This is spot on. It just appears a shambles at the moment and getting worse. I was reading another article recently that was again, rightly suggesting, it’s not that there’s too many managers, just that many at senior levels just aren’t very good. This then leads to consultants being brought in getting paid exorbitant amounts to do senior manger level jobs for them. That plus the merry go round of health ministers post pandemic!
If that’s sorted plus social care I reckon a lot of the immediate pressure will be relieved. Back log will obviously take a lot longer. It doesn’t take Einstein to work out that if 13k beds (filled by people well enough to go home with right care) get freed up, A&E pressures reduce and ambulances don’t get stuck in the queue. I’d also stop paramedics stopping with non critical ambulance cases and get back out on road
What the fuck Sunaks doing by not at least trying to get pay offer up a bit I don’t know. I’d have immediately brought forward a new pay review* due to exceptional circumstances. The fact there’s 40k vacancies justifies a different treatment to others. He’ll lose the public battle if he doesn’t budge as this is very different to train and postal strikes
*think the last/current one was Feb so is well out of date. I might be wrong though
I think across the public sector there’s this downwards pressure on wages that means you just don’t get top talent. Seen it at the BBC where people just don’t get how high market rate is and the same at director level posts in NHS Trusts on just into six figures. That’s not that high to be a director of a company that size. And I’ve never seen a tech job for public sector when I’ve been job hunting really, I assume it all goes out to consultancies at extortionate rates but not sure.
Its very easy to get people up in arms about public sector workers earning >£60k but that’s what good people earn in all kinds of roles in the private sector.
Even things like teachers you’re seeing a massive shortfall in technical subjects recruiting because why on Earth would you earn at most what a decent grad program would pay you when you’ve got a STEM degree?
And at lower levels you end up competing with retail and the like with much lower stress levels or higher pay for less qualification requirements.
So people aren’t coming in, others are leaving, and you have to plug the gap with expensive agency staff at the low level and consultants at the high level. You can sustain a little bit of a difference because people will work harder and for less in public services but too much no it’s just self defeating.
My gut says this is all politicians looking short term and not being honest with voters. They won’t admit what these services cost and always pretend they can bring costs down, and they don’t care about problems piling up for the next lot to deal with. Look at PFI under Blair: got massive short term improvements which were needed, but had to try and hide the spending and ended up costing us loads more.
That said I’m not sure voters are ready for the truth and like the simple lies that feel good.