Britain outside the EU

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by jfman

If that’s genuinely the intent why aren’t we leaving the market to it and instead urging “wage restraint”?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...-b2021380.html

---------- Post added at 12:43 ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 ----------

Er, we now have a temporary issue with the Ukraine war, remember?

[RichardCoulter]

Originally Posted by GrimUpNorth

Nice idea, who do you proposed will do all the things your substantially reduced public sector will no longer be able to do?

The problem with armchair accountants is they don't appreciate all the things public services do which they take for granted. These are almost certainly the same people who'd be the first to complain when the impacts of their wholesale root and branch pruning start to show. After 12 years of the Conservatives reducing the funding for local government there isn't really anything else left to chop, not when many of the services carried out by local government are a duty so can't be avoided. And by the way, many of the cuts proposed for local government are still in the pipeline, so it's going to get worse than it is now.

It's the Conservative funding model which has had a very large impact on the social care local council's can offer resulting in the crises we're experiencing now and has resulted in the introduction of the social care levy. If the Government felt social care could be cured by reducing staff numbers even more, they would've cut it even more. The fact they're now taxing us more to try and reverse a cock-up of their own making shows the cut cut cut mentality just doesn't work.

You forgot to mention your own vested interest in not wanting any further cuts to local Government funding.

Services classified as statutory can be reclassified or outsourced to the private/voluntary sector. They need not always be viewed as statutory functions, nor must they always be carried out by the local authority.

Didn't you learn anything from CCT/Best value/market testing?

[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Er, we now have a temporary issue with the Ukraine war, remember?

Aw, bless. They've properly pulled the wool over your eyes.

Even still, if we accepted your false premise, surely the market is best left to resolve these issues by itself? Those with entrepreneurial spirit will surely find a way to cultivate and reward the highest quality staff, drive down other costs through efficiencies, and return profits? No?

Even before Ukraine we had the state trying to interfere in the market for HGV drivers.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politi...iving-25074103

Surely they should all be competing with each other for the smaller pool and driving up wages for this high skilled job? Why are HGV drivers exempt from the fruits of this glorious post-Brexit world?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

You forgot to mention your own vested interest in not wanting any further cuts to local Government funding.

Services classified as statutory can be reclassified or outsourced to the private/voluntary sector. They need not always be viewed as statutory functions, nor must they always be carried out by the local authority.

Didn't you learn anything from CCT/Best value/market testing?

Grim's correct though. So many councils up and down the country, red and blue are in serious financial difficulties. Outsourcing services isn't going to make up for the substantial reduction in funding that they've had since austerity first reared its head. Per this chart, a 63% reduction in core funding from 2010 to 2020. But we do seem to beading off topic so I'll try and avoid saying more on this.
https://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/ou...cade-austerity

[jfman]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

You forgot to mention your own vested interest in not wanting any further cuts to local Government funding.

Services classified as statutory can be reclassified or outsourced to the private/voluntary sector. They need not always be viewed as statutory functions, nor must they always be carried out by the local authority.

Didn't you learn anything from CCT/Best value/market testing?

Where they are delivered at higher cost and lower quality to service users due to the loss of economies of scale. The pretence that anything delivered by the public sector can magically be done by someone else is exactly the decades of economic failure that Truss is talking about.

All the attractive stuff is gone - end users being price gouged by train operators, energy companies and broadband providers where competition has been entirely manufactured.

Taking a paid job and handing it to someone in the voluntary sector takes spending power out of the local economy.

[GrimUpNorth]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

You forgot to mention your own vested interest in not wanting any further cuts to local Government funding.

Services classified as statutory can be reclassified or outsourced to the private/voluntary sector. They need not always be viewed as statutory functions, nor must they always be carried out by the local authority.

Didn't you learn anything from CCT/Best value/market testing?

Yes I am employed in local government, however because I work in a specialist area our team also works in a consultancy capacity for other authorities/public bodies and many private companies and we actually make a net contribution to the budget. The surplus we make is directly fed back to support other functions of the authority, so I feel I'm in a situation which fortunately shields my team from the majority of cuts but the downside is the pressure we can be under to fulfill our primary role to the authority while at the same time still bringing in the expected income.

Services can be reclassified and moved from local authority's remits. However, changes like those you seem to want to see do not necessarily result in an improved service. There are many services that wouldn't benefit from the ideology of outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing - for example, I'd rather have food hygiene staying in the public domain than being turned in to a money making enterprise run by some massive PLC which has profit for shareholders higher up its list of priorities than public health.

How would you feel if your local authority announced it was knocking any disability related work on the head because the rules had changed and they were no longer responsible? How would you feel if your local authority sold all their on and off road parking spaces to Megaparking PLC who announced the end of free parking for Blue Badge holders because they could sell those spaces to paying customers to increase their profits? How would you feel if your local authority decided to stop it's adaptions sevices etc etc.

I think you'll find by now most services that can return a nice profit for the private sector are already there, and those services the council's can palm off to volunteers have been palmed off. Those left are pretty much unprofitable or of a type nobody would do for free.

Compulsory competitive tendering, best value or whatever you call it isn't the panecea you maybe think it is. I'd imagine a good proportion of services are tendered on a cost vs quality basis where the tender is scored for price and quality to ensure a good quality service because sometimes cheapest can be so poor the final cost is very high when the additional cost to make good the poor service is included. For small projects the additional administration costs of the tendering process can more than outweigh any resultant savings. Fortunately, most authorities have processes in place to enable them to avoid pointless competitive procurement procedures for example when there is only one supplier or if the service or item being procured is logically best from one supplier for reasons of say service continuity.

Anyway, this is moving away from the subject of the thread.

[1andrew1]

2016: Faisal Islam at Sky News is accused of spreading fake news by Brexiteers when he says he's been told the Brexit divorce bill could reach €50bn.

Suella Braverman says it's Project Fear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5lX--LIGQo

2022: As MPs depart for the Summer recess, the Treasury advises the Brexit divorce bill will in fact be €50bn. https://twitter.com/faisalislam/stat...61681950687233

[RichardCoulter]

I think that some things are done better by the private sector, some the public sector and some the voluntary sector.

An interesting programme about the affects of Brexit on the economy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct39t7

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

I think that some things are done better by the private sector, some the public sector and some the voluntary sector.

An interesting programme about the affects of Brexit on the economy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct39t7

Thanks. I suspect no one will disagree with your first sentence.

EU launches fresh legal action against UK over Northern Ireland

The European Union has launched fresh legal action against the UK for failing to comply with the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.

Four new infringement procedures were triggered by the European Commission as relations further soured on Friday.

The EU argued it was forced to act because the UK has been unwilling to take part in “meaningful discussion” over the protocol since February.

It also struck out again at the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol Bill that is making its way through Parliament.

The commission accused the UK of failing to comply with customs requirements and not imposing EU rules on VAT for e-commerce.

In a statement, the European Commission said: “Despite repeated calls by the European Parliament, the 27 EU Member States and the European Commission to implement the Protocol, the UK Government has failed to do so.

“In a spirit of constructive cooperation, the commission refrained from launching certain infringement procedures for over a year to create the space to look for joint solutions with the UK.

“However, the UK’s unwillingness to engage in meaningful discussion since last February and the continued passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill through the UK Parliament go directly against this spirit.”

The latest action comes on top of the infringement procedures launched on June 15.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknew...17d584cdc78ea0

[ianch99]

Dover has successfully abolished freedom of movement, in line with their 2016 voting. Well done Dover!

The UK mandating that every passport is verified and stamped before travel? Who could have predicated the chaos and hours long queues on the first Summer holiday getaway weekend.

More Brexit Bonus delivery ..

[Mad Max]

That'll have nothing to do with the French not sending enough staff then?

[ianch99]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

That'll have nothing to do with the French not sending enough staff then?

Sure, it is the French's fault we added the extra paperwork causing the delays.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by ianch99

Sure, it is the French's fault we added the extra paperwork causing the delays.

Sure, but any delays would have been shorter if more staff had done their duty and turned up.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mad Max

Sure, but any delays would have been shorter if more staff had done their duty and turned up.

And all our fruit would have been picked and not gone to waste, for the same reasons too.

[Mad Max]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

And all our fruit would have been picked and not gone to waste, for the same reasons too.

So there isn't any fruit being picked and used? same old same old from you, Andrew.