. |
The thing with public ownership is that although an industry might be run well or run badly, depending on who is in charge, at least I know its main purpose is ultimately the public good. If I don't like how it's being run, at least there's someone I can hold accountable.
If it's the private sector, its main purpose is to be profitable. Providing the public with a good service is more or less incidental to that purpose and the people running it are more or less beyond accountability.
That's usually fine when it's something unimportant or something where I can meaningfully choose between competitors. If I think Carte D'Or's product has deteriorated, I can go buy a different brand of ice cream. But I can't consumer choice my way into better water infrastructure. [Post edited 27 Mar 21:46]
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| Not a single river healthy on 07:17 - Mar 28 with 976 views | NthQldITFC |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:40 - Mar 27 by jayessess |
The thing with public ownership is that although an industry might be run well or run badly, depending on who is in charge, at least I know its main purpose is ultimately the public good. If I don't like how it's being run, at least there's someone I can hold accountable.
If it's the private sector, its main purpose is to be profitable. Providing the public with a good service is more or less incidental to that purpose and the people running it are more or less beyond accountability.
That's usually fine when it's something unimportant or something where I can meaningfully choose between competitors. If I think Carte D'Or's product has deteriorated, I can go buy a different brand of ice cream. But I can't consumer choice my way into better water infrastructure. [Post edited 27 Mar 21:46]
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Ah yes, but if you're dependent upon ice cream and Peters and Mr. Whippy have got together in a price fixing cartel, then your 'choice' is rendered meaningless apart, perhaps, from which musical extravaganza you are treated to when the capitalist van of doom drives up your cul-de-sac! |  |
| # WE ARE STEALING THE FUTURE FROM OUR CHILDREN --- WE MUST CHANGE COURSE # | | Poll: | It's driving me nuts |
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| Not a single river healthy on 07:52 - Mar 28 with 947 views | DJR |
| Not a single river healthy on 21:29 - Mar 27 by Nthsuffolkblue |
The best alternative is to have properly invested public services run for the good of the customer rather than the benefit of shareholders or whoever else. Currently we pay a lot more for worse services as a result of privatisation. Rail fares have not reduced and the service provided is not especially any better (aside from while the unions genuinely did hold the Government to ransom but that issue has been largely dealt with through legislation). People seem to think the alternatives are a return to the 70s or complete privatisation. There are alternatives. |
Most of the nationalised industries in the 70s weren't the basket cases they were made out to be: don't forget the UK was the first country to have a civil nuclear energy programme.
But I think a return to what was once there is impossible.
Following privatisation, pension fund surpluses were use to pay off many staff with years of experience. At the same time, the public service ethos of the private sector companies was eradicated. The result is that renationalisation would not in my view "put Humpty back together again.".
[Post edited 28 Mar 7:53]
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| Not a single river healthy on 08:16 - Mar 28 with 917 views | NthQldITFC |
| Not a single river healthy on 07:52 - Mar 28 by DJR |
Most of the nationalised industries in the 70s weren't the basket cases they were made out to be: don't forget the UK was the first country to have a civil nuclear energy programme.
But I think a return to what was once there is impossible.
Following privatisation, pension fund surpluses were use to pay off many staff with years of experience. At the same time, the public service ethos of the private sector companies was eradicated. The result is that renationalisation would not in my view "put Humpty back together again.".
[Post edited 28 Mar 7:53]
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I defer to you and others who have first hand knowledge of the environment (perhaps over a time-span which encompasses a 'bit of both eras'), but I wonder if your views on re-nationalisation are a little too hardened by the inevitable frustrations you justly feel?
Is there not the opportunity and motivation (in certain quarters) to try to build a new type of public sector organisation from the ground up with transparency and accountability and streamlinedness(!) as immutable core properties of that organisation? Modern management technology at the core would certainly help.
Obviously any handover from corporate monster (I believe that description to be accurate) would be challenging, but if a framework was in place and enough decent employees of the old monster could be enticed into the new organisation... well, it has to be better than what we have now? | |
| # WE ARE STEALING THE FUTURE FROM OUR CHILDREN --- WE MUST CHANGE COURSE # | | Poll: | It's driving me nuts |
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| Not a single river healthy on 08:43 - Mar 28 with 893 views | DJR |
| Not a single river healthy on 08:16 - Mar 28 by NthQldITFC |
I defer to you and others who have first hand knowledge of the environment (perhaps over a time-span which encompasses a 'bit of both eras'), but I wonder if your views on re-nationalisation are a little too hardened by the inevitable frustrations you justly feel?
Is there not the opportunity and motivation (in certain quarters) to try to build a new type of public sector organisation from the ground up with transparency and accountability and streamlinedness(!) as immutable core properties of that organisation? Modern management technology at the core would certainly help.
Obviously any handover from corporate monster (I believe that description to be accurate) would be challenging, but if a framework was in place and enough decent employees of the old monster could be enticed into the new organisation... well, it has to be better than what we have now? |
I am certainly willing to be persuaded, and it will be interesting to see what Great British Energy looks like and how it performs.
Having said that, I assume it will be forced to recruit from existing energy companies, which means that maybe it will be slightly hamstrung from the start. [Post edited 28 Mar 8:46]
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| Not a single river healthy on 08:52 - Mar 28 with 875 views | jayessess |
| Not a single river healthy on 07:17 - Mar 28 by NthQldITFC |
Ah yes, but if you're dependent upon ice cream and Peters and Mr. Whippy have got together in a price fixing cartel, then your 'choice' is rendered meaningless apart, perhaps, from which musical extravaganza you are treated to when the capitalist van of doom drives up your cul-de-sac! |
I have an ice cream machine, so I'm entirely unbeholden to the Big Whippy Industrial Complex. | |
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| Not a single river healthy on 09:24 - Mar 28 with 846 views | Churchman |
| Not a single river healthy on 08:16 - Mar 28 by NthQldITFC |
I defer to you and others who have first hand knowledge of the environment (perhaps over a time-span which encompasses a 'bit of both eras'), but I wonder if your views on re-nationalisation are a little too hardened by the inevitable frustrations you justly feel?
Is there not the opportunity and motivation (in certain quarters) to try to build a new type of public sector organisation from the ground up with transparency and accountability and streamlinedness(!) as immutable core properties of that organisation? Modern management technology at the core would certainly help.
Obviously any handover from corporate monster (I believe that description to be accurate) would be challenging, but if a framework was in place and enough decent employees of the old monster could be enticed into the new organisation... well, it has to be better than what we have now? |
My last 15 years was spent in the CS. The nature of what I did meant I got to see a lot of Government Departments and people operating at all levels. My perception of the CS before working there was an amorphous mass of grey people pushing pens to little effect. It really wasn’t like that.
The change I witnessed was considerable. A lot of the old working practices and conventions had changed or gone, but plenty still remained. The first thing I noticed was how poor management was. It seemed to decrease in quality the more senior people got. Part of the reason was that management as a skill was not recognised (in HMRC). You could reach a senior grade through training as a Tax Inspector and be given 50 staff and because you had that grade it was assumed you could manage people.
The second thing I noticed was how poor most of the buildings were. The Head Offices, like Parliament St, Marsham St, BIS, FO, MOD were excellent but outside they were either decrepit or the newer big sites like in Newcastle Longbenton battery farm soul destroying.
Then there was the obvious waste and poor contracts. IT - Fujitsu. £30+ pounds to call them. At one point work mobiles were replaced with iPhones. Great - BlackBerrys were awful. They issued them with pages of set up instructions as they had to be synched in a particular way. Fujitsu missed a line out of the instructions which made it impossible to set them up with out phoning said company for the missing bit. Kerching! How many calls were made at £30 a go? 100s.
The printers were supplied and serviced by them too. At one point the paper supplier was changed for a cheaper one. Shame it broke all the printers. Who paid for that? Johnny taxpayer.
You’d have contracts for things like cabs in London. At 3x the normal price. Rubbish stationery supplied by a company called banner.
The point of these rather trivial examples is purely to show some of the more ludicrous aspects. Things like this can always be improved or changed, as can working practices, upskilling, you name it. But the quality of people working in public service isn’t all bad. I met people every bit as capable as those in the private sector, many more so. There is room to improve and there is room for public service, despite what the tories believe.
With regard to nationalisation I wholeheartedly agree with your second paragraph. |  | | |
| Not a single river healthy on 09:55 - Mar 28 with 826 views | NthQldITFC |
| Not a single river healthy on 09:24 - Mar 28 by Churchman |
My last 15 years was spent in the CS. The nature of what I did meant I got to see a lot of Government Departments and people operating at all levels. My perception of the CS before working there was an amorphous mass of grey people pushing pens to little effect. It really wasn’t like that.
The change I witnessed was considerable. A lot of the old working practices and conventions had changed or gone, but plenty still remained. The first thing I noticed was how poor management was. It seemed to decrease in quality the more senior people got. Part of the reason was that management as a skill was not recognised (in HMRC). You could reach a senior grade through training as a Tax Inspector and be given 50 staff and because you had that grade it was assumed you could manage people.
The second thing I noticed was how poor most of the buildings were. The Head Offices, like Parliament St, Marsham St, BIS, FO, MOD were excellent but outside they were either decrepit or the newer big sites like in Newcastle Longbenton battery farm soul destroying.
Then there was the obvious waste and poor contracts. IT - Fujitsu. £30+ pounds to call them. At one point work mobiles were replaced with iPhones. Great - BlackBerrys were awful. They issued them with pages of set up instructions as they had to be synched in a particular way. Fujitsu missed a line out of the instructions which made it impossible to set them up with out phoning said company for the missing bit. Kerching! How many calls were made at £30 a go? 100s.
The printers were supplied and serviced by them too. At one point the paper supplier was changed for a cheaper one. Shame it broke all the printers. Who paid for that? Johnny taxpayer.
You’d have contracts for things like cabs in London. At 3x the normal price. Rubbish stationery supplied by a company called banner.
The point of these rather trivial examples is purely to show some of the more ludicrous aspects. Things like this can always be improved or changed, as can working practices, upskilling, you name it. But the quality of people working in public service isn’t all bad. I met people every bit as capable as those in the private sector, many more so. There is room to improve and there is room for public service, despite what the tories believe.
With regard to nationalisation I wholeheartedly agree with your second paragraph. |
That's a really informative and in many ways encouraging submission, ta. That promotion by default in management is something that always frustrated me in the private sector (admittedly in a neolithic old science-based monster which was probably run on very similar lines!).
The people are there, the raw material is there, it just needs a bit of bravery and pragmatism to take on and deal with a necessary seismic change in the basic structure of the organisations. And transparency and accountability at all levels. | |
| # WE ARE STEALING THE FUTURE FROM OUR CHILDREN --- WE MUST CHANGE COURSE # | | Poll: | It's driving me nuts |
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| Not a single river healthy on 11:59 - Mar 28 with 790 views | Churchman |
| Not a single river healthy on 09:55 - Mar 28 by NthQldITFC |
That's a really informative and in many ways encouraging submission, ta. That promotion by default in management is something that always frustrated me in the private sector (admittedly in a neolithic old science-based monster which was probably run on very similar lines!).
The people are there, the raw material is there, it just needs a bit of bravery and pragmatism to take on and deal with a necessary seismic change in the basic structure of the organisations. And transparency and accountability at all levels. |
Because I was from the Private Sector when I first joined the Civil Service, I was treated with great suspicion by career civil servants. A stranger. An oddity. Dangerous. Over the years I used it to my advantage and it certainly helped me as my career (and grading) advanced. I’ve always felt that one improvement would be for all career CSs to spend time in the Private Sector and visa versa. The benefits are obvious.
More people were coming in from the PS as time went on and what I was involved in, project management, utilised a lot of contractors too. Some were excellent, some were utterly useless. All were very highly paid, or at least their employers were. Plenty were unnecessary.
I always got the impression that the CS didn’t know what resources it had at its disposal. Francis Maude described everyone as ‘dead wood’. He was utterly wrong in that but it expressed the Tory view that hasn’t changed one iota since 2010. Of course there were people who were dysfunctional and needed to go, but just like any other organisation they were in the minority. This wasn’t helped by poor, muddy disciplinary procedures which made it impossible to move people out who deserved it.
My views and experiences are four years old now. Out of date. I gather a lot has changed, but whether that’s for the better, I have my doubts. Swinging cuts, muddled policy making, the blame game, bullying, you name it. I was lucky in my career. I saw both sides of it and got involved in some interesting stuff. But I was glad to call it a day when I did.
Your second paragraph is the way it needs to go. Whether it will remains to be seen. | | | |
| Not a single river healthy on 08:11 - Mar 29 with 640 views | DJR |
| Not a single river healthy on 11:59 - Mar 28 by Churchman |
Because I was from the Private Sector when I first joined the Civil Service, I was treated with great suspicion by career civil servants. A stranger. An oddity. Dangerous. Over the years I used it to my advantage and it certainly helped me as my career (and grading) advanced. I’ve always felt that one improvement would be for all career CSs to spend time in the Private Sector and visa versa. The benefits are obvious.
More people were coming in from the PS as time went on and what I was involved in, project management, utilised a lot of contractors too. Some were excellent, some were utterly useless. All were very highly paid, or at least their employers were. Plenty were unnecessary.
I always got the impression that the CS didn’t know what resources it had at its disposal. Francis Maude described everyone as ‘dead wood’. He was utterly wrong in that but it expressed the Tory view that hasn’t changed one iota since 2010. Of course there were people who were dysfunctional and needed to go, but just like any other organisation they were in the minority. This wasn’t helped by poor, muddy disciplinary procedures which made it impossible to move people out who deserved it.
My views and experiences are four years old now. Out of date. I gather a lot has changed, but whether that’s for the better, I have my doubts. Swinging cuts, muddled policy making, the blame game, bullying, you name it. I was lucky in my career. I saw both sides of it and got involved in some interesting stuff. But I was glad to call it a day when I did.
Your second paragraph is the way it needs to go. Whether it will remains to be seen. |
My experience of the Civil Service is probably not common because the office I worked in was set up like a barristers' chambers with very little in the way of management needed.
Looking at things from the outside, it struck me that the Civil Service signed up (at presumably great cost and Ministers' insistence) to too much management consultancy-led reforms and bullsh*t from the 1990s onwards, with concepts such as business process re-engineering which left me baffled as to what it meant. And such reforms never got a chance to bed in before they were replaced by some other nonsense.
Another aspect of the Civil Service I found troubling was that fast streamers and others in higher ranks were expected to switch departments and roles if they wanted to go up the greasy pole. But from our office's point of view it sometimes led to people in charge of a particular policy area knowing very little about the subject. For most departments, there was a departmental lawyer involved who normally managed to bang things into shape, but in the case of HMRC we received instructions without lawyers being involved, so having someone in charge who didn't know their subject area wasn't necessarily helpful. Having said that, the instructions we received from HMRC were consistently the best, because there was normally someone lower down the chain with the expertise. It was just a shame that in the last few years of my career, those with expertise in HMRC tended to be looked down on, particularly given the importance of expertise in something as important as tax.
As regards policy itself, this is driven by Ministers and often special advisers who might be clever but don't really have a clue. I saw some of this with the New Labour government although most of their legislation ( eg. the devolution legislation) has stood up to scrutiny. Things though have definitely gone downhill since 2010 with virtually no legislation standing the test of time (eg. the Lansley NHS reforms). This is an area where Cameron has to take the blame because he was so laid back that he just let Ministers get on with it. But things have got even worse since he resigned with all the chaos since 2016 and wasted Civil Service time implementing Brexit. And the fact that Ministers stay in post for so little time only adds to the problem. We also now have the extraordinary situation of the Government introducing legislation which on the face of it says is not compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
EDIT: I came across this from the Institute for Government which mirros one of the points I make.
"The indirect costs of staff turnover are even higher, including disruptive leadership changes contributing to major projects like Universal Credit going awry and weakened institutional memory damaging policy development in key areas." [Post edited 29 Mar 8:25]
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| Not a single river healthy on 10:20 - Mar 29 with 599 views | Swansea_Blue |
Quite right too. People expect something for nothing these days. It’s not as if water falls out of the sky.
Oh… |  |
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| Not a single river healthy on 11:04 - Mar 29 with 567 views | Oldsmoker |
In order for the water companies to show that river quality is improving they have decided to flood them with sewage to achieve the worst possible rating.
It is now very easy to show improvements to water quality from such a low point. |  |
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| Not a single river healthy on 14:51 - Mar 29 with 527 views | Nthsuffolkblue |
Genuine question. An insolvent private company that gets liquidated reneges on their debts. If these companies were declared insolvent and the Government forcibly acquired them for no compensation leaving the private investors with nothing, would that be feasible and the best alternative for the taxpayer? If not, why not? | |
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| Not a single river healthy on 00:56 - Apr 1 with 391 views | redrickstuhaart |
| Not a single river healthy on 14:51 - Mar 29 by Nthsuffolkblue |
Genuine question. An insolvent private company that gets liquidated reneges on their debts. If these companies were declared insolvent and the Government forcibly acquired them for no compensation leaving the private investors with nothing, would that be feasible and the best alternative for the taxpayer? If not, why not? |
It would require legislation to bypass the proper insovlency process, under which adminstrators would be obliged to get the best deal for creditors.
Which in turn would lead to major issues in the markets and with investors generally. If a government is prepared to do that once, it might do it again. In which case any investment becomes a massive risk. | | | |
| Not a single river healthy on 07:55 - Apr 1 with 344 views | Churchman |
| Not a single river healthy on 00:56 - Apr 1 by redrickstuhaart |
It would require legislation to bypass the proper insovlency process, under which adminstrators would be obliged to get the best deal for creditors.
Which in turn would lead to major issues in the markets and with investors generally. If a government is prepared to do that once, it might do it again. In which case any investment becomes a massive risk. |
This only exemplifies how stupid it was to flog off utilities for £2.50 and a packet of Quavers in the first place.
According to our rulers, there is nothing that the private sector cannot do cheaper, quicker and more efficiently. Clearly not with utilities. Today in the Guardian, energy electricity providers, specifically Ovo with Smart meters that really are not very smart at all and non existent customer service.
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/mar/13/victoria-coren-mitchell-ovo-pocket | | | |
| Not a single river healthy on 09:35 - Apr 1 with 321 views | Radlett_blue |
| Not a single river healthy on 08:16 - Mar 28 by NthQldITFC |
I defer to you and others who have first hand knowledge of the environment (perhaps over a time-span which encompasses a 'bit of both eras'), but I wonder if your views on re-nationalisation are a little too hardened by the inevitable frustrations you justly feel?
Is there not the opportunity and motivation (in certain quarters) to try to build a new type of public sector organisation from the ground up with transparency and accountability and streamlinedness(!) as immutable core properties of that organisation? Modern management technology at the core would certainly help.
Obviously any handover from corporate monster (I believe that description to be accurate) would be challenging, but if a framework was in place and enough decent employees of the old monster could be enticed into the new organisation... well, it has to be better than what we have now? |
While plenty of privatisations haven't worked well, those of you who think that public ownership is a Utopian panacea for public service, please remember that the Post Office, which spent hundreds of millions knowingly pursuing innocent sub-postmasters, is still in public ownership. |  |
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| Not a single river healthy on 10:47 - Apr 1 with 307 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Not a single river healthy on 09:35 - Apr 1 by Radlett_blue |
While plenty of privatisations haven't worked well, those of you who think that public ownership is a Utopian panacea for public service, please remember that the Post Office, which spent hundreds of millions knowingly pursuing innocent sub-postmasters, is still in public ownership. |
Indeed - I haven’t seen a single poster explain to me why Welsh Water is one of the worst for leaks and pollution, yet not beholden to shareholders. Is it because humans naturally put financial matters over the environment? The need to make a profit is simply replaced by the need to spend as little capital as possible.
Privatisation has not delivered efficiency or competition (or even competence), but unless we improve our environmental legislation we won’t see any improvement no matter who owns the water companies. | | | |
| Not a single river healthy on 11:12 - Apr 1 with 301 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| Not a single river healthy on 11:55 - Mar 27 by cbower |
Another rip-roaring success fot Thatcher's privatisation bun-sale of the "family silver". I remember my old fella almost in tears over water privatisation. "She's selling off life itself", he said. He was right. Billions has been made and these water companies have got us by the short and curlies. We can hardly go somewhere else for their "product" (which they get for free as it simply falls from the sky) because their service is cr@p now can we! [Post edited 27 Mar 12:05]
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Yes, you can.
Move to Scotland.
Things aren't perfect here, but the water quality from the tap is incredible. And there is a plan, with investment allocated, and a commitment to continuous improvement.
This article gives some of the bad as well as the good.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/23532003.scotland-shockingly-behind-england- | | | |
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