Comprehensive Spending Review - Resident Consultation

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on October 14, 2010 at 13:32

In case anyone's puzzled, I didn't give the link to endorse Philip Green's view.

Though not in the Daily Mail, Clive, I'd invite you to read Polly Toynbee's explanation about why the Coalition's localism agenda is likely to conflict with Mr Green's prescription.

If you "free up" schools, GP-controlled hospitals, and other bodies to make their own choices about they spend public money, they will sometimes make poor choices. Usually in good faith, but sometimes wilfully.

Nor is centralised procurement, by aggregating demand (and apparently maximising savings) always the solution it intuitively appears. I think it was Computer Weekly which covered the ongoing saga of the (well-intentioned) efforts to centralise NHS computerised records.

But the central problem with a focus on waste is the pretence that there's an entirely painless way for every public service to make tens of millions of budget cuts - without cutting any real services or sacking - or cutting the pay and conditions - of staff who deliver them.

Sure, wave goodbye to all but essential consultants. Yes, stop going to ridiculously overpriced conferences in posh hotels and swanky conference centres. Prune the publications. And save the last few hundreds if anyone is still buying bottled water.

But please let's not pretend this will be enough. Nor that it will avoid the headlines about police numbers falling; about hospital operations being cancelled; and about firms supplying local councils having to lay off staff etc etc.

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on October 14, 2010 at 14:28

Alan I guessed that you didn't provide the link in order necessarily to endorse Philip Green's report but we are grateful that you facilitated its easy access. Green looks at a single aspect of Govt. services and he highlights a lot of careless spending. I am not convinced that super centralisation is always a good thing, but surely some progress can be made along these lines.

Computerisation of government services has been the cause of monumental waste and needs a fundamental re-think; even here in Haringey, the "Tech Refresh" debacle (intended to modernise the Borough's computers) is said to gone over budget by perhaps more than £10,000,000. Are you aware of that mishap?

the pretence that there's an entirely painless way for every public service to make tens of millions of budget cuts

One person's cost is another person's income. So obviously cuts cannot be painless, but it depends what is meant by pain. In some cases, the pain will mean that rich corporations like British Telecom may lose hightly profitable contracts with the central government (telecoms was an area highlighted by Green).

If some companies can supply goods at services at a fraction of the cost of others (and presumably still make a profit) it suggests that some companies are ripping off the Government – and by extension, taxpayers (see Green's cost "differentials" of up to 89% (in that case a box of paper: £8 vs £73 !). I suspect the worst abuses may happen in the Ministry of Defence. The same kind of thing has happened in the USA – but there, at least, now and again guilty defence contractors are forced to pay fines and suffer public opprobrium.

This is surely a luxury that the State can no longer afford. The interest bill on the deficit bequeathed to this government, is truly enormous and will get worse if unchecked.

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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on October 14, 2010 at 17:30

"If some companies can supply goods & services at a fraction of the cost of others (and presumably still make a profit) it suggests that some companies are ripping off the Government – and by extension, taxpayers".

I accept that possibility, Clive. Though it seems equally possible to me that low bidding companies fail to give decent conditions and pay; "ripping off" their own staff.

When the Labour Government proposed its "points-based system" for migrants, this included a minimum of £8.50 per hour for senior care workers. (Note the 'senior'.) The association representing private care homes protested, saying this proposal was "entirely inappropriate".

I mentioned GLS supplies at Tottenham Hale as an example of just the sort of central purchasing body with the buying clout to save money for the public purse. In The Guardian on 12 October you'll find more examples - also dismantled - the Property Services Agency and Crown Suppliers.

My limited experience - for what it's worth - is that you cut waste and get value for money if there's a proper balance of local initiative and central control. For instance, school senior managers determined to get the very best value for their school - coupled with a strong central Education Authority offering its expertise and buying power.

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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on October 14, 2010 at 21:43

Before I came over here I worked for the Inland Revene Department of New Zealand. We were a big purchaser of IT equipment. Every year there was a two year contract up for grabs for supply of new PCs (PCs were getting big, remember Windows 95?). You may wonder at the discrepancy, every year the chosen supplier (the lowest bidder) would go bust and we would have to go out to tender again.

This money isn't being pissed down a hole when it's wasted, it gets into the economy and allows the private sector employers to pay their employees well or send their grandchildren to private school. All of this "efficiency" stuff is just ideology. TAX ME YOU COWARDS.

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Permalink Reply by Omotn on October 22, 2010 at 15:11

There is a document on the treasury website which contains a table 2.7 under the heading "Local Government". Which reads
____________ 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15
Resource DEL __28.5 ____26.1 ___24.4 ___24.2 ____22.9 (£ billion)

I think this is the total amount of money the central government distributes to local government?? Using 2010-11 as a base the annual percentage decreases are 8.42 , 6.51 , 0.82 and 5.37 respectively, or 19.65 in total. If I am right and LBH gets a pro-rata amount from this total then Cllr Goldberg was a tad pessimistic in his 25% estimate. The linked newspaper article in saying " . . . a 7.1 per cent cut to Haringey Council's annual budget over the next four years" is both wrong and ambiguous.

There is another treasury spreadsheet which shows the outturn for 05/06 being £46bn and for 06/07 being £22bn!

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Permalink Reply by Joe Goldberg on October 26, 2010 at 11:21

Will,

I think you are being disingenuous to say the least.

For the record I said "When the governments are planning to cut anywhere between 25% and 40% from our budget, we know that these cuts will have a severe impact on the level of service we provide."

I guess the real question is on what basis was this made.

To be clear it was the Tory governments - I paste some references which perhaps you missed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/03/treasury-orders-cabi...

and for the sake of political balance here..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/jul/03/treasury-orders-cabi...

In terms of the headline cuts I will post again, but it is over-simplistic to say that the 28.1% "DEL" cut will be the totality of the impact on the council and in truth we will not know the actual figure until December 6th.

By way of illustration in the emergency budget we lost £3.3million in the headline budget, but in actual fact we have now lost in the region of £18.5m this year in cuts handed down from other departmental grant funding.

Either way as will become clear, local government has taken one of the largest hits as a sector from the CSR. I welcome Karen's original post - and would encourage people to get involved in the consultation and express their views on how we should deal with these seismic and savage cuts as a borough.

Permalink Reply by Joe Goldberg on October 26, 2010 at 11:45

Apologies in addition to the twice posted Guardian link I had intended to post from the Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/7870334/Min....

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