3 Comments »

1. "As they had explained, there were problems with statistics in this field because, for instance, if more nurses were taken on, that would count as a cut in productivity since it would seem that there were more nurses per patient."

   Surely if more nurses are taken on and no more patients are treated, that *is* a cut in productivity? One assumes that the value of care provided could be measured too; perhaps later on we’ll find out how that has changed….

   Comment by Chris Lightfoot — 26 Apr 2004 on 8:25 pm | Link

2. Of course we all must remember that modern politicians spend all their time with rich businessmen and this has clearly infected them. They have forgotton that the public and private sectors are very different. They judge public services on their efficiency instead of on their effectiveness.

   I would prefer an ambulance service that would get to me before I died rather than one that ran at ‘peak efficiency’. I would rather have an ‘overstaffed’ police force than have to talk to an answer phone when I want to report a crime. I would rather have ‘massed ranks of bureaucrats’ than have to listen to musak while waiting to talk to a call centre operator who knows less about why the council have cocked up my council tax for the third time than I do.

   All public services are bottomless pits and I would never claim that you should just keep throwing more money at them. But if you are going to judge how the public sector uses its money you should look at how effective the service is, not how efficient.

   Comment by Uncarved Block — 26 Apr 2004 on 9:59 pm | Link

3. Anomalies? If only they *had* employed enough teachers to create an anomaly! Instead – and it happened in the health service too – they took on thousands of civil servants, who don’t have any impact on front-line outcomes. They claim to have spent billions on "education, education, education" yet the amount of money my local school gets per child has hardly risen at all in real terms since 1997, so where has it gone?

   One real problem with education spending when it *does* reach the front line is that instead of increasing the capitation amounts, they introduces various ‘grants’. These change from year to year so it’s impossible to plan ahead, and risky to take on extra staff knowing that you might not be able to afford them next year.

   Add to this the ‘workforce reforms’ that are being introduced, where teachers are entitled to have 10% non-teaching time. Who’s paying for someone to cover that time? No one. So that’s 10% off the budget straight away. Anomalies? Who do they think they are kidding?

   Comment by Neil Moore-Smith — 26 Apr 2004 on 10:18 pm | Link

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