Plan To Save £159m Costs Whitehall £1.4bn

LOAM · 7 Mar 2012 at 13:09

http://news.sky.com/home/politics/article/16183887

A Whitehall efficiency drive to cut £159m across government departments ended up costing £1.4bn, according to a public spending watchdog.

The seven-year programme to share "back-office" functions including personnel departments and procurement backfired, the National Audit Office found.

In a damning report, the watchdog said private sector firms usually manage to slash their annual spend by a fifth by using similar methods.

They blame poor co-ordination, costly IT systems, weak sanctions and demands for tailored services for the spiralling costs.

What hope have we got when rubbish like this happens. 7 Years this has been going on. It just seems these people are morons who completely ignored the actual target of reducing costs by installing measures designed to reduce costs that actually cost more to instil than they saved.

Complete madness.

Jono8 · 7 Mar 2012 at 13:16

oh dear god. Beggars belief that does!

pingwing · 7 Mar 2012 at 13:19

Government yeah it doesn't make sense, we want it to protect us so we don't have to and can concern our selves being citizens but at the same time get concerned when it goes about its work wrong.

Need to get rid of government if its spending money to loose money to make money, but then we need to get more government to make sure money is worth something and that we can then spend it with the care of protecting our selves.

The state, its madness yeah

Dolph · 7 Mar 2012 at 16:20

And this is why it is vital to remove all functions that do not need to be performed by a state monopoly from a state monopoly.

Efour · 7 Mar 2012 at 16:57

oh god i don't want to agree with Dolph

I agree with him

/run off to the shower and gets the bleach out

int · 7 Mar 2012 at 16:58

Wasn't the main source of these spiralling costs down to the exorbitant IT costs? Something like £5000 for a bog-standard desktop PC?!

sniffy · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:06

Will anyone even lose their job over this? Just incredible how people so thick and incompetent are left to handle such large sums of money. Really annoys me.

LOAM · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:25

sniffy said:
Really annoys me.

Me to, it boils my **** that no one at any point seems to have gone "OH GOD WHAT ARE WE DOING" as they sailed past the potential saving line.

MrMoonX · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:27

costly IT systems is a bloody understatement

for exampled I work in the MoJ as part of NOMS, they spent £1bn yes £1bn on an offender information system that was suppose to work across all of justice but doesn't, looks like someone made it in MS access, and half the time you have to login twice to get it to work.

The other nail in the coffin is that they are paying HP £120 per month, per workstation for Windows XP, Dell Penitum 4's with IE6 for lease and support, whoever signed that contract should be shot!

We also have to print and fax everything as we don't have print to pdf or scanners

drunkenmaster · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:27

The big problem with efficiency drives like these are, people often compare current costs versus perfect real world efficiency that can't ever be achieved. Then they decide how much it will cost to "achieve" this efficiency, a one time cost to implement a new IT system, renovate new offices, pay off rent on current offices, etc, etc, etc.

In reality the first plan misses out something utterly crucial, like a bunch of people who are left without any offices at all, so they get another building, another cost, another IT project because they forgot something there as well, the one time cost becomes one big one time cost, and umpteen smaller "one off" costs to fix all the problems.

bureaucracy, people just have to accept perfect will NEVER happen, if one department is pretty good, you'll never improve it, while trying to push a woefully inefficient department into a decent department is a pretty attainable goal.

NHS, policing, nothing is free from it, the money spent just to track every single last penny, far exceeds the cost of the few missing pennies in the first place.

Dolph · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:30

drunkenmaster said:
The big problem with efficiency drives like these are, people often compare current costs versus perfect real world efficiency that can't ever be achieved. Then they decide how much it will cost to "achieve" this efficiency, a one time cost to implement a new IT system, renovate new offices, pay off rent on current offices, etc, etc, etc.

In reality the first plan misses out something utterly crucial, like a bunch of people who are left without any offices at all, so they get another building, another cost, another IT project because they forgot something there as well, the one time cost becomes one big one time cost, and umpteen smaller "one off" costs to fix all the problems.

bureaucracy, people just have to accept perfect will NEVER happen, if one department is pretty good, you'll never improve it, while trying to push a woefully inefficient department into a decent department is a pretty attainable goal.

NHS, policing, nothing is free from it, the money spent just to track every single last penny, far exceeds the cost of the few missing pennies in the first place.

Except in this case, they aren't comparing it with a perfect world, they are comparing it with the results achieved by well run private sector businesses of comparable types.

drunkenmaster · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:31

MrMoonX said:
costly IT systems is a bloody understatement

for exampled I work in the MoJ as part of NOMS, they spent £1bn yes £1bn on an offender information system that was suppose to work across all of justice but doesn't, looks like someone made it in MS access, and half the time you have to login twice to get it to work.

The other nail in the coffin is that they are paying HP £120 per month, per workstation for Windows XP, Dell Penitum 4's with IE6 for lease and support, whoever signed that contract should be shot!

We also have to print and fax everything as we don't have print to pdf or scanners

The guys who make IT systems for government services have such good jobs. Get a target and a huge budget, be late knowing you'll be paid anyway, be later knowing you'll be paid anyway, be later still knowing you'll be paid again, then when someone actually notices and starts asking questions, put together some POS system in 5 minutes that has so many problems......... they'll hire you to make a new system a few months later.

NHS and IT systems, late systems, broken, overpaid, its a running joke that has cost an epic amount.

Dolph · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:32

drunkenmaster said:
The guys who make IT systems for government services have such good jobs. Get a target and a huge budget, be late knowing you'll be paid anyway, be later knowing you'll be paid anyway, be later still knowing you'll be paid again, then when someone actually notices and starts asking questions, put together some POS system in 5 minutes that has so many problems......... they'll hire you to make a new system a few months later.

NHS and IT systems, late systems, broken, overpaid, its a running joke that has cost an epic amount.

Surely the root cause of the problem is terrible public sector procurement and contracting which allows this to occur?

MrMoonX · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:35

Dolph said:
Surely the root cause of the problem is terrible public sector procurement and contracting which allows this to occur?

the route cause is idiot ministers and senior civil servants with pie in the sky ideologies about what they want from IT systems who sign massively expensive contracts to achieve it. In the end it doesn't work properly and the fact remains that we didn't need or want it in the first place

Dolph · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:40

MrMoonX said:
the route cause is idiot ministers and senior civil servants with pie in the sky ideologies about what they want from IT systems who sign massively expensive contracts to achieve it. In the end it doesn't work properly and the fact remains that we didn't need or want it in the first place

Sounds like another reason to remove as much from the state, and therefore the influence of politicians, as possible.

Calabi · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:47

We need full transparency and accountability, you mess up you get busted to toilet cleaner.

mattyg · 7 Mar 2012 at 17:54

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...sg=AFQjCNGbiR7VdwCiydeP4eoE6DbTGsBrMQ&cad=rja

Should have given the job to this guy

Xordium · 7 Mar 2012 at 18:37

Dolph said:
Surely the root cause of the problem is terrible public sector procurement and contracting which allows this to occur?

That's generous I would have added corrupt!

Destination · 7 Mar 2012 at 18:48

Take the senior civil servants responsible out the back of the building and shot them twice in the head.

Promote non-senior folks, with a 3 month time limit for action to take place, else they get the same treatment.

Why would you put a civil servant in charge of a civil service money saving program? By nature they will not want to sack or get rid of themselves or their close collegues, yet that is what needs to happen at every level of govt from MPs right down to the ground level.

Fran · 7 Mar 2012 at 18:54

Dolph said:
Sounds like another reason to remove as much from the state, and therefore the influence of politicians, as possible.

Agree,
having politicians insisting on being seen to "be doing something" is probably behind a lot of failures.

They can rip the budget from local councils too, never seen such a bunch of ineffectual busy bodies.