And the ones that don't do it anyway. The choice, independent budgets and direct payments are cuts by stealth.
E.g. your granny is entitled to £20,000 worth of care spend it how you choose, no bureaucrat will tell her how.
But her care costs £25,000.
Well then she'll have to choose. Maybe a nice holiday in Morecambe and no home care?
Well, at least they were voted in. Unlike a lot of QUANGOs and other non-governmental bodies who recommend a lot of (what eventually becomes) regional policy.
The civil service is pretty unchanging.
Quote: sootyj @ September 18 2009, 10:36 AM BSTThe civil service is pretty unchanging.
No, teh civil service has changed enormously over the past decade as a result of modelling itself on the public sector. Increasingly the top jobs go to people with private sector backgrounds and on private sector salaries, while fortunes are spent on outsourcing and consultancy. Decision making is increasingly centralised and depersonalised, while local offices are closed and service provision rationalised into call centres where, if you can get past the automatic answering system, you will find yourself talking to a drone reading from a script.
The civil service have borne the brunt of cost-cutting, because regulators and tax collectors are not loved public figures, which makes them an easy target. People will protest against the closure of a local hospital, but they are not going to complain against the closure of a local tax office (though they may find themselves tearing their hair out in frustration next time they are attempting to resolve a tax problem.) Gordon Brown can stand up in the House of Commons and announce that he is cutting 40,000 civil service jobs, and the Labour benches cheer. Can you imagine that happening with health workers, teachers, armed forces or policemen?
Which is not to say that there are not savings to be made, or that all cuts have not been justified, or that in some respect efficiencies have not resulted (though it has tended to be one step forward and two steps back). But it is incorrect to speak of the civil service as a special case insulated from change.
You may have gathered that I am a civil servant. And that I have a certain amount of time on my hands. (I was very busy, doing useful work, but management moved me.)
The trouble is that the perception of what constitutes a civil servant is still seen through some kind of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' prism.
Quote: Tim Walker @ September 18 2009, 11:21 AM BSTThe trouble is that the perception of what constitutes a civil servant is still seen through some kind of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' prism.
True. If our fried writing the PhD had extended his rigourous research to using the site's search engine, he would have found my comments on the legacy of that particular show:
Quote: Timbo @ September 18 2009, 11:35 AM BSTTrue. If our fried writing the PhD had extended his rigourous research to using the site's search engine, he would have found my comments on the legacy of that particular show:
Well-put. Good post, Timbo. 
Thoughtful thread – it's good to see people showing your balls.
Can comedy act as a vehicle for social change, to some degree? Or does it express hopelessness? Any suggestions of good/bad 'political' comedy? There's a Phd in this for the first correct answer.
Quote: sootyj @ September 18 2009, 9:26 AM BSTSo do we live in a situation where we have handed over all the real power, to vast corporations who can outspin and advertise our lumbering governments at every turn?
Business is good. Plutocracy is bad.
Quote: Rhubarb @ September 18 2009, 12:38 PM BSTThoughtful thread – it's good to see people showing your balls.
Can comedy act as a vehicle for social change, to some degree? Or does it express hopelessness? Any suggestions of good/bad 'political' comedy? There's a Phd in this for the first correct answer.
Absolutely it can help. But it needs to be continuos and it needs to inspire people to action.
Nixon was laughed out of office and I truly believe it was the music and comedy of the 80s that kept the antiThatcher fires burning, when the Labour party disintegrated into neurotic, unelectable slump.
That said what did it get us? Blairite Thatcherism lite?
Certainly comedy helps to make the more extreme parties look ever more foolish and pointless. KKK, NF I truly believe comedy helps to keep them from being tkaens seriosuly.
The Government / Corporate partnership is nothing new, look at the East India Company or other forms of colonial privateering.
People hark back to 'ye olden days' but every ruling party has been horribly corrupt since year dot. It's only because we live in an age of instant communication and a powerful press culture that we've discovered just how dodgy these bastards are.
My problem with the BNP is that they're becoming increasingly attractive to voters - not because of immigration - but because they're seen as a truly independent party who've criticised the system and want real change.
Everyone is fed up with the way things are done in this country - the goverment is incompetent, the corporations and banks are greedy and incompetent, the legal system is corrupt and incompetent - this has got to change or there will be a revolution. Though I think we'll see more Union Jacks then Che Guevara images if it does happen.
Quote: Timbo @ September 18 2009, 11:11 AM BSTNo, teh civil service has changed enormously over the past decade as a result of modelling itself on the public sector. Increasingly the top jobs go to people with private sector backgrounds and on private sector salaries, while fortunes are spent on outsourcing and consultancy. Decision making is increasingly centralised and depersonalised, while local offices are closed and service provision rationalised into call centres where, if you can get past the automatic answering system, you will find yourself talking to a drone reading from a script.
The civil service have borne the brunt of cost-cutting, because regulators and tax collectors are not loved public figures, which makes them an easy target. People will protest against the closure of a local hospital, but they are not going to complain against the closure of a local tax office (though they may find themselves tearing their hair out in frustration next time they are attempting to resolve a tax problem.) Gordon Brown can stand up in the House of Commons and announce that he is cutting 40,000 civil service jobs, and the Labour benches cheer. Can you imagine that happening with health workers, teachers, armed forces or policemen?
Which is not to say that there are not savings to be made, or that all cuts have not been justified, or that in some respect efficiencies have not resulted (though it has tended to be one step forward and two steps back). But it is incorrect to speak of the civil service as a special case insulated from change.
You may have gathered that I am a civil servant. And that I have a certain amount of time on my hands. (I was very busy, doing useful work, but management moved me.)
As a public sector worker I acknowledge you are indeed right. Isn't the immigration bureau a relatively recent department? And look at what an incompetent, poorl;y paid shambles that is!
Quote: Renegade Carpark @ September 18 2009, 12:55 PM BSTThe Government / Corporate partnership is nothing new, look at the East India Company or other forms of colonial privateering.
Wsn't the East Inida Company tkaen over by the government lock stack and barrel when it was too much of a nuisance? And not merely bailed out to do exactly what it had always done.
Granted there has always been corruption and there always will be corruption.
My opinion: corptocracy.
I think a good majority of North Americans have become to confuse democracy with capitalism, some have become so much so that they don't think it's democratic to have good things work for everyone.
Perhaps it's similar in the UK but I don't know. I only know us and the US.
Quote: Curt @ September 18 2009, 1:01 PM BSTMy opinion: corptocracy.
Please call it 'corporate plutocracy'!
Quote: Kenneth @ September 18 2009, 1:06 PM BSTPlease call it 'corporate plutocracy'!
Not a corpocracy?