The difference a change of Govt makes
May 16th, 2009 at 11:15 am by David FarrarFrom the Herald:
The number of Budget bids from Government departments for extra money halved from last year, and 25 per cent of them were “savings” bids, says Treasury Secretary John Whitehead.
“That’s a significant and positive change in approach,” he told an invited audience of analysts, officials, academics and journalists at the Treasury yesterday. .
Departments need approval even for spending cuts, to ensure they are areas the Government wants cut.
25% of budget bids were bids to save money. My God. I doubt in nine years of Labour there even a single budget bid to save money, let alone 25% of all bids.
“We focus too much on new spending and not enough on the very significant base, even though polices introduced five or 15 years ago, may no longer be as effective or fit Government objectives.”
He criticised the public service “year-end spend-up”, in which departments spend any spare money they have, fearing that if they don’t, their grants will be be reduced the following year.
In the private sector, you get rewarded if you underspend your budget. In the public sector, you may get sacked if you underspend!
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- O’Reilly predicts public service strife
- Go Treasury
May 16th, 2009 at 11:28 am
“He criticised the public service “year-end spend-up”, in which departments spend any spare money they have, fearing that if they don’t, their grants will be be reduced the following year.”
So reduce them. Every one of them.
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Of course Treasury are themselves largely to blame for the culture of spending up before the end of the financial year because they haven’t let depts carry over surplus money and do reduce their vote for the following year if it is not all spent.
Treasury also don’t practice what they preach with two thirds of their staff earning over 100k and their offices have been refurbished more times than any other office block in Wellington in the last 20 years!
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Actually you dont get sacked if you underspend, what you do is spend for the sake of it so you dong get rapped by your managers for underspending. You go out for dinner, have lots of nice morning teas and the odd ” staff development day” at a distant location. I’ve seen it. because if you don’t have the end of year spend up you get less the next year. The end of the financial year is a good place to be working at the Ministry.
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
The trouble is that there’s no suggestion that the reductions in spending are increasing efficiency or utility to the public (who they are serving): the same managers who spent too much under labour will be cutting services along the lines of which is the best way to cover their ass. Thus the frontline people who actually do something get shafted out of their jobs by the middle management acolytes, who employ more expensive HR consultants to advise them on the ‘restructuring’ (they use their position of ‘institutional knowledge’ to ‘advise’ in this situation, thus justifying their existence). It’s like any physical system: constantly increasing entropy: and I HAVE seen all this too.
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
hayek
I agree with you. We need a system where spend is justified by value obtained.
All too often cost saving efforts are led by those most under threat who get rid of the necessary and preserve the unnecessary so that it becomes cost saving, not efficiency and process gain. Productivity goes down, service goes down, costs go down. negatvity goes up.
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
The wastage goes far beyond the Government Departments, the best example is Parliament at the moment. There are all the unnecessary spin doctors who prevent those elected saying what they mean and meaning what they say and instead feed us a load of tripe that a child could see through. I don’t think a single public service employee should lose their job before all those expensive unecessary Commissions and Commissioners are first dispensed with, except maybe that dignified Maori gentleman who sits beside the Speaker in order to interpret speeches made in Maori by highly paid members who are quite capable of giving their own interpretation. Then the Departments should be made to shed the extravagance engendered by the former administration.
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I recall Christine Rankin describing of a EOY meeting she had with Steve Maharey (he was Minister of SW at the time) in which she was able to advise that her department had made savings and underspent their budget. She was told in no uncertain terns to never come to him with a report that implied the department had made a ‘profit’.
Vote:May 16th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
25% budget bids to save money. Oh fucking please, this has more to do with saving their own sorry arse’s. The writing on the wall is plan for all to see even to those wallowing in the government troughs. Heavy duty gravy sucking is bad form now and department heads will be wondering who’s head is next on the chopping block. Best thing to do is to put in budget bids to save money and look good for the “man”. This should be how government departments are run all the time. Keep the bastards nervous and keep them honest, they need a taste of how it is in the real world.
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