Government Spending Benchmarking

ballooba

NewDubliner wrote:

What incentive would you suggest? Some kind of profit sharing scheme perhaps?

What about the minister who's responsible?

Well, firstly there should be some incentive. As I have said, at the moment I feel there is none. I don't know what that incentive should be, but it should be looked at. I'll outline one mechanism I have seen/heard of below. I'm not saying it would work in this context but it demonstrates the sort of initiative you wouldn't see around here too regularly.

I went back to college to study for a masters this year (not the initiative I speak of btw ). One of my subjects this year was "Social and Political Perspectives on Information Systems Implementation in Organisations". One of the things mentioned was a system implemented in the NHS in the UK.

This system listed how much resources each consultant was using in a sort of league table. There were no repurcussions or reprimands based on the data. They just let the guys know how much they were spending relative to their colleagues.

Resources were scarce and consultants were constantly asking for more and more. What this reporting tool did was make consultants aware of what they were spending relativbe to their colleagues. If they were out of proportion then they would have to examine their own use of resources and see if they were being wasteful. Thus encouraging a kind of self discipline.

I have seen this in work before. Every month we would be given an email detailing how much our phone calls had cost that month. We were also given the average for our department. We weren't told what anyone else was spedning as an individual. You would however ask people how they were doing relative to you. I remember one girls was around €25 whereas mine would have been around €4. One month after that system was introduced she was sown to €13. I couldn't tell you if it had a long term effect because I left shortly after that system was introduced.

NewDubliner

ballooba wrote:

I went back to college to study for a masters this year (not the initiative I speak of btw ). One of my subjects this year was "Social and Political Perspectives on Information Systems Implementation in Organisations". One of the things mentioned was a system implemented in the NHS in the UK.

Was this before or after: NHS IT cost doubled to £12.4bn?

One of the reasons for IT ignorance in the the public service is the pervasive policy of purging internal IT experts. 85% are due to be removed from their posts to satisfy government demands.

ballooba

NewDubliner wrote:

Was this before or after: NHS IT cost doubled to £12.4bn?

One of the reasons for IT ignorance in the the public service is the pervasive policy of purging internal IT experts. 85% are due to be removed from their posts to satisfy government demands.

The NHS have done a lot right and a lot wrong with regards to IT. I've just mentioned one initiative they have used that worked well.

Many of the people in my class are civil servants including HSE and Garda. So
I would hope they are trying to address what you mention in your second point.

A lot of the reason for the use of outside contractors is for accountability. If the project goes wrong, which it more often than not will with an IT porject, the blame can be shifted on to the contractor.

NewDubliner

ballooba wrote:

The NHS have done a lot right and a lot wrong with regards to IT. I've just mentioned one initiative they have used that worked well.

How well? How much money was saved or what measurable improvement was there in service?

ballooba wrote:

Many of the people in my class are civil servants including HSE and Garda. So I would hope they are trying to address what you mention in your second point.

The civil service is pursuing an anti-specialist agenda, trying to homogenise skill-sets. Experienced IT staff are being replaced by contractors from the big consultancies.

Anyone in your class with any aptitude for IT is probably trying to skill-up and get out.

ballooba

NewDubliner wrote:

How well? How much money was saved or what measurable improvement was there in service?

It was mentioned in lectures but wasn't in any of our readings that I can find.

Having searched around a bit I think this initiative may have given rise to the Casemix system used by hospitals in various different countries. The self discipline element is gone from Casemix. Casemix actually originated in New Zealand as far as I can see from the below article.

The following is an article on it (not bedtime reading btw, 20 pages of pain):
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2575.2004.00176.x

You will have to pay unless you are in a college whose library subscribes.

ballooba

I found the article.

The initiative was called "Resource Management Initiative". It was started in the NHS and it uses Casewise.

More info here, but I can't get any hard data on it:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8591520&dopt=Abstract

Judt

Again, a problem with this debate - here, and if we ever got to the labour courts - is that neither the politicians nor civil servants want to take the blame, and instead we get a game of musical chairs rather than solving the problems. Personally, my approach would be to take a private sector approach with regards to managing the public sector - for example, if you want incentives then give real bonuses, pay rises and promotion opportunities to civil servants who get the good deal and save the tax payer money - but I suspect that doing even that would have the unions out screaming about inequality in pay and suchlike.

Whatever we need to do to solve this problem won't be to everyones liking, but frankly continuing to waste taxpayers money because we can't face up like big boys and girls and work out a solution speaks wonders about our delivery of public services. We're not the worst in the world, but where we come up short we really do look like a bunch of idiots.

Colonel Sanders

The problem in trying to alter anything in the public sector is I can't see a government having the nerve to stand up to strong unions representing civil servants or semi state workers who's membership contains a very large number of voters and who will make crippling threats of strike action if the bed is disturbed. The level of wages paid to ESB workers (described as 'excessive' in an independant report) is one example but there are many others. Look at the hike in ESB prices. the first thing any firm in the high street would so when faced with the prospect of having to rise prices by 20% is look at their cost base. Eliminate all un necessary costs, cut back on overtime and probably trim their workforce. Howevre this is not true for semi states for some strange reason. Aerlingus is another example. Now tht its privatised the buzzword is 'cost cutting' which will involve probable job losses which the unions even recognise may be inevitable. Why was this cost cutting exercise not implemented when it was a semi state and the tax payer would ultimately foot the bill in the eventuallity of loss making?

Thats the problem with politics, a politician will never do whats best for the country but will do whats best for remaining in power or obtaining power.

Macy

A few points I'd make on this thread....

1) Most projects come in double or triple the initial annoucement is because the politicians announce them on a whim and fail to provide adequate time to do a proper costing of the scheme, let alone a cost v benefit analysis. In many cases, imo, they do this deliberately as they have some indication of the real costs but once it's announced then the Government is effectively forced (politically) to fund it regardless

2) People appear to have the impression that the Civil Service, or the Semi States can say "No" to Ministers. They can't. If a Minister comes up with nonsense scheme that'll waste millions, then the most a Civil Servant can do is express reservations, but once it's Government policy they have to implement it regardless. Responsibility has to be with the Minister, as he is the one who makes the decisions. However, I would accept that many at the higher levels are effectively political appointments by FF, which doesn't help whoever is in power. In a semi state that I have experience of there's not so much a glass ceiling for women, more a glass ceiling for non-FF.

3) Thornton Hall and Decentralisation were purely political decisions, and should in no way be dressed up as an example of Civil Service Failure. It's on record that Senior Civil Servants in Finance said the McCreevy plan for Decentralisation couldn't work.

John_C

Macy wrote:

3) Thornton Hall ... were purely political decisions, and should in no way be dressed up as an example of Civil Service Failure.

This is something I've often wondered about. I don't believe that McD diliberately paid over the odds for that land. Surley somewhere along the way someone on the Government's side looked up what that land should typically cost.

McD is a barrister by profession so can't be expected to know the cost of land. There must have been someone in the OPW or somewhere else who could have called stop?

ballooba

John_C wrote:

This is something I've often wondered about. I don't believe that McD diliberately paid over the odds for that land. Surley somewhere along the way someone on the Government's side looked up what that land should typically cost.

You'd think that wouldn't you. Most likely though they probably did look it up and multiply it by a random number.

John_C wrote:

McD is a barrister by profession so can't be expected to know the cost of land. There must have been someone in the OPW or somewhere else who could have called stop?

Unless of course paying over the odds is the norm.

ballooba

Somebody is listening to me .

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/?jp=CWSNCWMHAUGB&rss=rss1

John_C

ballooba wrote:

You'd think that wouldn't you. Most likely though they probably did look it up and multiply it by a random number.

But, to me, that looks nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Why would he multiply by a random number? Is the suggestion that he was in on a corrupt deal or that he deliberatly wastes money and brings upon himself the extra bad publicity?

Also, I don't know what you mean when you say "You'd think that wouldn't you.". To the best of my knowledge we don't know each other.

ballooba

John_C wrote:

But, to me, that looks nothing more than a conspiracy theory. Why would he multiply by a random number? Is the suggestion that he was in on a corrupt deal or that he deliberatly wastes money and brings upon himself the extra bad publicity?

I doubt Mickey D was directly involved in the purchase. What I meant was, they probably did know the market value, but chose to ignore it. Who knows why they do this, but they do.

John_C wrote:

Also, I don't know what you mean when you say "You'd think that wouldn't you.". To the best of my knowledge we don't know each other.

Everywhere I have used the word "you" in the above sentencè, replace with the word "one" and you'll get the queen's english.;)

John_C

ballooba wrote:

I doubt Mickey D was directly involved in the purchase. What I meant was, they probably did know the market value, but chose to ignore it. Who knows why they do this, but they do.

I know and it's something I find genuinly perplexing. I could understand if it was a one off cack-up but between them the civil servants and the politicians seem incredably bad a buying stuff and I don't see why. To me, that seems one of the easier parts of running a country.

Fair enough on the other point, I think I took you up wrong.

ballooba

Well, it's probably often the case that they are buying off their buddies or that they stand to benefit from giving a "good" price.

Also, when I was in DIT we had a clubs and socs fund, part of which was government funds. We (committee members) were told that if we didn't use our full budget then it would be cut.

What do you think we did? We spent the money, any way we could.

Macy

John_C wrote:

McD is a barrister by profession so can't be expected to know the cost of land. There must have been someone in the OPW or somewhere else who could have called stop?

McDowell could've said I need the land for a new prison in x days as I want to make an announcement about shutting Mountjoy and opening a new state of the art prison. If it wasn't politically motivated to do a rush job on it in secret, why didn't they go the CPO route where they'd pay market price (or thereabouts) or go to tender for land in the greater Dublin area?

No Civil Servant can go against the orders from the Government - they can raise objections, suggest it's not a good idea, but ultimately they have to do what their Minister wants. We then have to wait for the CAG to confirm that the Civil Servants were right all along.

NewDubliner

The 'Star', today, Jan 8th 2007, has a plain-language review of Bertie's latest idea:

Last week we learned that the Fianna Failures were bringing in US spin doctors Shrum, Devine, Donilan to win the next election for them.

This week, Bertie tells us that he has hired the Paris-based OECD to carry out a review of the entire public service.

What next Taoiseach?

Will he be telling us that the Government is just going to slope off after handing the running of the country to KPMG or Price Waterhouse accountants?

Or maybe he’s taken a shine to the Institute for Strategic Studies in Washington or the Swiss-based Politik Symposium of Zurich?

Bertie, r-e-a-d-o-u-r-l-i-p-s, we do not need yet another report at a cost of millions that will probably never be acted upon anyhow.

Incompetent

There is hardly a Government department that is not already creaking under the weight of reports that never see the light of day.

We are crippled by chronic reportitis- the MRSA of this ailing Fianna Fail-dominated Government.

Apparently the purpose of this latest review from the OECD is to examine the whole public service to see how well it works.

Well, we already know the answer to that one, don't we, it barely works at all.

And the reason it limps along is because of this incompetent Government, which seeks to hide its failures behind expensive reports.

This is yet another example of parallel Government.

It is Government on the long finger.

It is Government at a distance.

It is hands-off Government.

It is the Government of "what, you want us to govern too?"

The OECD is just going to trot out what we all know already, but in a slicker version.

But it will not tell us what we need to know, spelled out in stark, unmistakable terms, that's if we ever see it before it also vanishes into the vaults under Leinster House.

It won't tell us why decentralisation has been an utter failure, costing us hundreds of millions already.

It won't tell us the real reason why we have a Health Department AND a Health Service Executive.

It won't tell us how come Clueless Cullen can spend EUR52 million of taxpayers' money on an e-voting system, against the advice of numerous experts and the system then fails, but he still
keeps his job.

It won't tell us why Justice Minister the Mad Mullah McDowell is allowed to bulldoze his way into a settled rural community and acquire a new greenfield prison site at a cost of EUR30 million- twice the going rate.

Dodgy

It won't tell us why so many Government-linked agencies are headed up by friends of Bertie and Fianna Fail who may or may not have a baldy notion about what they are doing.

It won't tell us why we always have endless, on-going, never-ending, hoary, old, warty, bewhiskered political controversies such as the Shell Corrib gas pipeline and the Aer Lingus sell-off.

It won't tell us why this Government never gets anything right first time around, the Port Tunnel, the M5O, the Luas.

And the OECD will certainty not deliver a review of the main problem dogging this country
- this Government which takes all these dodgy decisions, implements them in a half-arsed manner and then expects the public service to pick up the pieces.

Bertie and his cronies are now trying to scapegoat others for their failures at the Cabinet table while at the same time trying to impress us that it's taking care of business, six months before the General Election.

It's hoping to scapegoat rank-and-file and middle-management Gardai for its failure to tackle crime.

Its reckoning to flog some mangy excuse about hospital management systems for its failure to tackle everything from the accident and emergency crisis to MRSA.

It's praying to off-load some guilt on to teachers and principals for its failure
to reduce class sizes and make redundant school fund raising committees.

But as usual it's just yet another total, colossal, sinful waste of money, OUR
Money.

ballooba

Couldn't have said it better myself.