The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
You can't sack people at random, you need to restructure. Get rid of the internal market and probably trusts as well, then you won't need armies of pen-pushers and bean counters.
Sure you can, when those people go you don't have anyone to run those internal markets so either they are automated or dumped. These people are there to protect the bureaucracy because they know the bureaucracy is what gives them a job for life and a gold plated pension.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
I know little of local governance but I do wonder if it has parallels with student union politics. The students make lots of big pledges trying to get elected and when they are in power are very quickly steered by the university down the line of what is possible and what isn't.
Local councils may be similar.
What do we want...Pound a pint and free cheesy chips....when do we want it.... every Wednesday....
What do we want? September resits. When do we want them? September. I've forgotten what we were actually marching about.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the "N word" (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran? Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination? If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The "N word" should not be treated so casually. I guess that's why Putin's "THE BOSS." By the way, if anyone thinks our "hardware" was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have, 20 years advanced over the pack, is our Nuclear Submarines. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built, and just launched the 30 Tomahawks — All 30 hit their mark perfectly. So, in addition to our Great Fighter Pilots, thank you to the Captain and Crew!
I bet the other "N" word gets casually bandied around in Trump's circle...
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
You can't sack people at random, you need to restructure. Get rid of the internal market and probably trusts as well, then you won't need armies of pen-pushers and bean counters.
Sure you can, when those people go you don't have anyone to run those internal markets so either they are automated or dumped. These people are there to protect the bureaucracy because they know the bureaucracy is what gives them a job for life and a gold plated pension.
I don't think the fire people at random policy has been particularly effective in the US.
WinViz currently gives England a 15% chance of victory.
I think that should be more like 1.5%.....requiring yet another innings for ages from Root or Stokes.
I think chasing 400 is possible on this pitch and if Bumrah gets tired, breaks down etc. I question how aggressive Gill will be tonight - you know Stokes would be getting the batters swinging to get the maximum bowling time.
I think India will try and bat to leave the draw as our best outcome.
Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the "N word" (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran? Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination? If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The "N word" should not be treated so casually. I guess that's why Putin's "THE BOSS." By the way, if anyone thinks our "hardware" was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have, 20 years advanced over the pack, is our Nuclear Submarines. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built, and just launched the 30 Tomahawks — All 30 hit their mark perfectly. So, in addition to our Great Fighter Pilots, thank you to the Captain and Crew!
I bet the other "N" word gets casually bandied around in Trump's circle...
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
You can't sack people at random, you need to restructure. Get rid of the internal market and probably trusts as well, then you won't need armies of pen-pushers and bean counters.
Sure you can, when those people go you don't have anyone to run those internal markets so either they are automated or dumped. These people are there to protect the bureaucracy because they know the bureaucracy is what gives them a job for life and a gold plated pension.
Internal markets iirc was the next best thing to privatising the NHS which was Mrs Thatcher's other choice, iirc. Again, you can't just sack people; you need to address structure and function and that needs legislation. Your way means the same bureaucracy without enough bureaucrats which just gums up the works or diverts frontline staff to back-office duties.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
What I note from a lot of comments from NHS staff is that they have both too much management and not enough.
Apparently the kind of manager who turns the simple decision into a 5 hour meeting followed by a slow drowning in administrative mud is a common issue.
As is *not having* managers who can arrange for staff to show up, equipment to be bought, cleaners to clean...
Real management is often noticed by people wondering what the managers do - "Everything just shows up by magic, I never get called into meetings - what do these guys do all day?"
That said I saw Big Nige on telly other day and he looked… old
Considering his life style he seems quite fit (see the jungle). Having said that you are right. I am hopeless on ages, but my wife, who isn't, thought he was older than me. I am 10 years older than him.
She thought he was 72+?
At the time he was 60 and I was 69. I must admit I thought the same re his age (although as I said I am useless at guessing ages). He does look older than me. Having said that most people guess my age as quite a bit younger than I am. I guess because I have a full head of hair and I am pretty fit for my age and I do stuff that I guess is more applicable to younger people, but I'm still no spring chicken.
Yep I would put him at 70 based upon myself and friends at my age, but maybe we aren't representative of 70 year olds, being very active.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
What I note from a lot of comments from NHS staff is that they have both too much management and not enough.
Apparently the kind of manager who turns the simple decision into a 5 hour meeting followed by a slow drowning in administrative mud is a common issue.
As is *not having* managers who can arrange for staff to show up, equipment to be bought, cleaners to clean...
Real management is often noticed by people wondering what the managers do - "Everything just shows up by magic, I never get called into meetings - what do these guys do all day?"
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
Always really annoyed me that played on is "bowled" in the scorebook
Not as annoying as hit wicket going to the bowler
No, that's quite correct. Sometimes the batter does something stupid, but often they are forced into it by a good ball.
Its almost always batsman error, not forced. Poor technique or falling over. Played on is either picking the line wrong or movement taking the inside edge, its exactly the same as caught behind - wrong line or movement and thus fully deserving of bowler credit
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
Everything China does or thinks should be seen through the prism of their designs on Taiwan. Might they supply Iran with weapons? Not impossible but with Israeli control of Iranian airspace any act that the regime, such as it still is, undertakes would be a huge risk both to itself and to enablers.
Always really annoyed me that played on is "bowled" in the scorebook
There should be a separate category?
I suppose it is too much bother as batsmen (Batters) could get a feint tickle on the ball and it be neither here nor there but, for dismissals where a wide on is chopped onto the stumps, it seems a bit wrong for it to be recorded as bowled
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
They arent all evacuating everything to back down imo. War is coming. Ive been wrong before! (Today)
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
This is what Trump was supposed to avoid. Wars often look one-sided at the start but look how Vietnam and Afghanistan dragged on.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
Everything China does or thinks should be seen through the prism of their designs on Taiwan. Might they supply Iran with weapons? Not impossible but with Israeli control of Iranian airspace any act that the regime, such as it still is, undertakes would be a huge risk both to itself and to enablers.
The Israeli response to China supplying weapons to Iran would be to supply Taiwan with weapons. The Taiwanese have lots of money in the their defence budget and the Israeli would love to make some sales.
Qatar did not take the decision to close its airspace lightly; over a dozen inbound aircraft have been forced to divert, and dozens more are currently grounded at Doha's Hamad International Airport.
I am sitting in Dubai waiting for an early morning flight to Saudi... Please don't do anything stupid for another 24 hrs... After that you are good to go!
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
Everything China does or thinks should be seen through the prism of their designs on Taiwan. Might they supply Iran with weapons? Not impossible but with Israeli control of Iranian airspace any act that the regime, such as it still is, undertakes would be a huge risk both to itself and to enablers.
That Ukrainian level of drone production is causing China to have to go back to the drawing board on Taiwan. Whatever Ukraine is crafting under blitz conditions could be dwarfed by what Taiwan can do on the quiet.
I am sitting in Dubai waiting for an early morning flight to Saudi... Please don't do anything stupid for another 24 hrs... After that you are good to go!
Unless its stupid ambitions are towards Saudi of course!
If Iran are going after Al Udeied (what with Qatar airspace shutting) we might be in conflict with Iran by tonight
Depends on the level of the onslaught. If the US takes down a bunch of the incoming and the rest hit a few empty hangers, Iran might feel it can back off. Again, that depends on Israel too. If everybody waves their willies and then calms down, we can be back to something sensible.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
Everything China does or thinks should be seen through the prism of their designs on Taiwan. Might they supply Iran with weapons? Not impossible but with Israeli control of Iranian airspace any act that the regime, such as it still is, undertakes would be a huge risk both to itself and to enablers.
Siberia imo (or the half that used to be Chinese). Taiwan will come round eventually: Beijing just has to wait.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Your problem is that a lot of the quick wins were implanted a long time ago. What is now left are fiddlier areas where automation isn’t possible or where (such as planning applications) the technology required has only just arrived and will be implemented over the next few years.
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Your problem is that a lot of the quick wins were implanted a long time ago. What is now left are fiddlier areas where automation isn’t possible or where (such as planning applications) the technology required has only just arrived and will be implemented over the next few years.
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
I really doubt the low hanging fruit has been harvested in the public sector. Mainly because the people who own those processes will not want to give them up as they know it leads to them being out of a job.
Manchester City Centre. Close to the site of the Hotspur Press building. Which coincidentally is the site of a long running heritage v development standoff.
Manchester City Centre. Close to the site of the Hotspur Press building. Which coincidentally is the site of a long running heritage v development standoff.
Manchester City Centre. Close to the site of the Hotspur Press building. Which coincidentally is the site of a long running heritage v development standoff.
But curiously for the conspiracy theories, planning has been approved, and what was apparently the final block of potential listing, was turned down earlier in the year.
I suppose that some conspiracy around the plans involving preserving as much of the brickwork as possible, could work.
Manchester City Centre. Close to the site of the Hotspur Press building. Which coincidentally is the site of a long running heritage v development standoff.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Your problem is that a lot of the quick wins were implanted a long time ago. What is now left are fiddlier areas where automation isn’t possible or where (such as planning applications) the technology required has only just arrived and will be implemented over the next few years.
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
I really doubt the low hanging fruit has been harvested in the public sector. Mainly because the people who own those processes will not want to give them up as they know it leads to them being out of a job.
The problem is you doubt you aren’t close enough to actually know.
I’m close enough to know that a lot of councils are actually way ahead of the multiple billion dollar client I’m currently automating efficiency savings at.
Manchester City Centre. Close to the site of the Hotspur Press building. Which coincidentally is the site of a long running heritage v development standoff.
I do hope the developers are forced to rebuild it exactly as it was.
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Your problem is that a lot of the quick wins were implanted a long time ago. What is now left are fiddlier areas where automation isn’t possible or where (such as planning applications) the technology required has only just arrived and will be implemented over the next few years.
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
I really doubt the low hanging fruit has been harvested in the public sector. Mainly because the people who own those processes will not want to give them up as they know it leads to them being out of a job.
No, because the people who have created these mad processes are central government. What we are seeing now is the obvious endpoint of the Thatcher-Major reforms, which weren't repudiated by Blair or Brown and have been extended since 2010.
Yes, there is a load of pseudo-commercial behaviour in the public sector. There are people doing their best to do jobs that, in a different world, wouldn't exist. There are people at the top pretending they are entitled to capitalist rewards without taking capitalist risks- though that is true in public companies as well.
But, horrible though educational CEO salaries are, cutting them doesn't save much. And if you want real savings, that means accepting that the old, low-choice, "nice people in a shabby office" model worked better. I'm wetter than you, but I'm not sure about that.
What I am confident of is that there is more money wasted on overpaid people doing non-jobs in finance than in the public sector.
I am sitting in Dubai waiting for an early morning flight to Saudi... Please don't do anything stupid for another 24 hrs... After that you are good to go!
An acquaintance was mine is (?was?) due to fly to Jo'burg tomorrow with Emirates. Flight cancelled. Looking to re-organise,
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Your problem is that a lot of the quick wins were implanted a long time ago. What is now left are fiddlier areas where automation isn’t possible or where (such as planning applications) the technology required has only just arrived and will be implemented over the next few years.
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
I really doubt the low hanging fruit has been harvested in the public sector. Mainly because the people who own those processes will not want to give them up as they know it leads to them being out of a job.
No, because the people who have created these mad processes are central government. What we are seeing now is the obvious endpoint of the Thatcher-Major reforms, which weren't repudiated by Blair or Brown and have been extended since 2010.
Yes, there is a load of pseudo-commercial behaviour in the public sector. There are people doing their best to do jobs that, in a different world, wouldn't exist. There are people at the top pretending they are entitled to capitalist rewards without taking capitalist risks- though that is true in public companies as well.
But, horrible though educational CEO salaries are, cutting them doesn't save much. And if you want real savings, that means accepting that the old, low-choice, "nice people in a shabby office" model worked better. I'm wetter than you, but I'm not sure about that.
What I am confident of is that there is more money wasted on overpaid people doing non-jobs in finance than in the public sector.
It’s worth looking at the recent AI announcement on planning applications.
Now ideally you would be simplifying the amount of paperwork required. Instead we have an LLM checking if the paperwork matches expected parameters with more requirements being added
The revolutionaries take over and most of them don't have a clue. I mentioned last week how the first Cabinet meetings in Kent and Derbyshire weren't until the end of July so for the better part of three months, these authorities have mostly been leaderless and rudderless.
I don't know the extent to which Reform councillors are able to act without having to consult their HQ first but the notion of Yusuf micro-managing hundreds of councillors is absurd.
The other side of the revolution will be the extent to which Reform councillors get "nobbled" by senior officers who will tell them not just how things do work but how things should work.
Those senior officers should be first to the gulags. Roadblocks to reform, protecting their own salaries and nothing more.
Do you believe that anyone in the public sector does a good job? You seem rather obsessed.
There are individual doctors, nurses, teachers and other customer facing people who I think do very well. Then there's a large contingent of very lazy senior and middle manager types there to get a salary and pension who create micro-bureaucracies around them to justify their jobs, hire other middle managers and lower roles, create themselves fiefdoms and multiple layers of unnecessary bullshit because they know the government doesn't have the balls to get rid of them. The whole administrative part of the public sector just needs sweeping away. I'd genuinely sack 25% of them per year until people started to notice they were gone. Just random selection in the pool by employee number or something.
The university where I work tried - and continues to pursue, due to being broke - a (milder) version of this with admin staff. No compulsory redundancies, but essentially not replacing people who leave (there's a fair turnover) and definitely not advertising until after departure, to allegedly try to gauge the need.
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
And the issue is that we live in the process state where these outdated processes are protected by those people it keeps in jobs. It's a harsh world, yet you're completely right. You don't need that HR step of manually approving offers being sent for pre-approved roles. HR have nothing to do with it and just add complexity for no reason. At my last company hiring manager were able to send offers out themselves and the whole referencing process was completely automated with a SaaS partner. From final interview to offer sent, to contract signed would take us less than a week in total.
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Your problem is that a lot of the quick wins were implanted a long time ago. What is now left are fiddlier areas where automation isn’t possible or where (such as planning applications) the technology required has only just arrived and will be implemented over the next few years.
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
I really doubt the low hanging fruit has been harvested in the public sector. Mainly because the people who own those processes will not want to give them up as they know it leads to them being out of a job.
The problem is you doubt you aren’t close enough to actually know.
I’m close enough to know that a lot of councils are actually way ahead of the multiple billion dollar client I’m currently automating efficiency savings at.
Give him his due, DOGE-UK man Nathaniel Freid said pretty much the same of the staff he met on Kent County Council;
“If you worked in the private sector then a council, you’d be incredibly frustrated with bureaucracy and painfully old systems. It makes the staff look bad when they’re working really hard.”
Still, much more comforting to think that you just have to tell the desk jockeys to go away because it's all their fault and everything will be peachy.
Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the "N word" (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran? Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination? If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The "N word" should not be treated so casually. I guess that's why Putin's "THE BOSS." By the way, if anyone thinks our "hardware" was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have, 20 years advanced over the pack, is our Nuclear Submarines. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built, and just launched the 30 Tomahawks — All 30 hit their mark perfectly. So, in addition to our Great Fighter Pilots, thank you to the Captain and Crew!
I bet the other "N" word gets casually bandied around in Trump's circle...
Apparently no one has told him that Medvedev has been 'casually throwing round' the nuclear word pretty well every week since the start of Putin's Special Military Clusterfnck.
Either that or he just gets a small thrill out of saying "N word".
I said in my post last night, do not rule out the Iranians doing something symbolic, telegraphing it, claiming success and then stopping the cycle with the Americans.
Stories have it the attack on the airbase in Qatar is right along those lines. The airbase, and the ports in Bahrain were largely emptied last week.
No. Russia and the Islamic world can't fight one, and USA and China don't want one.
Pretty much.
It brings us another step closer (worryingly) but it’s hard to see right now where the flashpoint is for wider global power direct conflict. Russia getting involved behind Iran would be one option, but they REALLY don’t have the bandwidth right now.
Gives China a potential opening for the Taiwan gambit though.
The mullahs have decided to sign their own death warrant.
It probably makes sense to strike at US rather than Israeli targets. Trump has generally shown cowardice in the face of retaliation, whereas for Netanyahu it’s all grist to the mill.
Did I hear Former President Medvedev, from Russia, casually throwing around the "N word" (Nuclear!), and saying that he and other Countries would supply Nuclear Warheads to Iran? Did he really say that or, is it just a figment of my imagination? If he did say that, and, if confirmed, please let me know, IMMEDIATELY. The "N word" should not be treated so casually. I guess that's why Putin's "THE BOSS." By the way, if anyone thinks our "hardware" was great over the weekend, far and away the strongest and best equipment we have, 20 years advanced over the pack, is our Nuclear Submarines. They are the most powerful and lethal weapons ever built, and just launched the 30 Tomahawks — All 30 hit their mark perfectly. So, in addition to our Great Fighter Pilots, thank you to the Captain and Crew!
I bet the other "N" word gets casually bandied around in Trump's circle...
Apparently no one has told him that Medvedev has been 'casually throwing round' the nuclear word pretty well every week since the start of Putin's Special Military Clusterfnck.
Either that or he just gets a small thrill out of saying "N word".
I said in my post last night, do not rule out the Iranians doing something symbolic, telegraphing it, claiming success and then stopping the cycle with the Americans.
Stories have it the attack on the airbase in Qatar is right along those lines. The airbase, and the ports in Bahrain were largely emptied last week.
Sirens in Bahrain and Kuwait too. This isnt a token response
Could it turn into an Arab-Persian war?
I mean, I don’t think the other gulf states (sans Iraq) are going to be thrilled about this. They’ve spent decades marketing themselves as safe ports, not places where missiles fill the skies.
Comments
For a while, other admin staff or researchers like me took up the slack in the meantime, but as cuts bite harder, this has fallen and delays just get bigger. It took me over a month recently to get a formal offer of employment to a (very good) candidate we interviewed for a research post. We were lucky she really wanted to work in my specific team/area otherwise we could well have lost her. HR then, eventually, sent her referees reference requests for a completely different role, adding to our clear appearance of incompetence.
Getting rid of people is a bit arse about face. You first need to scrutinise the processes, then get rid of the processes and roles that are not needed. We have some of those, for sure, but at present we're keeping all the process and just trying to do it with fewer staff.
ETA: On the specific example, there's no obvious need for a person in HR to send out offers. The post is approved before advertising, so I should be able to just click a button in the internal recruitment website to send out an offer and the request for references. But instead we have overworked people doing this manually, badly.
Apparently the kind of manager who turns the simple decision into a 5 hour meeting followed by a slow drowning in administrative mud is a common issue.
As is *not having* managers who can arrange for staff to show up, equipment to be bought, cleaners to clean...
Real management is often noticed by people wondering what the managers do - "Everything just shows up by magic, I never get called into meetings - what do these guys do all day?"
Yep I would put him at 70 based upon myself and friends at my age, but maybe we aren't representative of 70 year olds, being very active.
Might depend on what China is doing in the background. Speaking to my man in Hong Kong this morning, they are VERY pissed off that diplomacy failed and sanctions aren't being lifted.
Played on is either picking the line wrong or movement taking the inside edge, its exactly the same as caught behind - wrong line or movement and thus fully deserving of bowler credit
Is World War III about to kick off?
*re-lurks*
Ive been wrong before! (Today)
The talent team were targeted to reach that before I joined and they gave a presentation on how they achieved it. Essentially the VP of People said "you have this mad target, reach it however you think is possible, nothing is off the table but you can't hire any more people for it" and they went out and found the right SaaS partner to help them automate big chunks of what was being done manually, gave hiring managers final approval for budgeted job roles and automated everything other than the screening rounds which they still did properly. So a team that was previously doing loads of nonsense manual work and looking to just hire a bunch of people ended up keeping the team the same size, did what we needed them to do properly and allowed for automation to pick up those admin areas where they were adding no value anyway.
I highly doubt that this isn't something that can be applied across big swathes of the public sector too and this is just one example. There are countless others where processes are being protected by those people who own them to justify their salaries and gold plated pensions.
Qatar did not take the decision to close its airspace lightly; over a dozen inbound aircraft have been forced to divert, and dozens more are currently grounded at Doha's Hamad International Airport.
https://x.com/Osinttechnical/status/1937175286317011125
I am sitting in Dubai waiting for an early morning flight to Saudi... Please don't do anything stupid for another 24 hrs... After that you are good to go!
Probably."
The biggest problem Iocal Government has is the bit that Selebian alludes to. After 10+ years of cuts the people remaining are struggling to keep things going so they don’t have time to take a step back and work out what can and should be changed. Just keeping things ticking over is more than a full time job
https://x.com/ianbremmer/status/1937167633415082491?s=61
https://www.flightradar24.com/FDB4TB/3aef71f0
https://bsky.app/profile/ajvicens.bsky.social/post/3lsbt4bjoks2p
Probably offer compensation for the cost of the missiles that hit us.
Never comes to fruition.
Manchester City Centre. Close to the site of the Hotspur Press building. Which coincidentally is the site of a long running heritage v development standoff.
Triple Ache
@TripleAche14
MISSILES JUST INTERVENED
Explosions heard over Qatar capital Doha
I suppose that some conspiracy around the plans involving preserving as much of the brickwork as possible, could work.
An utterly amazing forum
I’m close enough to know that a lot of councils are actually way ahead of the multiple billion dollar client I’m currently automating efficiency savings at.
Yes, there is a load of pseudo-commercial behaviour in the public sector. There are people doing their best to do jobs that, in a different world, wouldn't exist. There are people at the top pretending they are entitled to capitalist rewards without taking capitalist risks- though that is true in public companies as well.
But, horrible though educational CEO salaries are, cutting them doesn't save much. And if you want real savings, that means accepting that the old, low-choice, "nice people in a shabby office" model worked better. I'm wetter than you, but I'm not sure about that.
What I am confident of is that there is more money wasted on overpaid people doing non-jobs in finance than in the public sector.
https://x.com/sentdefender/status/1937191129495068717?s=61
Looking to re-organise,
Now ideally you would be simplifying the amount of paperwork required. Instead we have an LLM checking if the paperwork matches expected parameters with more requirements being added
England need 371 to win at Headingley.
“If you worked in the private sector then a council, you’d be incredibly frustrated with bureaucracy and painfully old systems. It makes the staff look bad when they’re working really hard.”
https://www.thetimes.com/article/cade944e-3902-4ffb-a547-23aac146bd6e?shareToken=9efa709366b89967db864084449e7593
Still, much more comforting to think that you just have to tell the desk jockeys to go away because it's all their fault and everything will be peachy.
Either that or he just gets a small thrill out of saying "N word".
Stories have it the attack on the airbase in Qatar is right along those lines. The airbase, and the ports in Bahrain were largely emptied last week.
It brings us another step closer (worryingly) but it’s hard to see right now where the flashpoint is for wider global power direct conflict. Russia getting involved behind Iran would be one option, but they REALLY don’t have the bandwidth right now.
Gives China a potential opening for the Taiwan gambit though.