2008 budget sets tone for public sector employment
It’s the time of year when we start to see the effects of the 2008 budget take shape, especially within the public sector. The true impact can take its time to materialise in the private sector, but the public sector has an extra burden to react quickly to the changes.
The mix of skill requirements that are needed in the public sector seems to be a particular area of focus this time around. A number of elements of the Budget will have various organisations thinking long and hard about the skill sets they recruit for and how they keep their most talented people.
There has been a general government consensus that high standards within public services must be maintained and enhanced over the coming year. This is partly possible through the provision of £30 billion to be invested back into making public services modern, efficient and customer (as well as employee) focused.
Despite this commitment, public sector employment has fallen in general terms over the last year, while levels within the private sector have risen. However, there remain some key areas where the public sector has been able to take the lead; areas on which the Budget will continue to have an impact.
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3 Responses to “2008 budget sets tone for public sector employment”
I fully agree on the predictions about the skills shortages.
I can speak from my experience working in public sector is that there is too much of red tape. the people who are on higher management levels are too busy with meetings and they have no idea how to develop the staff.
If you really carry out individual’s skills analysis, I am sure that the results will be speak for itself. By writting fantastic plans, reports or strategies does not mean that your work is done. But, to deliver such strategies or plans you need the right people with the right wavelenght and mind. Many of these bureaucrates are too busy within themselves to the extent that manytimes they forget to identify or find the best skills they have within their work force.
Of course, it is of great concerns to the british public and tax payers if the services are not delivered to the standards what are expected.
Unfortunately, there will always be those in the Senior Civil Service who cannot see the wood for the trees. When they recruit, they take on clones of themselves rather than looking for what the Departments really need. As such, skills are inevitably lost when frustrated staff depart and those who remain are either good at self-spin and hob nobbing for career progression or too tired to fight any more.
There are good folk in the CS - don’t get me wrong - but they are a dying breed. There are very few you can talk to who take honesty from those beneath them as anything other than a criticsm, and too many who put “process” ahead of “progress”. *sigh*
I fully agree with the predictions regarding skills shortages.
Senior Management are invariably too wrapped up in political correctness, red tape and meetings to concern themselves with whether or not an applicant has the correct skills for the job.
Planned strategies (that take months to compile) are usually fantastic in theory but when it comes to putting them into practice they would only work in Utopia and Senior Management are too blind to recognise this. Promotion is usually linked to either personal relationships or whoever has managed to ingratiate themselves the most, it is rarely based on skills. This often results in staff moving on but as with most things, this exodus will not be noticed or heeded for sometime and by then it will be too late.