Category Archives: public sector

160,000 Brits lose jobs to migrants

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A study by the Migration Advisory Committee has revealed that more than 160,000 British people have lost out on a job to an immigrant in the past five years. Figures also revealed that a total of £2,216 is spent per head on education for immigrants and their families every year, whilst only £1,662 is spent on British children. At least 112,000 new homes will need to be built for immigrants over the next five years.

I doubt this will come as much of a surprise to those at the sharp end. No doubt the politicians are already sharpening their pencils in preparation for trotting out the same lame excuses for failing to control immigration into our already overcrowded country. The one about migrants only taking jobs the locals don’t want is a standard one along with the unconvincing one that nobody believes anymore about them making a net contribution to the economy. I wonder if these figures also include all the money wasted on the translation services virtually every public service provider needs to use in order to communicate with many of these immigrants?

Regional government mark II

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An interesting item in today’s press about more squandering and waste of EU funds. Most of the blame seems to fall on the regional government offices put in place by the last Labour government, with their inadequate accounting and poor auditing practices.

I’m told that one of the justifications for the introduction of regional government was the need to have a mechanism by which European money could be channelled to specific areas of the country, rather than to central government for redistribution. This is now the same rationale being applied to the introduction, by Eric Pickles ( the man who killed off regional government) of localities directors and localities partners. However, this time, instead of 8 government offices, in a ridiculous piece of government double speak and seemingly in order to avoid using the Labour government’s EU inspired terminology, we are now to have 14 ‘localities’.

Quite apart from the ludicrous situation of having to set up a completely superfluous level of bureaucracy, in order to get back a fraction of the cash we give EU, we now seem destined to see regional government mark II.

How many of those working for these localities directors, as they inevitably build their individual local empires, will be ex-regional government employees? Many of whom will have, by right, recently collected redundancy and severance payments, compliments of the British taxpayer. Having had a nice little break, they can now rejoin the public payroll, compliments of the rash and ill considered decisions of the same man who is now introducing these localities directors – a rose by any other name.

Labour trying to cash in on Forces good name?

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As an ex-serviceman with 38 years service in the RAF, I am of course a service pensioner.  I was therefore very interested to read about the issue of service pension cuts being raised at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.  Apparently, Labour delegates are very concerned that ex-service personnel are suffering a drop in their pensions because of the government’s decision to change the way rises in benefits are calculated.  The switch from RPI to CPI means that anybody receiving an index linked benefit, such as a public pension, will effectively be taking a cut in income year on year.

I of course have a vested interest in this subject and would be very pleased to see the link with the RPI restored.  However, why has Labour waited until their party conference to make a fuss about this?

Also, why is it only service pensions that they are so concerned about?  What about all the other public servants who are now, or soon will be, on a pension and are receiving a year on year cut in what may be their only source of income?

Could it be that the Labour Party is cynically seeking to cash in on the current high regard the military is enjoying in the public’s eye?  If there were no servicemen and women returning from Afganistan dead, or suffering from horrific and life changing injuries, would this item of even been discussed at the conference, let alone appeared on an agenda?

Developers are far from hungry

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I see the developers are taking full advantage of all the publicity about the housing shortage, to take yet another swipe at the planning system, in cahoots with various ministers of Government.

Behind all their whaling and whining, hides the fact that, difficult times or not, the industry still has hundreds of thousands of planning permissions they have not implemented. Why isn’t Greg Clark berating the building industry and asking why they aren’t building what they’ve already got, instead of moaning about wanting more? to paraphrase Oliver Twist, ‘Please sir, my bowl is already quite full, but can I have some more anyway!’.

Pilgrim Hospital still well below standard

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Given all the bad press quangos have received since we were ‘blessed’ with a new government, the health service watchdog, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), certainly seems to be earning its keep.

The CQC has maintained it’s criticism of Pilgrim Hospital in Boston and it’s extremely depressing to hear a spokesperson for the hospital say that things have improved because they are now filling in a few forms.

From my personal experience, the hospital actually needs to go back to basics and not just faff around with bits of admin and updated procedures. Only the complete replacement of the staff running the wards would achieve what’s needed at this hospital, because most of the staff are simply not up to the job. I’ve no doubt there are some highly professional and dedicated staff in the hospital wards at present, but they have let patients down just as badly as their sub-standard colleagues, by failing to speak out over the years.

Now compare my experience in Pilgrim Hospital with a recent, albeit brief, stay in Peterborough’s brand new city hospital – put simply, there is no comparison. The people of Peterborough and its hinterland are fortunate indeed to have, not just a nice new shiney hospital, but to also have excellent staff to go with it. As an aside, and again from personal experience, it’s the staff that make the difference, not the age of the building, Nottingham City Hospital proves that – over 100 years old and counting.

On an even more depressing note, the County Hospital in Lincoln is even worse than Pilgrim, at least it was 3 years ago. I’m therefore more than a little surprised that the CQC hasn’t laid in to them yet.

A small victory for the pedestrians

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Almost 12 months ago now, I wrote to Boston’s Pilgrim Hospital management, raising my concerns regarding pedestrian safety.  As often happens with these large faceless organisations, I received no response.  Never deterred by stonewalling I wrote again, just in case the first letter didn’t get there, however this time I hand delivered it.  Yet again, no response, so then I wrote to the hospital trust HQ in Lincoln.  This time, albeit after a period of some 8 months, I received a letter stating that, having consider my points, they would indeed be taking steps to improve the situation.

Although it may sound like it, I’m not actually out to blow my own trumpet, but simply to point out that it sometimes takes more than one go to get an answer, let alone to get something fixed.  If at first you don’t succeed and all that.

What was I complaining about?  Next time you go to the Pilgrim Hospital and park in the main car park, take note of the bit where you have to cross the road to get to the main entrance.  Assuming the new signage hasn’t been installed, take note of the care, or more accurately, lack of it, taken by some drivers as you attempt to walk across the raised road section between the car park and the approach to the hospital’s main entrance.

About 2 years ago it was necessary for us to visit the hospital every week for nearly 6 months, so we became very familiar with the selfish attitude of some drivers when using this piece of road.  The raised road surface and some signs, were supposed to alert drivers to pedestrians crossing and that they (the drivers) should therefore give them priority – this was often not the case.  Having witnessed at least two near misses, one involving my wife, I decided enough was enough, hence my letters to the hospital management.

Although I didn’t get the type of signs I wanted, ‘STOP – Give way to pedestrians at all times’, I did convince them to change the existing signs for something more prominent.  A red square with white lettering.  I just hope it doesn’t take them another 12 months to put them in place!

Huhne , apparently no better than the rest of us

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The ongoing farce that is Chris Huhne’s game of cat and mouse with the police over his alleged speeding offence, rather sums up the moral degradation issue our country is currently wrestling with.

Those of us who have been elected are regularly told that public service is an honour. We are also told that those of us fortunate enough to gain the public’s trust, through the electoral process, should be prepared to be held to a higher standard of behaviour in office. Chris Huhne’s personal integrity has clearly been called in to question and yet he continues to plead his innocence and desperately hang on to his position as a government minister.

Whilst such behaviour is not exactly the equivalent of rioting or looting, it could be argued that it is actually a form of high class anti-social behaviour. It could also be argued that it should receive the same zero tolerance approach now being demanded for ‘ordinary’ citizens. If it’s good enough for them, then it should be doubly so for those in public office and required to be held to a higher standard.

One could of course argue that Chris Huhne is innocent until proven guilty, but is that an acceptable approach for somebody in a high profile public office? Would not an honourable man, sensitive to the repetitional damage of such grubby goings on, consider his position? History is dotted with the names of honourable politicians who, when their personal integrity was called in to question, stepped aside until their name was cleared – I think David Laws is potentially the most recent example. In doing so, they should be seen as setting an example for other public servants to endeavour to follow.

Unfortunately, Chris Huhne appears to consider himself too important to take such an honourable course of action. Either that, or his moral compass has titled in the same way as all those rioters and looters who took to the streets 10 days ago. Whatever his reasons, it sets a pretty poor example to the rest of us ordinary folk.

The thin blue line – business as usual

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Read this piece from today’s Sunday Telegraph – Night the thin blue line snapped. By David Barrett and Patrick Hennessy to read an excellent analysis of why zero tolerance policing will fail without many other changes being made.

Sadly, there is a complete generation of fast tracked (2 years on the beat and then no more getting their hands dirty) whizz-kid coppers at the top of our police forces – I refuse to call the police a service, that’s what the refuse collectors do when they pick up my rubbish, they give me a service. As an aside, why did the senior cops of the time roll-over so easily? Why didn’t they tell the politicians to get stuffed and stick their name change?

Unless you can send these senior cops back to the staff college, where they were first indoctrinated in to the PC world our police now operate in, then nothing will change. Even then, this can’t happen in isolation, because as soon as the police throw the PC rule book out of the window, the civil rights lawyers will be all over them like a virulent and nasty rash.

Police officers need to be given the political backing and most importantly, the right training, to apply the law robustly and fairly, if zero tolerance is going to work. I have serious doubts that the American super-cop will last much longer than his first scathing report, or make any difference in the long run.

Eric Pickles does Localism

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I see Eric Pickles is once again demonstrating that his version of Localism – the directed one – is the only one that he actually believes in with his latest comments about town centre car parking charges.

Having shafted local government big time, by slashing its grant setlement by 28% in one year with even more to come, he now has the nerve to tell the public that town centre car parking charges will drop. Given his financial betrayal of local government, it’s not at all clear how he comes to this conclusion, but that’s about par for the course with this big mouthed minister.

The problem with car parking charges is that they are always viewed in isolation from all other areas of council business. They are either viewed as a burden on the taxpayer that must at best be kept cost neutral because they are so politically sensitive or, at the other end of the spectrum, they are seen as a source of revenue, that can legitimately be used to bolster the council’s income, despite the legislation saying that it should be run for profit. As always, where there’s a will there’s a way and many councils seems to do very nicley out of it, thank you very much.

My view is that, where approporiate, the cost of running a town centre car park should be seen as part of the council’s investment in the economic development of that town centre. If the evidence is there to show that car parking charges, or even the lack of them, is having an impact of the vitality or viabilty of a town centre, then why not include the cost of running the car park in the economic development strategy for that town?

This would then allow the council to justify to taxpayers the provision of free parking, where a town centre is found to be struggling and its shops closing down in increasing numbers, without being accused of subsidising motorists.

Good luck Ollie, you’ll need it!

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I see Oliver Letwin is calling for the cold wind of commercial reality to blow through the world of public service. Apparently, his radical suggestion is that, just like happens in the private sector, if somebody doesn’t do their job properly, they sholud be sacked and not just shuffled around the department until it’s time for them to retire.

Looked at from the outside, this doesn’t seem a particularly radical idea, until you look at the way the public sector, through it’s unions, has tied success governments and therefore the taxpayers in knots over the years. Public sector terms and conditions are based on the age old tradition of, work for peanuts, but get rewarded by a shorter working life and a better pension.

However, the confidence trick that has been played on the taxpayer over the past 20+ years, is that of ever increasing salaries, but without this being balanced by a reduction in their much criticised gold plated terms and conditions. Until that key point is addressed, the whole issue of dragging the public sector in to line with the private sector is going to remain a pipe dream.

By coincidence, I asked a very similar question when the district council was looking at how to reorganisation itself – how do we bring ourselves in the real world, by making our terms and conditions parallel the private sector? Like Oliver Letwin is no doubt already hearing, I was told that it wasn’t that easy. Apparently, the way public sector employment is structured in law, the council could not employ two people doing the same job, on different terms and conditions. If that is the case, then I can see little future for the public sector, as it seems the only way to level this particular playing field would be to scrap the public service sector completely and start again. Ultimately, is that what the Big Society is all about?