Wednesday 31 March 2010

An Early April Fools Joke, not 2

Going on from my previous blog An Early April Fools Joke, not.

Another blog by Anna Raccoon about waste in government.

The latest blog is called: - Newsflash: civil service stress update

Following on from an earlier excursion into yoga and other hobbies comes this harrowing tale of the utter waste endemic to government:

Worse though is the tale told by a friend. She had had a stressful couple of years as HR boss of a firm that was cutting half its staff and she decided when the time came for her to cut herself that she didn't need this any longer. She has a husband and family and wanted a routine sort of job without emotional strain, so she applied for and got one with the local authority, inputting data. It was boring and soothing and just what she needed but after a week she realised she was finishing the work given to her at lunchtime every day, so she asked the line manager – or possibly the Deputy Assistant Line Manager – for more. Shocked silence and sharp intake of breath.

You cannot be serious! That would count as undermining her colleagues or ‘rocking the boat’. She asked what she should do until five o’clock came and was told ‘Anything. Do your online Tesco shopping. Play Sudoku…just don`t ask for more work.’

There were seven full-time employees in that office and she says the work could have been done by a maximum of three and not busting a gut.

It’s not just that government spending can be cut. It must be cut.

This is just at one office in one local authority, so how much waste collectively is going on in the country as a whole, that's not including the waste the national government gets through. Should I mention the waste in the EU.

Government, local and national, should be put under the same scrutiny as a private business' accounts. The taxpayers should be getting value for money from the governments. If they ran a private business like they do our governments it would be bankrupt.

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