all in it together...

The "ministers of the day of any political colour have spent £ms of frivolous refurbishments" is a press piece that appears with monotonous regularity.

The numbers get lost in the rounding (but appropriate fiscal due diligence and process must be followed). If the story was about a flagrant disregard for policy and process, it might be a Story. Otherwise, it is a feeble attempt by lazy journos to drum up a few extra sales of the rag that employs them.

In order for businesses to survive (and heaven forfend even prosper), they have to innovate, manage change / costs and many other aspects of commerce, and they also have to compete with companies who are doing their best to succeed regardless of what their competitors are doing. Why can't the public sector adopt a similar approach?

Stagnation due to entrenched positions, lack of imagination, and the unwillingness to see another point of view is appalling.

Chaos due to the belief that any change must be better than the status quo is equally appalling.

Using tax payers money to inefficiently employ many more people than should be required is also appalling.

Not giving those who may be made redundant (with, I assume a much better package and residual pension than the majority who face this situation in the private sector) with appropriate support to help them find another job, would also be appalling.

 

Ffs Andy, you need to get out into the real world where people get laid off without massive payoffs or pensions.

You're a good guy in person, but when you get behind a keyboard, that chip on your shoulder affects what you type.

 

For God's sake, can't the outraged here exercise just a tiny amount of critical judgement?

Firstly they assume that some crap story in two notoriously crap rags must be true to the letter.
Then they assume that some MP, trying to score points off the other side in Parliament, actually has something interesting to say.

Then they swallow the whole propaganda line about £10m being spent on designer furniture (because that is the inference, isn't it?).
Then they vault upon their high horse.

As Pete says, it's such an insignificant story it makes no difference (if you're juggling billions), it is quite clearly designed to produce the effect it has (as are almost all Mirror and Mail stories) and it gets swallowed hook line and sinker. If you're that bothered about it, why not contact the journalist for the expenditure breakdown so that you can see how much of the £10m was spent on designer furniture? Then you could work out the projected saving of having bought some cheaper furniture.

Look, just stop reading things like the Mirror or the Mail if you want to be better informed and more intelligent. Or carry on and enjoy your regular doses of moral outrage.

 

or they both view their readership as equally gullible?

 

They do and they're right.

 

see, this is where I disagree. To me there's no difference between abusing power to the tune a a couple of quid for parking and abusing it to the tune of £10mil for furniture. Both are wrong - it's just a question of scale.

I remember people complaining about some dreadful woman who had claimed for tins of dogfood on her MPs allowance. There seemed to be the same amount of crap thrown at her and the guy who needed his moat cleaned.

This morning, a council van was parked in a bus stand. A parking warden just walked past it. Would he have done the same for you or me? Is that right?

 

My Trouble works for the NHS, has done for about 12 years . 4 years ago her office block along with 2 others on the same estate were redecorated/refitted very nicely. Nothing wrong with that. Subsequently these three blocks were amalgamated with those in another area. Two blocks were shut down while the NHS tried to get someone to assign the leases too. The third, where she works, was refitted again at great expense in new corporate colours. I tried to buy some of the old furniture for my business but was told that for policy reasons I could not buy it. I had offered to send staff and vehicles to collect it. Instead it was dumped . How ridiculous. Numerous staff were made redundant to save money and then temps were brought in to cover. The temps cost more than the staff who were made redundant and huge amounts had already been paid out in redundancy. Some of the temps were the very staff who had been made redundant and then registered with a local agency that the trust regularly uses. Marvellous use of OUR money hey !
I`m very pro the NHS by the way. My brother had a brain tumour 6 years ago and was treated wonderfully. It has just started to re grow and was picked up at his regular check up. Once again he has been treated wonderfully and I am eternally grateful .

 

We perhaps need to consider some more figures to put this in perspective. It's also especially important not to look at this sort of thing purely from a party-political perspective ("All in it together" being and implied criticism of the current regime, when all governments, and especially the previous one, can be accused of profligacy and waste).


The Scottish parliament building cost vastly more than originally estimated, and ended up at more than £400m.
John Prescott's official flat was refurbished at around £100K, and the big ugly building opposite the Palace of Westminster, well, Wikipedia says:

"When commissioned in 1992 the cost of Portcullis House was to be £165m. After building cost inflation and delays, the price increased to £235m. Costs included £150,000 for decorative fig trees , £2m for electric blinds and, for each MP, a reclining chair at £440. A parliamentary inquiry into the over-spend was carried by Sir Thomas Legg . Although completed in 2000, the report was never published. By April 2012 the fig trees, which were rented, had cost almost £400,000.

I have personally seen, and wondered at, rows of enormous trees and ranks of brand-new and unoccupied luxurious office chairs in another government building. That was long before George Osborne was in the hot seat.

£10m is about what the UK is borrowing (deficit, so EXTRA borrowing) every hour.....

And I think we can also be absolutely sure that when the two Eds spout about needing more "Investment" (of more borrowed and taxed money) it means turning on the taps for more of the same.

 

Yer leftie doesn't know the difference between "investment" and "spending".

 

People will never spend budgets as carefully as their own money for a couple of reasons: 1) It isn't their money. 2) It needs to be spent - there is no upside to not spending your budget and considerable downside.

The real time to complain is when the budget is voted for, rather than what it is spent on.

I am amused that people think it would have been better if they'd bought the furniture from a Swedish manufacturer that has it manufactured in Poland or Eastern Europe rather than supporting a British business.

In the final analysis, there may be something to get steamed up about, but you can't tell from the "information" in these shabby articles that there is. We've had these debates before. Some people still seem to think that the Mail and Mirror report "news".

 

Portcullis House is designed to last for centuries, just as the main Palace of Westminster has done. Of course it would have been possible to design a cheap and cheerful block, which would have had to be demolished and replaced at regular intervals in the future at great expense. It is far cheaper in the long term - and the need is a long term one - to build to last.

 

Have you never heard of contractual commitments? The suppliers of new furniture will offer special deals and deep discounts provided the old furniture is all disposed of. They don't want load of usable second-hand furniture flooding onto the market and depressing prices. So the old furniture has to be dumped, not sold off to people like you. If they let you buy it, the buyers would have had to pay a lot more for their new stuff. This is the way capitalism works, and market forces affect the NHS as much as everybody else.

 

Yes I have heard of contractual commitments, would you like me to mention everything I have heard of each and every time I post ?

You don't know the terms of the contract in this instance or even if there was a contract as opposed to a purchase order,whereas because my partner works for the NHS trust concerned I have a touch more info on this particular subject than you.
You may well be correct that generally such contracts apply although in the 34 years I have been in business and buying equipment I have never been offered anything at a special price if I agree to dump it in future as opposed to resell it. However I am very grateful for the concise description of how capitalism works, I naively thought it was slightly more complex. What a sheltered life I have led.

 

It's unlikely to be due to contractual comitments, and more likely to be due to a culture of blame-avoidance. When my employer replaced a load of office furniture some years ago they put it in the car park but did then make the point that if anyone wanted to take any they could, with the suggestion that a charitable donation should be made. As a result, I still have three sturdy bookcases doing service, one of them in the garage! My brother took some too, and still uses them. Of course the furniture had been used for years, having been through a previous office move as far as I can remember.

 

Andy, I have no chips on my shoulders - pins, fractures and dislocations, but no chips.

I'm sure it's different where you are, but to see council and Police vehicles parked daily in flagrant contravention of local parking laws. when the rest of us are fleeced, really sticks in my craw. Petty, sure, but it's corruption all the same.