Britains financial crisis

[Tokis-Phoenix]

With our new Tory/Lib Dem government, Cameroon & Clegg are trying to sort out the countries budget as we are deeply in debt and no longer have the money to splash on the economy anymore.
So what would you do if you were in their situation? What things would you cut and (if any) what things would you spend more money on?

Some measure i would take;

1. Scrap police community support officers. They have less power than the ordinary citizen to do anything about crime, yet they cost almost as much as real police officers. They are a financial drain on the country and they receive no respect whatsoever.

2. Make prisons less cushty/cosy. Prisons should consist of cells for the prisoners to sleep in, a kitchen/lunch hall to feed them, a yard for mandatory exercise, TV & board games for mental stimulation & quarters for the prison staff to operate in etc. There is no need for personal/private gyms, days out (what?), comforts like playstations or Sky TV etc.
To make money: i do believe in rehabilitating prisoners (we have educational programs available to prisoners), but i also think that work is a great rehabilitator. Prisoners should all be make to work on farms & factories for free.

3. Cut benefits, massively. Too many benefits scroungers. This is our biggest area of public spending, and it has been consistently been increasing every year for donkeys years now. I believe there is much money that could be saved in this area- benefits spending now receives more money than any other area of spending in this country, and by a long shot (even more than our NHS, education system, MOD etc).

When it comes to single mothers on benefits, the focus should be on the children & not the mothers. So more measures need to be taken to ensure that the money is spent on the children and not on the mother (like going down to the pub, buying satelite TV, buying cigarettes etc). A WW2 style ration/coupon/voucher system for necessities like healthy food products, childrens clothes, educational materials etc would help ensure that the money given is spent on what it is supposed to be spent on.
I also believe that enforcing a temporary sterilisation program would help prevent mothers from having countless kids so that they can take advantage of the benefits system. Having too many children while living in poverty is not in the current existing childrens best interests.

There are different types of contraceptive injections that make you immune from becoming pregnant for a specific period of time. I think that planned parenthood is a sign of parental responsibility (especially when there are already existing kids in the equation & the person in question is already using other people's money to pay for their current children) and i think it is only fare to ask that mothers who are taking taxpayers money to fund their current kids agree not to have anymore children while doing so.

4. NHS: Cut the bureaucracy, not the frontline services. Also i think a lot of alternative therapy treatments like crystals & homeopathy ( Snake oil - or NHS tool? ). Choice of treatments is always a nice thing, but when so much taxpayers money is being spent on treatments that have been proven to have no beneficial effect beyond a placebo effect, i think we need to be tougher on the sorts of treatments/services being given out free by the NHS.

5. Scrap "target" systems for the police force & NHS.

What do you think?

 

[Tsuyoiko]

1. Scrap police community support officers. They have less power than the ordinary citizen to do anything about crime, yet they cost almost as much as real police officers. They are a financial drain on the country and they receive no respect whatsoever.

PCSOs are paid considerably less than police officers. They start on just over ﾂ≫??6k, compared to just over ﾂ≫??3.5k for police officers - almost 50% more.

I don't think they should be scrapped; they certainly have more powers than an ordinary citizen. In addition to the power of citizen's arrest, they have many other powers, including issuing fixed penalty notices, confiscating alcohol and entering and searching properties.

They are used where an official police presence is needed but using police officers would be a waste of resources, such as monitoring small demonstrations or walking the beat. Their uniform is very similar to a police officer's uniform, so at first glance most people would just see a police officer.

Ten years ago there was no regular police presence in and around my street; now we have PCSOs walking a regular beat, which I think is an improvement. There's an off-licence around the corner. Ten years ago, underage drinkers would congregate nearby and someone would have to call the police and wait for them to arrive if the kids became a nuisance. Nowadays, PCSOs can spot them while on their beat, take their names and addresses, confiscate their alcohol and either detain them until the police arrive or send them on their way.

I think that PCSOs are an excellent way to save public money: the previous government recognised the fact that we needed a greater police presence and found a way to provide it that spent money much more efficiently than just increasing the number of police officers.

Also i think a lot of alternative therapy treatments like crystals & homeopathy ( Snake oil - or NHS tool? ). Choice of treatments is always a nice thing, but when so much taxpayers money is being spent on treatments that have been proven to have no beneficial effect beyond a placebo effect, i think we need to be tougher on the sorts of treatments/services being given out free by the NHS.

I completely agree that placebo "treatments" like homeopathy should be taken off the NHS.

In general though, I am against cutting public services for two reasons. Firstly, people lose their jobs. When the economy is in trouble, the last thing the government should be doing is making more people unemployed. Secondly, the people who rely most on public services are poor people, and I think that protecting poor people is one of the government's main responsibilities.

I think rich people should be taxed more, the money should be used to protect public services until the economy starts to show signs of growth, and then the rate of growth of public sector spending should be gradually slowed.

George Osborne's doublespeak angers me. He says that growth is slower than Labour predicted so they need to impose greater cuts. But growth has slowed because of the cuts!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

^
Actually concerning the PCSOs technically anyone can make a citizens arrest;

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Can anyone make a citizen's arrest?

PCSO's can apparently only detain someone for up to 30mins before letting them go, and while the pay starts at 16,000, that is a lot of money to spend on someone who basically mostly records crimes. 3 PCSO's don't have the power of one police man, and i know which option i would rather have in my neighbourhood- and the police man would be cheaper than 3 PCSO's. And the pay adds up considerably when looked at on the whole- in Derbyshire alone they spent over 8million pounds on PCSO's;

http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/foi/198.html

PCSO's are a nice idea but IMO they are not value for money, they have very little powers to do anything, and cannot be compared anywhere near on the same level as a real police officer. In this country we have an increasing trend towards supposedely cheaper choices to tackle crime (like PCSO's & speed camera's) but which in the end don't tackle crime effectively and just end up costing considerable sums of tax payers money. They also "take" real police officers & traffic cops off the streets by effectively replacing their presence, but i know that i would personally choose 1 traffic cop over 10 speed camera's or 1 police officer over 3 PSCO's etc any day of the week.

Concerning the NHS and cutting jobs, well, it needs to be done.
Sure its not nice getting rid of people's jobs in this economy, but we also won't have an economy if we don't tackle our budget effectively. We are loosing international trust in our government and the way it runs our economy. We couldn't even bail out a bank right now even if we wanted to. Our debt is dire and the value of our currency is unstable (and its future looks pretty negative right now).

I mostly want to cut down on management in the NHS;

"On spending, Mr Lansley pointed out that running costs for primary care trusts, management bodies which oversee services locally, have risen from £1.43bn to £2.14bn in the past four years.

In particular, he said money could be saved by cutting back on the use of management consultants.

NHS quangos are another source of spending that could be curbed, he said.

Nearly £2bn is spent each year on the arms-length bodies.

Other budgets that could be looked at would be the £200m cost of running the Department of Health as well as the £100m spent on the 10 strategic health authorities that oversee care on a regional basis.

Mr Lansley said over the course of four years the £4.5bn bill in this area could be cut to £3bn, freeing money to be spent on front-line care at a time when more and more pressure is being put on NHS funds."

BBC NEWS | Health | Tories seek NHS bureaucracy cut

This is a situation that just can't continue anymore. The doctor to manager ratio in the NHS is crazy these days. And considering cuts have to be made, i would rather the beaurocracy in the NHS was cut back on than frontline services or things like hospital beds, ambulances, drugs etc.

I know you don't want to see people's jobs being cut in this economy, its not nice to happen. But any politicion who promises jobs won't be cut is either lying or living in a fantasy world. Even if 6 billion pounds was saved it would only make a tiny scratch on our debts. And the value of all this management doesn't seem to benefit the economy much- cutting some of these jobs would actually boost the economy if the money saved was put into other better area's.

Scary stuff;

"UK National Debt - how Britain owes over £900 billion

It's a truly frightening figure. Why is the world's sixth richest country so deeply in debt?

Every year the UK runs a large budget deficit. The Government spends more money than it can tax, so we plug the gap by selling bonds to investors at home and abroad. These bonds - known as gilts - have to be repaid in full, with interest. Added together, our unpaid loans make up the UK's national debt.

Right now, that debt is growing violently. The Government forecasts it will soar to an eye-watering £1.1 trillion by 2011. To put that in perspective, the UK went bust in 1976 running a budget deficit of 6% of GDP. In 2010 that deficit is going to top 12%.

Historically, our debt burden was heavier after World War II. But like any loan, if the money isn't invested wisely we end up borrowing even more. When the Government runs up huge debts and produces nothing to show for it, we're the ones that shoulder the burden. This year that burden will grow by £167.9 billion.

The state has been wasting our money for decades. Weak politicians have bribed voters with endless amounts of borrowed cash. As a result, in 2010 the interest on the national debt will cost £42.9 billion a year. That's more than we spend on defence, and not much less than the entire education budget.

Future generations won't thank us for mortgaging their future. At best, national debt will be a millstone round our children's necks. But if lenders lose faith in Britain there could be profound consequences for our currency, our country and our lives.";

UK National Debt Clock - DebtBombshell.com

 

[Tsuyoiko]

^
Actually concerning the PCSOs technically anyone can make a citizens arrest;

True, but that's not the extent of their powers, as the Wikipedia article I posted above explains. It just seems like a waste of money to me to have a highly-trained police officer on ﾂ≫??0k a year patrolling the streets on the offchance a crime is being committed. A PCSO on ﾂ≫??0k a year is perfectly capable of handling jobs like that. I guess it's a matter of taste, as there don't seem to be any reports on the effectiveness of PCSOs available.

Concerning the NHS and cutting jobs, well, it needs to be done.
Sure its not nice getting rid of people's jobs in this economy, but we also won't have an economy if we don't tackle our budget effectively.

That assumes that spending cuts are the only way to tackle the budget deficit. I don't believe that's the case, and I think jobs should be protected above all else, because without them how can people live?

What will happen to these people who lose their jobs? The economy hasn't recovered sufficiently for all of them to find positions in the private sector, so they'll end up on benefits. How can spending on benefits be cut while unemployment is rising? It's all very well to say people need to be forced off benefits, but how, if there are fewer jobs out there?

I think tax rises are much fairer because they only reduce a person's income, rather than taking away their job altogether, and they can be applied in such a way as to protect the poorest people. I'd much rather pay a few more pounds a week in tax than lose my job altogether.

This article explains my position much better than I ever could:
The emergency budget: Fair shares of a big bill

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

^ Well i kind of view the economy like a dying business that has just been taken over by a new company.
i.e.;
In such a situation the first thing the new company does is evaluate all the job positions the business is using and decides how worthwhile those jobs are for the companys sake. The company may be running inefficiently due to too many people being hired in some area's, and perhaps not enough in others. And so its quite common for businesses which have been taken over by new companies to suffer redundancies as the new company cuts jobs to make it more efficient/profitable.

And when it comes to the NHS, i believe this is what has to be done concerning its massive management problem.

The other option is to reduce everyone's pay (whether just management or everyone working in the NHS etc). But this wouldn't deal with the issue that the NHS is still running inefficiently...

Concerning tax, if we raised the money needed to pay off the countries debts, then the amount that would need to be raised would practically bankrupt people. And its difficult to raise large taxes without being unfair. Also when it comes to businesses, large taxes can make it very difficult for them to stay profitable- too much tax and you damage the businesses and thus damage the economy.
Tax is also only good for the economy when it is put into the right services and used to pay off the right things, but i think we are wasting money and that this problem needs to be dealt with first before we start expecting everybody to fork out more money.

I personally have no problem paying taxes whatsoever, its what they are being spent on (or not spent on for that matter) that i have issue with. I think a lot of people would be against large tax rises, because a lot of people are very unhappy with what their taxes are currently being spent on.
Sure, when it comes to benefits no-one can argue that a lot of money is being wasted on it and that there are plenty of people currently on benefits who could actually work. You could argue that we shouldn't be forcing people back into this state of economy- but on the other hand though, you can't also really get people to agree with paying more taxes when they see their current taxes being blatently wasted. And having people on benefits doesn't improve the economy.
And jobs are not non-existent- there are plenty of minimum wage jobs around, its just that few people are taking them up because to be on benefits sometimes works out as being more profitable, or that other people on benefits simply prefer a life of earning less & doing little, than earning more & working hard.

There were plenty of people who could work but were on benefits before the economy went downhill, its just now the economy has gone downhill (although it is definitely making a gradual recovery) the excuses are changing. But even though i live in a small town community whose economy has suffered a lot, there are still plenty of minimum wage jobs around going at local factories or cleaning jobs etc- its just that the good/better paid jobs are no longer around.
So i believe that despite the economy, we still have a massive problem with people choosing to stay on benefits not because there are no jobs around, but rather because the jobs available are jobs they don't want to do ("Don't want to work at McDonalds, Don't want to work on a farm picking strawberries, Don't want to work at Tesco's, Don't want to work in the cheese factory, Don't want to be a cleaner" etc). I have seen a slight drop in the amount of minimum wage jobs in some area's, but they are still very abundant- its just that they are all work that people don't want to do (because they are boring/hard/demeaning jobs which all don't pay much etc). But why should beggars be choosers?

 

[mobile1]

^
Actually concerning the PCSOs technically anyone can make a citizens arrest;

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Can anyone make a citizen's arrest?

PCSO's can apparently only detain someone for up to 30mins before letting them go, and while the pay starts at 16,000, that is a lot of money to spend on someone who basically mostly records crimes. 3 PCSO's don't have the power of one police man, and i know which option i would rather have in my neighbourhood- and the police man would be cheaper than 3 PCSO's. And the pay adds up considerably when looked at on the whole- in Derbyshire alone they spent over 8million pounds on PCSO's;

http://www.derbyshire.police.uk/foi/198.html

PCSO's are a nice idea but IMO they are not value for money, they have very little powers to do anything, and cannot be compared anywhere near on the same level as a real police officer. In this country we have an increasing trend towards supposedely cheaper choices to tackle crime (like PCSO's & speed camera's) but which in the end don't tackle crime effectively and just end up costing considerable sums of tax payers money. They also "take" real police officers & traffic cops off the streets by effectively replacing their presence, but i know that i would personally choose 1 traffic cop over 10 speed camera's or 1 police officer over 3 PSCO's etc any day of the week.

Concerning the NHS and cutting jobs, well, it needs to be done.
Sure its not nice getting rid of people's jobs in this economy, but we also won't have an economy if we don't tackle our budget effectively. We are loosing international trust in our government and the way it runs our economy. We couldn't even bail out a bank right now even if we wanted to. Our debt is dire and the value of our currency is unstable (and its future looks pretty negative right now).

I mostly want to cut down on management in the NHS;

"On spending, Mr Lansley pointed out that running costs for primary care trusts, management bodies which oversee services locally, have risen from £1.43bn to £2.14bn in the past four years.

In particular, he said money could be saved by cutting back on the use of management consultants.

NHS quangos are another source of spending that could be curbed, he said.

Nearly £2bn is spent each year on the arms-length bodies.

Other budgets that could be looked at would be the £200m cost of running the Department of Health as well as the £100m spent on the 10 strategic health authorities that oversee care on a regional basis.

Mr Lansley said over the course of four years the £4.5bn bill in this area could be cut to £3bn, freeing money to be spent on front-line care at a time when more and more pressure is being put on NHS funds."

BBC NEWS | Health | Tories seek NHS bureaucracy cut

This is a situation that just can't continue anymore. The doctor to manager ratio in the NHS is crazy these days. And considering cuts have to be made, i would rather the beaurocracy in the NHS was cut back on than frontline services or things like hospital beds, ambulances, drugs etc.

I know you don't want to see people's jobs being cut in this economy, its not nice to happen. But any politicion who promises jobs won't be cut is either lying or living in a fantasy world. Even if 6 billion pounds was saved it would only make a tiny scratch on our debts. And the value of all this management doesn't seem to benefit the economy much- cutting some of these jobs would actually boost the economy if the money saved was put into other better area's.

Scary stuff;

"UK National Debt - how Britain owes over £900 billion

It's a truly frightening figure. Why is the world's sixth richest country so deeply in debt?

Every year the UK runs a large budget deficit. The Government spends more money than it can tax, so we plug the gap by selling bonds to investors at home and abroad. These bonds - known as gilts - have to be repaid in full, with interest. Added together, our unpaid loans make up the UK's national debt.

Right now, that debt is growing violently. The Government forecasts it will soar to an eye-watering £1.1 trillion by 2011. To put that in perspective, the UK went bust in 1976 running a budget deficit of 6% of GDP. In 2010 that deficit is going to top 12%.

Historically, our debt burden was heavier after World War II. But like any loan, if the money isn't invested wisely we end up borrowing even more. When the Government runs up huge debts and produces nothing to show for it, we're the ones that shoulder the burden. This year that burden will grow by £167.9 billion.

The state has been wasting our money for decades. Weak politicians have bribed voters with endless amounts of borrowed cash. As a result, in 2010 the interest on the national debt will cost £42.9 billion a year. That's more than we spend on defence, and not much less than the entire education budget.

Future generations won't thank us for mortgaging their future. At best, national debt will be a millstone round our children's necks. But if lenders lose faith in Britain there could be profound consequences for our currency, our country and our lives.";

UK National Debt Clock - DebtBombshell.com

I think privatization of them would make sense, and using contract security guards for lower costs. In a recessionary environment where you can find people wanting to work, even six pounds fifty an hour to start would be good.

 

[RolandtheHeadless]

"5. Scrap "target" systems for the police force & NHS."

I don't live in Britain (and wouldn't want to, though I'd like to visit), but it seems to me that if you take away the targets for practice then police shooting accuracy will suffer. They may miss the crooks and hit innocent bystanders.

 

[noyhauser]

And when it comes to the NHS, i believe this is what has to be done concerning its massive management problem.

The other option is to reduce everyone's pay (whether just management or everyone working in the NHS etc). But this wouldn't deal with the issue that the NHS is still running inefficiently...

If I had more time I'd critique most of the other issues you've raised, but this suggestion really deserves a reply. I really feel that the public service gets an undeserved bum rap. Basically these people are often asked to run multimillion, if not billion dollar agencies which have far greater consequences than your average corporation.

I'll give you an example... Take the Hywel Dda NHS Trust in Mid and South Wales; a fairly small regional Trust. Its income for 2009~2010 is 350 Million pounds, thats comparable to what Facebook is at. Yet Facebook doesn't maintain tens of thousands of highly skilled employees and their equipment who deal with the most critical of situations in life.

Give the massive Human and Capital outlays required, you want to attract the most talented individuals to run these operations. The difference between paying a manager or director 70,000 pounds to lets say 170,000 or 270,000 may seem excessive, but you have to keep in mind what they are dealing with; many of them manage operations that are worth ten times their salary. You want an top tier competent manager to run this, otherwise the potential for disaster is rife. For example my friend is deputy head of a $25 million dollar capital upgrade program in a health region in Canada. He makes around 150,000 or so... Lets say you cut his position and there is a 10% cost overrun because some aspect of the project wasn't adequately managed. That $150,000 dollar "savings" actually cost you 2.5 million dollars. Congratulations on your excellent management decision making.

And sure its easy to say "oh I want smart management, just there is so much of it which seems to be useless." Well thats not borne out by fact at all. Returning to our example, management costs' for Hywel Dda approximately run less than 4% of its entire budget... 14 million pounds. Even multiplied across the entire UK that is a paltry sum. I

In reality the UK's overall NHS budget is comparatively lower than the OECD average, which leads me to believe that its severely undercapitalized and the reason why there is a major gap in service quality between it and European countries.

The overall problem isn't really due to spending... even with stimulus funding (which are one time costs) spending hasn't increased significantly. What's really an issue is the precipitous decline in tax revenues. Here is an example on US States revenue from the New York Times

Want a way to get out of this debt hole? find a sustainable way to create jobs. Here is one interesting set of ideas.

 

[Nuala]

I think Britain should question the severity of crimes committed by the inmates in it's prisons. For example, in the USA, we have too many prisoners locked up due to drug charges revolving around marijuana, which is altogether unnecessary and a huge burden on the taxpayer.

 

[Emoni]

I just went to London last week. I fixed it. No more worries guys.