I did not see the programme. Hopefully it will be Online somewhere.

Depends what you determine as essential Dirk. I notice you excluded Education ~naughty and the Armed Forces ~naughty

Not having a go at you Dirk.

An Aunt long gone from this world worked in financing / accounting for a LA and she always maintained that money was wasted so your premise or the programmes is probably correct.

Spending others people’s money often leads to lack of care compared to your own. Short sighted view given it can come back to haunt you down the line.

On the other side of the argument perhaps it would be interesting to compare spending in education public/private and health care public/private.

Brilliant program – they should show it in schools to reeducated the next generation that there is a different way of doing things. Was interesting that an Englishman was responsible for the sucess of Hong Komg and probably the the rest of China also… where are the people like him now when we need them?

Weve got a bigger public sector than a communist state with the same result. I’ve got sympathy with public sector workers that may lose their jobs but it can’t go on the way it is. Weve got 35% of workers earning money for the UK and 65% spending it.

I will have to try to watch the programme.

Is a simple accounting argument too simplistic though? I cannot comment as I have not watched the programme yet BUT many of the services offered cannot be calculated so simply. The NHS for example.

I do think money is wasted across the board which is a travesty.

Absolutely fantastic programme ~clap

The example of Hong Kong was a real eye-opener,and the fact that it was a Scot that transformed the landscape over there makes you wonder how we ended up in such a mess ~think

hilarious that anyone could find any sense in that programme – that defied much simularity to actual economics and real statistics- that independant interviewees were all either former failed tory chancellors or that that cretin kelvin mackenzie who seems to be the mouthpiece of murdochs narrow neo-liberalist economic cartel capitalism.
The simpleton view of public sector -private sector interaction and growth was particularly lamentable as was any apparent balance in the ‘independant’ fim.
This, in truth, was dumbed down tory propoganda and distortions of truth presented in the usual selective sensationalist crap that bears no relation to reality – unless you are an untrammelled ‘greed is good’apologist and like your ‘view’ pre-packaged and simplistic as seems the tory media norm nowadays…sadly.
if your interested in comparitive debt you’ll find some interesting comparison annual stats on here;
http://www.oecd.org/home

Excellent post wightangler ~clap ~clap ~clap

@NW Cut Angler wrote:

I will have to try to watch the programme.

Is a simple accounting argument too simplistic though? I cannot comment as I have not watched the programme yet BUT many of the services offered cannot be calculated so simply. The NHS for example.

I do think money is wasted across the board which is a travesty.

Unfortunately it all appears too simplistic.

We all agree we need to curb public spending but it is not as simple as just reducing the number of public sector jobs/spend.

I work in the public sector. My job involves logistics, including buying things like print, stationery, travel etc.

I recently had a meeting with a large travel management company. They have noticed a large drop in public sector bookings since March. This obviously means that they will get less commission with a risk that they may have to lay staff off.

Hotels will have more rooms empty which will mean that they will not need to pay for a lot of the services (like laundry) that they would normally use. This means they will either have to get rid of staff if these services are carried out in house or they won’t be paying a contractor, who will no doubt feel the pinch and lay staff off.

If they order less food from suppliers the effect will be felt all the way back to the producer (and his suppliers).

A few years ago I was spending over £130k on print. The majority of this was in the form of providing advice for the public. Now virtually all the advice that my department publishes is produced online. I anticipate spending no more than £30k this year. That is a saving to the public purse of £100k but the printer will have lost £100k. What effect will that have on him, particularly if other public sector customers do like wise?

Point is that everything the public sector spends is with private sector. Take that spend away and the repercussions will be felt for years to come.

There is talk of reducing public sector employees by 500k. Will there be that number of private sector jobs to compensate? Don’t think so.

Didn’t see all of last night’s programme but I did see the bit where it was saying that most of public sector income was raised though taxation. Take £500k taxpayers out of the equation what sort of effect is that going to have on the economy?

All these cuts will lead to an increased crime rate, I think if the government are serious they need to send all the foreigners home the Ones who came here to fill all the minimum wage jobs, this is not a racist remark its just practical with the public service cuts alone they could use these positions.

Anyone with contractual experience of the public-sector (especially councils/local authorities)for the last twenty years wouldn’t need to watch the TV to realise how inefficient it is.

I think I may have mentioned it before.

I used to work for a company that still sells office equipment to both public and private sector. Local authorities are a real soft touch, in fact we had seperate public and private price lists – bet you can guess who happily paid the most.

Each Feburary they would have a big spend-up – colour printers, laptops etc. just to use up their budgets as they would lose any unspent money. We earnt big commision on the deals and i’ve had quite a few Carribean holidays on the back of what local councils like to call their “buyers” Selling into private companies was a different matter and we had to slash prices to get sniff of a deal. When spending affects business success (i.e. profits) you tend to be a bit more careful.

As for our precious National Hiring Service .. we can’t afford cancer drugs but we can pay bloated salaries to an army of non-clinical “managers”.

Last night’s program was spot on but very depressing. As Pvt Fraser would say “We’re doomed”