The newspapers in the past few days have been stuffed like a Christmas turkey with articles illustrating the waste that takes place in publicly-owned services:
- the Ministry of Defence employs about one civil servant to every 2.25 members of the armed forces.
- the government intends to prohibit anybody without a university degree from becoming a nurse, thus increasing the cost of each nurse and reducing the number of years he or she will work.
- the top 100 staff of the BBC are paid £20m a year plus bonuses and entitlements.
- the police have issued a 93 page booklet informing its constables how to ride a bicycle.
- the European Union has sponsored a talking donkey.
These things are even worse than they appear:
- the money that is wasted in this way cannot then be spent on things that are actually important like more soldiers and sailors, better equipment for them and more nurses. There are already shortages now in all these areas. Nurses are already rushed off their feet and unable to give satisfactory attention to patients. This is bound to get even worse as a result of the university rule. The shortages of men and equipment in the army have been prominent in recent news.
- Secondly tax has to be raised to pay for the waste. This tax is levied on poor people, too. The government already demands taxes of those people whom it defines as being in poverty. The extra tax also means extra discouragement to those who might otherwise move from benefits dependency to employment. Without work, they have less hope and self-respect. And the cost of any decision to stay on benefits means extra taxes on those remaining in work.
Waste in public services is normal. It always happens, sooner or later. And it is not a victimless crime.
(Extract from the Daily Mail
The Ministry of Defence by numbers85,700 civil servants at the ministry
113,000 personnel in the Army
38,400 in the Royal Navy
41,400 in the RAF
So according to these figures, there are 192,800 members of the armed forces and there is one civil servant for every 2.25 members of the armed forces.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in NHS • Waste in public services
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Good Blog.
On the question of Nurses needing degrees I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with a spokeswoman for Unison who said (as reported in yesterday's Times) [...there was] 'no compelling evidence' that thdegrees would improve patient treatment... 'The emphasis should be on competence, not on unfounded notions about academic ability'.
John Harrison, co-author 'Wot, No School? How schools impede education'.
Posted by: John Harrison at November 13, 2009 12:25 PM