Civil Service Live Network: Ruth Keeling's blog: To cut or not to cut

The size of the budget deficit and prospect of public service cuts have, naturally, been major topics of conversation at the conference.

The government says the deficit must be paid for through a combination of economic growth, sale of the nationalised banks and careful public service cuts, Brighton has heard a few dissenting voices in Brighton.

Loudest has been union leader Mark Serwotka. General secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, he believes the political establishment have formed a consensus that there have to be cuts when they may not actually be necessary. Instead, he argues, the government could focus on collecting the billions of pounds of uncollected and avoided taxes, cancel Trident or identity cards.

Labour are not completely immune to this argument. They have sought to portray the Conservatives as axe-wielding maniacs who can barely wait to chop frontline services while Labour, Alistair Darling spelled out, is raising taxes for the highest earners, targeting offshore tax havens and will "protect front-line public services".

Of course, the adjunct to the ministerial mantra of protecting front-line public services is that old chestnut: backroom efficiencies. Gordon Brown and Ed Balls have insisted at this conference that public investment in education will not fall - but that does not mean there won't be pressures on schools and local authorities; the government wants them to make savings in areas such as procurement and administration.

While there has been much talk of the prime minister’s belated use of the word ‘cuts’, he and his party still seem very shy about employing it widely. The continuation of the idea that efficiency savings and public service reform and improvement can go hand in hand is reflected in the titles of many of the fringe events: "In a tight financial climate, is public service dead?" (answer - no, we just need to think of a different way of doing things); "Public Services: 10% better, 10% cheaper" (answer - more for less is still possible).

At one such event, Times columnist Peter Riddell bemoaned the state of public debate in the same way union leader Serwotka had. "We have a very narrow public debate on fiscal options, tax and spending," Riddell said, with most of the main speeches focusing on eye-catching policy initiatives.

The problem with the nation's finances were as much about taxes as spending, he continued, because the economic downturn meant tax revenue was down by a quarter. "Nowhere in the discussion do we say how much the adjustments have to be in tax, rather than spending," he said.

Another journalist, former Observer editor Will Hutton, echoed the idea a false sense of urgency to the fiscal situation had been created. He gave one fringe audience a potted history of British public finances over the last few hundred years in order to show that a deficit taking up 80 per cent of GDP is nothing unusual. "There really isn't any crisis in the way that it is being portrayed," he said.

Treasury minister Stephen Timms was challenged on this very point: one audience member asked why it was so very important to halve the deficit over the next four years. Timms said the risk of the financial markets losing confidence in the government and the economy if a commitment wasn't made or kept to "does not bear thinking about".

What Timms didn't mention, and what he and others also can't bear to think about, is the effect failure to deal with the deficit would have on Labour's painstakingly-earned reputation as a safe pair of hands on the economy.

The dissenters are right, there is a cosy consensus and a lack of proper debate about fiscal policy, but Labour will not be starting that discussion.

Michael ONeill

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Colleagues

Well what I 'can't bear thinking about' is the consequences of being so afraid of the financial markets that the political consequences of putting a society for the high jump get completely overlooked. I'm with Riddell, Serwotka and Hutton (not that I'm intellectually gifted enough to be in such glitering company!). A serious problem is in danger of being made a lot more serious if we destabilise the employment market further. Ultimately, it should be possible to persuade the financial market of this. They are not naive or stupid (I mean we are getting to grips with 3rd World debt - why not our own?). Instead, we should focus on restructuring our economies, our societies, our infrastructure in ways that make them better able to operate in the future. So whilst there may some justifiable exasperation with the poor value for money being obtained from some of our public services, we need to be honest about why this might be (too much managing, not enough frontline skills/support, snouts in troughs etc.) and get to work on fixing it. Some of our fixation on IT over people also needs addressing for the damage it stands to do to our social fabric.

etc. etc.

We're on the horns of a dilemma alright and its testing times for politicans. But I would back keeping people in work ahead of cut, cut, cut if I was trying to break the current unvirtuous cycle.

Michael ONeill 965 days ago

Jamie Knights

I fear we will enter a "productivity trap" if the Value For Money/Operational Efficiency Programme are not run in parallel with:-

-- a completely different way of managing budget allocations and

-- a very significant effort to "gain sharing" efficiencies with staff by increasing by an order of magnitude the quality and size of incentive and performance related pay systems.

The thing about doing "more for less" is that this can only happen if staff are more productive. If we cut, cut, cut and staff don't magically become productive savings are either illusory, with Departments needing to hire extra workers to make good the short fall from the drop in productivity of the existing demoralised and disengaged workforce. Alternatively the efficiency programs become a trade off between cost savings and the quality of public services.

Cutting staff numbers and/or freezing pay WILL disengage staff. Either of these measuers act to disturb the "effort - reward" bargain (psycholgical contract, employee proposition or whatever else you want to call it). The well documented response will be disengagement and a drop in productivity.

The Civil Service, by its own admission, does not have the tools for managing poor performance. With virtually no reliable link between performance and reward (the Employee Engagement survey shows that very few staff assess the link as strong or fair) managers also have no leverage with which to incentivise or drive productivity or engagement.

With all these levers missing what is left is a last ditch communication exercise where managers attempt to persuade staff to engage. If staff aren't minded to listen because they feel unsupported due to the cuts management have no leverage left to prevent engagement and productivity dropping.

I accept that a decision on the extent of public service provision should be a political question but surely our role is to find, within the boundaries of our operation that we need, systems for managing our work, including budget allocation, efficiency programs and incentivsation strategies that seek to maximise productivity and value for money. Choosing an approach that is bound to lead to lower productivity is a recipe for disaster.

Jamie Knights 965 days ago

Geoff Bantock

Any company with declining revenues and increasing costs has to take drastic action to stave off insolvency.

As a collector of taxes dealing with large time to pay cases, I have to deal with a lot of companies in financial difficulties.

Whilst I can help the viable companies by deferring some of their tax liabilities in the short term, they still have to pay.

A company in financial difficulties has to do one or more of the following: -

• Obtain an injection of funding (a bit tricky in the recession when banks are lending less).
• Increase turnover (a bit tricky in the recession when everyone is cutting back on their expenditure).
• Cut costs – this can be capital items – reducing stock – reducing staffing costs either by redundancy, pay cuts or short time working.(hence the unemployment figures rise)

An insolvent company can trade itself back into profit and if I can see that I will support them to do so.

An insolvent company with no prospects of returning to profit, I will not support as they are not viable. Not viable companies are closed down.

And so instead of being a traditional collector of taxes, I now have 4 jobs:

• Traditional collector of taxes
• Accountant – can I work out from the financial information supplied whether the company is viable?
• Bank manager – should I loan them their outstanding tax monies for a period to enable them to trade out of difficulty.
• Social worker – what are the social consequences of losing jobs – bit tricky this one – less jobs means less tax paid and more welfare paid and increasing public debt.

The finances of UK PLC are basically the same – a mixture of financial and social consequences.

UK PLC in financial difficulties has to do one or more of the following: -

• Obtain an injection of funding (a bit tricky in the recession when less people have money to buy gilts).
• Increase turnover (a bit tricky in the recession – there is a limit to how much can be raised in taxation).
• Cut costs – this can be capital items ( get rid of Trident, aircraft carriers and any other capital items which may reduce jobs)– reducing stock (perhaps reduce our levels of welfare payments etc) – reducing staffing costs either by redundancy, pay cuts or short time working.(hence the unemployment figures rise)

An insolvent country like Iceland with no prospects of returning to profit, UK would not support as they were not viable. Not viable countries are closed by other countries.

No easy answers other than painful cuts for most of our UK citizens.

Geoff Bantock 965 days ago

Michael ONeill

I don’t know about you Geoff but it seems to me that at a time like this we stand at a crossroads with - as the great and the good in the political parties have said - no manual to tell us which way to go. It's my belief that we have to examine our values. Do I run a business simply so I can make money, even to the extent of exploiting my staff, or do I consider the business as something all those working in should feel they have a stake in (there are interesting examples from history, and the likes of John Lewis seem today to hold to that model). When people feel they have a stake in something, they will believe it when they are informed that – despite best efforts - business is down due to a failing market. They will bring the best of their collective thinking to the table, coming up with everything from agreeing to a % pay cut (bosses leading by example of course), to new ways and directions in which to generate revenue, to sharing the hardships, to supporting each other much as any good community does. In contrast, if people feel they have no stake in something....is that what we are already lookng at out there in large sections of society?

My concern at present is that as a society, we don’t seem to understand the connection between wealth and money. You can print money, but the creation of wealth is something else. Maybe we have an opportunity now to re-discover what that connection is. I’d hate for us to squander it..

Margaret Thatcher once said, and has been slammed for it ever since, that “There was no such thing as society.” Always, always, always I felt that the unspoken second part of that was “…but people make it so.” In other words we must look to ourselves and ask what we can do to help, and stop outsourcing our expectation to some or other bunch of people. It is the sum of our behaviour that makes a society.

Michael ONeill 965 days ago

Geoff Bantock

Michael - Your comment of “but it seems to me that at a time like this we stand at a crossroads with - as the great and the good in the political parties have said - no manual to tell us which way to go. It's my belief that we have to examine our values. “goes to the heart of the issue.
I went to a Fred Pryor training course centre some 10 years or so ago which came up with 8 different value systems that can drive us:-
• Friends – taken to the extreme and we end up with a gang culture and we have to follow their lead
• Family – taken to the extreme -our families needs come before everything else
• Finance – taken to the extreme – the sole purpose in life is making more and more money.
• Physical – taken to the extreme – glamour for a woman becomes the most important thing in life – physical fitness for a man and a body like Charles Atlas
• Career - taken to the extreme – must reach the highest position regardless of the consequence to oneself or the rest of the organisation
• Education – taken to the extreme – qualification after qualification and none of them are ever used constructively
• Leisure – taken to the extreme – the 19th hole on the golf course or the gossip table perhaps becomes the sole purpose of our lives
• Spiritual – taken to the extreme Nirvana for the Buddhist, becoming more Christ like by following the teachings of the Bible for a Christian, for a Muslim following the teachings of the Koran, for a Jew following the teachings of the Torah and there are many other spiritual directions.

I feel we need to seek a spritual solution as to which direction our nation should now go on whether “To cut or not to cut”.

At pivotal moments in our history – 1940 – “King George VI called for a national day of prayer. “ we have sought divine solutions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwtwo/earlyyears_01.shtml

Do we have to await for a disaster to seek a divine solution?

Geoff Bantock 964 days ago

Michael ONeill

I enjoyed reading that a lot Geoff. My only slight problem with the last one (speaking as a member of the hippie generation, though I flirted with hippiedom more than immersed myself in it), is the danger of over-reliance on religion as a place of spiritual retreat (I recall encounters and conversations with members of various ‘new religion’ groups). One of my uncles was a monk (and before that a diplomat with the British High Commission in India in WW2 and its immediate aftermath, which I always thought was interesting) and I can recall my mother (herself a dedicated public servant) being rather scathing about his 'retreating from the world'.

As I drove into work today (I came off my electric bike 2 days ago and banged my shoulder up badly - the downside of being altruistic and green!), I listened on BBC R4 to the last part of Shirley Williams reading from her autobiography. She had some very pertinent things to say about the need to rediscover a sense of pride and dedication over serving the public (something I get depressed about because I am very keen to 'make a difference' in that respect yet find our structures constraining to the point of maddening - maybe posting on here can contribute to a change for the better). Shirley Williams remains optimistic and feels that right now she can see signs of progress in the right direction, driven by the global challenges that face us (though that could have been the diplomatic politician in her speaking, I prefer to think it was not). She ended with a quote from W H Auden that she felt summed it all up (prefacing it with a reminder to us that he had lived through WW2 and events such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki ):

"We must love one another, or die."

…which I think sums it up pretty well.

I’d like to say something about the postings I have read, written by you and based on your working life with HMRC. For me, as someone who was until recently out there working as a very ordinary person in the business world and with no real insight into (and probably a lot prejudice against) the kind of people tax inspectors are, they have been a bit of a revelation. It’s hard to put out of mind the thought that you might have, in your time, provided a better service to the business community than some of the commercial interests have done. I always remember that famous clip of David Attenborough, lying in the grass close to some gorillas grooming each other peacefully in one of the concluding episodes of his ‘Life on Earth’ series. I can’t remember his exact words, but he whispered to the camera something like:

“ There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know. It is ironic then that these gentle creatures have been portrayed by us as the epitome of everything that is violent and aggressive, when that is the one thing they are not……and that we are.”

Here at UK Border Agency we have commissioned a TV series showing what we actually do to enable the legitimate movement of peoples into and out of the UK and to prevent abuse of our immigration rules. It occurs to me that HMRC must have a very interesting programme waiting to be made, if it has not been done already (my wife and daughters dominate the telly so I don’t get to watch much of what I’d like to!).

A pleasure, as always, to correspond with you.

Michael ONeill 964 days ago

Geoff Bantock

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Michael – another very challenging piece and in particular, your comment "We must love one another, or die." reminds me of another comment linking love and death “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

But we must get back to trying to answer the question “To cut or not to cut”.

Treasury minister Stephen Timms tries to do both with his comment “We will protect public services, but we do have to halve [the public deficit] within four years” without saying how. Though an earlier speech gives us an inkling of what he has in mind ““It’s recognised that those who cheat the benefits system are taking vital resources away from those in greatest need. If benefit cheats aren’t dealt with, they undermine people’s confidence in the benefits system itself. So too with tax cheats, they not only cheat the public purse of much needed resources, but they undermine the confidence that ordinary taxpayers have in the system. Its corrosive and it needs to be tackled head on, and recognised for the damage it does.”

I agree with his strategy.

Unusually high Wealth and Life style (based on benefits received and taxes paid) are the main giveaways of benefits and tax cheats.

Perhaps it might not be politically acceptable, let alone legally permissible, and would certainly offend all libertarians, but if we published the amounts of benefits received and taxes paid at each address in the UK each year we might solve most domestic and benefits fraud. We ought to pay our taxes with gladness and pay benefits only to those in need.

A UK citizen who lives in a 4 million pound house: -

· And pays £750k Income Tax a year seems fair

· And pays no UK Income Tax in a year seems morally unfair

· And pays no UK Income Tax in a year and receives £50k benefits in a year is almost certainly a cheat

At a stroke perhaps we have found the solution to cut our annual deficit of £175 billion or so.

Whilst The Beveridge Report of 1942 wrote of the need for the state to attack the “five giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.”

We now have good (compared to 1942) welfare and care provision but perhaps not such good moral decadence in payment of taxes. So perhaps the Beveridge Report of 2009 would write of the need for the state to attack the “six giants of Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor, Idleness and Moral decadence.”

I like the advice I first heard over 20 years ago from a previous Bishop of Winchester, the late Bishop John V Taylor in his book "Enough is Enough".

"Enough is not enough! If such quick response indicates that we have hit a sore spot, then we must hit it again and again. For it is in the area of public opinion that this battle has to be fought. Nothing will achieve the change of policies which our very salvation demands but a profound re-orientation of public opinion."

"Early in 1972 Reg Prentice, a former Minister of Overseas Development, made the same point about the way in which Britain's concern for the under-developed nations might be improved:

"The rich countries are so preoccupied with sorting out their relations with each other that they do no have much time left for the remaining two-thirds of the human family. There is only one way to counteract thus: slow, hard grind of public education and political pressure within the rich countries.""

As Bishop John Taylor called us to do with his final comment in the book -
"'Behold, I am making all things new' is still the word of the sovereign Christ. But his renewals and revolutions begin quietly, like faith itself. They start growing from one tiny seed, the staggering thought: Things don't have to be like this. When that idea begins to trickle down into the structures and into the minds of ordinary people in our affluent society the cry may at last go up: You're nothing but a pack of cards!”

We have to keep on bringing these social issues again and again into the public domain.

Solving the social issues will surely answer the question of “To cut or not to cut”.

Geoff Bantock 962 days ago

Michael ONeill

Geoff

Once again, I'm struck by the quality and persuasiveness of your writing. I've filed the data contained therein for reference as credible stuff, worth weighing into my thoughts as they develop.

I'm only sad this forum is not better supported so that more people read your words, though no doubt that will change and maybe (it’d be nice to think so) because the quality of discussion makes for interesting reading. In the meantime, let’s hope at least that our senior civil servants are dropping by to read the various postings, and that some may resonate with them.

‘Thought for the Day’ on BBC R4 this morning (speaker: Clifford Longley , you can read it at http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/thought/ - I recommend it highly, and I’m not even a particularly good or practicing Christian) contained an interesting reminder of the need to ensure though that a strategy aimed at flushing out the work-shy, does not fatally harm the many who are not work-shy but for whom the credit crunch has brought redundancy and great difficulty in finding new work (let alone work that will give them an income to match their financial commitments). I have been in that ‘anxiety and depression inducing’ situation, as the sole provider for a wife and three children. Aged 50+, I was unable to find work despite being well skilled, ‘can do’ and very flexible about what work I was prepared to take on. The New Deal 50+, and a caring and compassionate JobCentre counsellor (to whom I shall forever be grateful and who I made sure I kept informed of my progress back to reasonable mental health and financial self-sufficiency) got me back to work again. Without this, I have no doubt I (and my family too maybe) could have ended up in a terrible place, possibly on long term benefits, with health problems, and presenting a significant financial drain on the public purse. It is this experience, and the knowledge that large numbers are today going through this same frightening experience, that drives my thinking on ‘to cut or not to cut’. I think it is wrong to dismiss growth in public sector jobs as simply representing financial lassitude, because it is just as possible to see this growth as a sign of social compassion (and sense?) following the collapse of work opportunities in sectors such as engineering (my old home) and manufacturing: a collapse that – in my view – could have been at least partially avoided were it not for the growth of what you refer to as ‘moral decadence’ (and Mandelson seems to have hinted at just this in conceding that perhaps – with hindsight - our over reliance on the financial services sector as a prime UK wealth generator, was a mistake). I’d prefer to be back in my old industry, but most importantly I need to be in work and my priority now is to try and persuade my civil service employer to make better use of its resources in delivering for the public.

We mustn’t allow the ‘cut, cut, cut’ mentality to grow unchecked. ‘Moral decadence’ (or ‘diminished social responsibility’, a term I also like for its descriptiveness) and its social expressions is what we must tackle, and we must persuade the tax-paying, non benefit abusing, hurting part of the general public of the need to tackle it. Even harder, we must persuade the offenders that they ultimately harm themselves by their actions. In the meantime, the (un)employment situation must be handled with care in order not to further de-stabilise a sick patient. I seem to recall, though I’d need to check the facts, that some famous tax evaders – Lester Piggott, Ken Dodd spring to mind – described their tax evading habits as a compulsion acquired from growing up amidst financial insecurity. Which reminds me that it is hard to expect commitment and participation from citizens if they cannot see reciprocal benefits for what they are asked to contribute in to a system. They have to make the connection between how helping others actually is the best way of helping themselves. Which I guess returns us to W H Auden, Shirley Williams, et al.

I’ll end, if I may, by endorsing (and repeating) your closing sentence:

“Solving the social issues will surely answer the question of “To cut or not to cut”. ”

Michael ONeill 961 days ago

Geoff Bantock

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Michael – You are so right to challenge us on the need to look after the poor and unemployed who are seeking work and quoting the BBC thought for the day today which refers to them as the “modern poor”.

I decided to look at David Cameron’s plans announced today against our question of “To cut or not to cut”

We will simplify Labour’s numerous and piecemeal programmes into one single back-to-work programme for everyone on out of work benefits.
The Work Programme will include support back into work for the 2.6 million people claiming Incapacity Benefits currently excluded by Labour.
We will abolish the Treasury’s rule that prevents the Government paying work providers using the benefits saved once someone has a job. This will allow us to offer support to the 2.6 million people on Incapacity Benefit.
We will offer greater support to the young unemployed by referring them on to the Work Programme after 6 months of unemployment compared to a year under the Flexible New Deal.
We will pay providers by results with a focus on truly sustainable outcomes and bigger rewards for getting the hardest to help into a job.

I think this can be made to work well but the devil is always in the detail. The key for me is our need to provide a personalised service for welfare and care which will need a new joined up IT system to work well.

You fight so hard to help the unemployed – hardly surprising with what you have gone through – and praise the efforts of a “caring and compassionate JobCentre counsellor”.

Will “We will pay providers by results with a focus on truly sustainable outcomes and bigger rewards for getting the hardest to help into a job.” have any focus on care and compassion though?

When I dropped out of university (chose the wrong course the first time!), it was only through the help of a caring and compassionate clergyman, who had once worked in the Department of Employment himself, that I myself started working there for a short period before returning to university a second time (chose the wrong course the second time too!) and returned to the Department of Employment. I saw the unemployed through the 3 day week and blackouts of 1972 (we had to work 5 days a week using paraffin lights and plenty of overtime too). They did not want to be unemployed as the unemployment registers rocketed to over 1 million. By the time I joined the Inland Revenue in 1973 they had dropped to half a million. Yes, most of the unemployed do want to work but we do have to design a system that makes it worthwhile financially to be in work rather than unemployed.

This is my fourth recession in which I have tried to collect tax (much harder to do so in a recession and less taxes collected as far less money around) and I have dealt with far too many businesses and individuals who have gone bust – and seen the effects of unemployment. For 30 years I have been deciding whether “To cut or not to cut” our losses on old tax debts where people are unable to pay for hardship or other reasons.

The last 3 years have brought a different type of debtor – the debtor owing a tax credit overpayment owing money to the collector of taxes. Many of these had minimal income and assets in the first place – hence the reason they received tax credits.

What are the results like? The NAO report issued on HMRC 2008-09 Accounts on 16 July 2009, was concerned about the “level of debt up 11% to £27.7 billion with provision of doubtful debt of £11.2 billion, tax credit debts of £4.4 billion of which £2.3 billion or 53 per cent it expects not to recover, fraud and error between £1.58 billion and £1.84 billion (7.9 per cent to 9.2 per cent of the final award), no evidence to demonstrate a lower estimate of error and fraud in the tax credit awards for 2008-09 and 78% of compliance checks resulting in changing of awards.”

This type of performance challenged me, about 3 years ago, to think how we could reform tax and welfare?

Originally I favoured a much closer tie up between tax and benefits which formed the basis of my 2008 Lions Lair idea -Geoff Bantock, HMRC; A “Unified Tax System” that can work out straightaway household’s net disposable monthly income was chosen for the Lions Lair in Civil Service Live in 2008.

I now think that the tax systems MPPC and NIRS2 are so complex and designed for the annular system of the tax year that they are an ill fit with welfare and care payments which I now believe need to be designed on a monthly basis of entitlement (though for people in real hardship we may need weekly payment entitlement).

So for my idea for the 2009 Lions’ Lair I came up with the Personalised Welfare Benefits calculation system with a sliding scale of incentives for return to work which space dictates that I should not include (it is probably reading again my four postings on the Blog – Are cross-cutting budgets the solution? as they are linked to my thoughts on this http://network.civilservicelive.com/pg/blog/GusODonnell/read/248824/are-crosscutting-budgets-the-solution ).

Ever since the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) published their Breakdown Britain report in December 2006 I have following their outstanding analysis work.

I was really impressed with the CSJ report Breakthrough Britain Dynamic Benefits and I thought its analysis work again was absolutely outstanding regarding the issues we have to address. I thought a lot of their solutions were very good but I have grave concerns with the implementation of their solution through the PAYE system and the time frame of 3-4 years (Para 18.1).

I believe the Public Borrowing requirement of some £175 billion and rising require a much faster solution.

The Poynter review recommending a single customer view will be challenging enough for HMRC to implement without trying to build in benefits into the PAYE system in addition.

I am not convinced that we can deliver a Standard Withdrawal Rate of 55% with the starting levels of benefits that we have at the moment – it will be too expensive. If we are going to raise taxes we shall have to lower some benefit rates otherewise who will want to leave their benefit comfort zone? We had to lower benefits in the the depression in the 30’s and will probably have to do it again now. I think we need to be honest that millions of people whether in work or not will be financially worse off next year. How else do we pay for the excess of Government debt? Even if 20 million households are a £1,000 a year worse off in lower benefits and higher taxation, that is only £20 billion.

The key for me on benefits is establishing needs and I feel a minimum income standard based on needs is the way forward and the period of entitlement should be monthly. Certainly use the annual rate but break it down monthly for the Dynamic modelling.

I adapted one of my spreadsheets (which I cannot attach) to show a tapering rate of 55% and how a Household Earnings Disregard could be worked in so a new benefit IT system could deliver most but not all the CSJ recommends. If someone moves from benefits onto PAYE they will need to have a week one code for tax for the whole of the tax year so that large repayments are not paid during the tax year though there could be an assessment of tax and benefits at the end of the tax year. Perhaps “Don’t build for the future, build for adaptation” should now be our strategy for new IT systems in the public sector.

Apart from these minor adjustments above, I still believe my Personalised Welfare Benefits calculation system with a sliding scale of incentives for return to work could be implemented much more quickly than the CSJ model.

I believe this can solve some of the social issues for both the poor and the unemployed and could answer the question of “to cut or not to cut” but the devil will stil be in the detail.

Geoff Bantock 960 days ago

Michael ONeill

Geoff

I’ve spent a fascinating few minutes reading your post and trying to understand stuff that comes naturally to you. I've not tried to follow the detail because your other posts leave me confident they will have been arrived at after diligent and competent thinking aimed at achieving a good outcome for the 'innocent' as well as tackling abuse and evasion. Your ideas represent I think, the sort of contribution that you might typically hope to get from an experienced and dedicated servant of the public working in a specialised field. It saddens me that knowledge and experience is lost to organisations when old hands get washed out of the ranks through early retirement etc ('too old to change') and new recruits without the benefit of experience are obliged to rediscover old truths. I’m very pleased to hear you have been putting your ideas forward for the Lions Lair (I’ll try and do a bit of reading up on that!). Maybe you will be able to leave a valuable legacy.

Your point about the devil being in the detail (in relation to Cameron’s promises, and other politicians too) is true I fear. I recall the Tories coming to power in 1979. I was a young man then, even more ignorant than I am now of politics and economics, but still with a strong interest in the emotional language of people and politicians. My feeling then was that the Tories persuaded an unruly, unrealistic and disgruntled British population to the idea that they could have their cake and eat it. I recall thinking, when they romped to victory, that we deserved what might follow if we really believed it was possible to have our cake and eat it.

I'm a bit of a 'floating voter', but on this occasion I found myself sympathising with Callaghan, because he struck me as decent and compassionate. When he resigned as leader of the Labour Party a while later in the face of the ‘left wing lunacy’ that was splitting it apart, he said something like:

“I came into politics along with Aneurin Bevan and others, because we had witnessed the Great Depression and its effects, and swore we would dedicate our lives to ensuring it could not happen again. But when I see what we have come to, I am reminded that I have a wife I love very much, and a garden I love very much, and I would like to spend more time with both.”

PS - I submitted this post initially 1st thing this morning, but our internet has been down and I've not been able to send it until now. It’s a reminder that should a malaise, for any reason, come to affect our IT systems then a lot of what we increasingly take for granted in organising our working and domestic lives would come to an abrupt halt. It is this that makes me (and many more senior figures I suspect judging from some of the policy u-turns) uneasy about initiatives such as the closure of post offices in favour of relying on internet based strategies for dealing with the general public. It is both job losing and desocialising.

PPS - Since typing the above PS, I've received an email from the civil service network inviting me to a breakfast workshop in London (I'm in Manchester and busy with work) to discuss the future of IT as a cost saving instrument in the public services. There's a certain poetry about all this!

Michael ONeill 960 days ago

Geoff Bantock

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Michael. Regarding your comment “I've received an email from the civil service network inviting me to a breakfast workshop in London (I'm in Manchester and busy with work) to discuss the future of IT as a cost saving instrument in the public services. “ – perhaps you should be attending even if it has to be remotely via a video conference. The effective harnessing of IT systems will certainly impact on our choice of whether “to cut or not to cut”

Perhaps what is even more important than being there in person is the ability to think through the systems needed to achieve quality in Government. I have found the book Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime... and a manifesto for a better way by John Seddon extremely helpful in thinking through various issues within Government. I was so impressed with the book that I wrote a review on it which I hope you find relevant.

"If investment in the UK public sector has not been matched by improvement, it is because we have invested in the wrong things. We invest in the wrong things believing them to be the right things. We think inspection drives improvement,...."

"If investment in the UK public sector has not been matched by improvement, it is because we have invested in the wrong things. We invest in the wrong things believing them to be the right things. We think inspection drives improvement we believe in the notion of economies of scale, we think choice and quasi-markets are leavers for improvement, we believe people can be motivated with incentives, we think leaders need visions, managers need targets, and information technology is a driver of change. These are all wrong-headed ideas. But they have been the foundation of public-sector 'reform'."

This bold opening is the nub of Systems Thinking in the Public Sector - the failure of the reform regime.... and a manifesto for a better way -, which will surely challenge all politicians and policy makers who set targets in the public service. John Seddon asserts that "Public services have requirements placed on them by a plethora of bodies, the biggest single weakness of which, common to them all, is that they are based on opinion rather than knowledge."

His 'better way' is based on the principles and practises of systems thinking. Instead of creating functional, command-and-control hierarchies, the systems approach is to design against demand to 'pull value' from the system. In this way, costs fall as service improves.

Studying housing benefits which are claimed by more than 4 million people, a systems thinker asks 'What is the purpose of this service from the customer's point of view?’ Many local authorities have come to the same conclusion - To pay the right benefits to the right people as quickly as possible. One local authority found that it took between 52 and 152 days for a claimant to get their benefits.

There are two types of demand that interest a systems thinker: value demand and failure demand.

Value demand is 'demand we want', demand that the service is there to provide for. In the case of housing benefits, there are only two value demands: 'Can I make a claim?' And 'My circumstances have changed'.

Failure demand is demand caused by a failure to do something or do something right for the customer.

He gives the type and frequency of demand: -

·       Face to face           34% value, 66% failure
·       Telephone             22% value, 78% failure
·       Post                      44% value, 56% failure

Typically, after system redesign all benefits are processed in an average of five to six days. This is so far beyond current targets that it would never have been set as one.

John Seddon makes a compelling case for the public service regime to get rid of its specifications, regulations, targets and the like which are actually making performance worse.

Cover of 'Systems Thinking in the Public Sector' by John Seddon

Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime... and a manifesto for a better way.

Only when we have the ability to think through all the issues will we able to decide whether “to cut or not to cut”.

Geoff Bantock 959 days ago

Michael ONeill

Thanks Geoff. I might try digging that out and having a read (there should be plenty of moments I can steal while my workstation is displaying the hourglass and attempting to discharge a simple task!).

Mike

Michael ONeill 959 days ago

Ruth Keeling

To cut or not to cut

Ruth Keeling

Michael ONeill

Jamie Knights

Geoff Bantock

Michael ONeill

Geoff Bantock

Michael ONeill

Geoff Bantock

Michael ONeill

Geoff Bantock

Michael ONeill

Geoff Bantock

Michael ONeill

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