Britain is paying more tax for public services that too often deliver less. The sickness absence gap is another sign of a public sector too big, too slow and too weak at holding itself accountable.
"If taxpayers are funding the service, taxpayers should be able to see the problem."
Taxpayers aren't funding it though, are they? Apart from local issues paid for through council taxes, they aren't funding anything. Ask yourself where taxpayers get money from - they have to get it from somewhere as we can all agree they don't create it themselves. It has to originate somewhere else then, so where can that be? Here's the Bank of England to help out, firstly with where it comes from; ""... Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money." and "... money is made up of bank deposits - which are essentially IOUs from commercial banks to households and companies - and currency - mostly IOUs from the central bank." This is from the PDF available from the BoE's site at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy where there's also a video explaining how banks create new money when they lend it. The ECB chime in helpfully with their observation that "Fiat money is declared legal tender and issued by a central bank." https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb-and-you/explainers/tell-me-more/html/what_is_money.en.html I'll just stress that last, "... money is... issued by the central bank." Now in the UK that central bank is the BoE and it's part of Govt, being owned by the Treasury. We know because it says it is and we have no reason to doubt it "We are wholly-owned by the UK government. The capital of the Bank is held by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of HM Treasury." https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/who-owns-the-bank-of-england
Money is Govt IOUs issued by the central bank and created as deposits by back loans which is how come it happens to be handy if we want to spend some at the pub or pay our mortgage.
Nothing about taxpayers in there. Nothing about MMT either; all this is information made freely available by the banks themselves for anyone to see.
It's really time the absurd and irrelevant nonsense based round it being 'taxpayers' money' was left behind. No serious conversations about the economy can be had which include the idea.
The idea of measuring productivity in the public sector seems odd. I can see how it might work in some parts of the system where the output side is clearly measurable such as say mending potholes in the road but for a lot of desk based jobs how do you measure their performance. There is one local authority which reduced the working week from 5 to 4 days and it was claimed that this would improve productivity. They say it actually has actually improved. I have no idea how that works but I wondered why they didn't reduce the week to 3 days or 2 and improve productivity even more.
It’s a fair point, Steve. Measuring productivity in 'knowledge work' or desk-based public sector roles is notoriously difficult compared to, say, counting potholes filled or bins collected.
Regarding the 4-day week, the argument usually made is that staff are more focused and less prone to burnout, essentially doing five days of work in four. But you’re right to be skeptical, if the logic is just 'less time equals more efficiency,' the logical conclusion would be a 1-day week! The real risk is that in large bureaucracies, 'productivity' becomes a measure of internal processes (emails sent, meetings held) rather than actual outcomes for the taxpayer. Without clear external benchmarks, it's very easy to mark your own homework.
I don't know if you follow Gordon Hughes substack called Cloud Wisdom. Gordon was Professor of Political Economy at Edinburgh so I guess he should know a bit. He posts a lot of interesting stuff which I like to read but he published a post called "Measuring Productivity in Services". I have read it. I don't really understand it but you might find it interesting.
"If taxpayers are funding the service, taxpayers should be able to see the problem."
Taxpayers aren't funding it though, are they? Apart from local issues paid for through council taxes, they aren't funding anything. Ask yourself where taxpayers get money from - they have to get it from somewhere as we can all agree they don't create it themselves. It has to originate somewhere else then, so where can that be? Here's the Bank of England to help out, firstly with where it comes from; ""... Whenever a bank makes a loan, it simultaneously creates a matching deposit in the borrower’s bank account, thereby creating new money." and "... money is made up of bank deposits - which are essentially IOUs from commercial banks to households and companies - and currency - mostly IOUs from the central bank." This is from the PDF available from the BoE's site at https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy where there's also a video explaining how banks create new money when they lend it. The ECB chime in helpfully with their observation that "Fiat money is declared legal tender and issued by a central bank." https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb-and-you/explainers/tell-me-more/html/what_is_money.en.html I'll just stress that last, "... money is... issued by the central bank." Now in the UK that central bank is the BoE and it's part of Govt, being owned by the Treasury. We know because it says it is and we have no reason to doubt it "We are wholly-owned by the UK government. The capital of the Bank is held by the Treasury Solicitor on behalf of HM Treasury." https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/who-owns-the-bank-of-england
Money is Govt IOUs issued by the central bank and created as deposits by back loans which is how come it happens to be handy if we want to spend some at the pub or pay our mortgage.
Nothing about taxpayers in there. Nothing about MMT either; all this is information made freely available by the banks themselves for anyone to see.
It's really time the absurd and irrelevant nonsense based round it being 'taxpayers' money' was left behind. No serious conversations about the economy can be had which include the idea.
The idea of measuring productivity in the public sector seems odd. I can see how it might work in some parts of the system where the output side is clearly measurable such as say mending potholes in the road but for a lot of desk based jobs how do you measure their performance. There is one local authority which reduced the working week from 5 to 4 days and it was claimed that this would improve productivity. They say it actually has actually improved. I have no idea how that works but I wondered why they didn't reduce the week to 3 days or 2 and improve productivity even more.
It’s a fair point, Steve. Measuring productivity in 'knowledge work' or desk-based public sector roles is notoriously difficult compared to, say, counting potholes filled or bins collected.
Regarding the 4-day week, the argument usually made is that staff are more focused and less prone to burnout, essentially doing five days of work in four. But you’re right to be skeptical, if the logic is just 'less time equals more efficiency,' the logical conclusion would be a 1-day week! The real risk is that in large bureaucracies, 'productivity' becomes a measure of internal processes (emails sent, meetings held) rather than actual outcomes for the taxpayer. Without clear external benchmarks, it's very easy to mark your own homework.
I don't know if you follow Gordon Hughes substack called Cloud Wisdom. Gordon was Professor of Political Economy at Edinburgh so I guess he should know a bit. He posts a lot of interesting stuff which I like to read but he published a post called "Measuring Productivity in Services". I have read it. I don't really understand it but you might find it interesting.
https://cloudwisdom.substack.com/p/measuring-productivity-in-services