Help Costs reduction

[Vasconcelos]

Once more I appeal to the FH OT wisdom.

I just been asked to write a little essay about "Costs reduction strategies in the local (municipalities), regional or central goverments".
Some info I thought it would be interesting to gather is:

- rules in other EU countries (both en course or not approved yet)
- electoral campaing programs in other EU countries (from local parties to national parties)
- local, regional or national endeavours to reduce the costs in the administration, both operational or strategic costs.

Any help (as little as it could be) would be much much much apreciated


in advance

 

[Thorwyn]

The current german minister of foreign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, has some absolutely brainsparkling ideas about reducing costs.

 

[Ezteq]

I don't know if this will help you or not but at the library we are given copies of any local plans and budgets for people to look at, they are also available on the council website, I think.

Something that might be an interesting way to look at it could be to look at old plans and see how and if they worked and discuss why or why they didn't, their impact etc etc.

Anyway good luck with it, I know it's a bit baffling when you first begin an assignment and have to get all the information...and then get it to do what you want!

 

[Marc]

Start by giving government workers SSP, rather than full pay. Public sector workers take the piss when it comes to sick leave wheras us private sector workers just man up.

Youd save about a £billion a year by doing that

 

[Raven]

You could get rid of most of the consultants too, very few of them actually do any work. I have a friend who works for a council, he has been seconded to a department to create a new look for the city council website, its taken 20 odd consultants 2 years so far, each one on massive wages.

The thing with the public sector is they really couldn't give a toss about cost savings or efficiency, its not as if they are making profit so who cares? The country is in recession, don't worry budgets are hardly affected!

 

[old.Tohtori]

Don't listen to brits on finance?

 

[Vasconcelos]

I don't know if this will help you or not but at the library we are given copies of any local plans and budgets for people to look at, they are also available on the council website, I think.

Something that might be an interesting way to look at it could be to look at old plans and see how and if they worked and discuss why or why they didn't, their impact etc etc.

Anyway good luck with it, I know it's a bit baffling when you first begin an assignment and have to get all the information...and then get it to do what you want!

LINK LINK!!!

The current german minister of foreign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, has some absolutely brainsparkling ideas about reducing costs.

Is there any link to his speechs? Ive tried looking in google but searching with english words give no results

 

[Thorwyn]

Actually my reply was meant to be sarcastical.
Westerwelle caused a lot of trouble over the past few weeks by constantly attacking welfare recipients, calling them all "lazy", talking about a "late-roman decadence" amongst them and basically playing with the fire of social envy and pitting off the poor against the poorest. He demanded tougher laws, completely ignoring the fact, that his "tougher laws" are already in place. To make it short: neo-liberalism rears its ugly head.

 

[Ezteq]

lol Vas! your, pants , on , keep!!
I don't know if this is any good at all but..
Bournemouth 2026 - Homepage - Bournemouth 2026 - Residents Have Their Say over Bournemouth Council?s Budget

oh and I found this article on emerald http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insig...ype=Article&hdAction=lnkhtml&contentId=880208

again don't know if is any use because t'aint my assignment!
good luck

 

[Chronictank]

local, regional or national endeavours to reduce the costs in the administration, both operational or strategic costs.

Operational Costs:
- Introduce printer quota's, departments need to pay for their printing
The act of simply having to be accountable reduces wastage by a significant amount.
- Look through roles to reduce replication
- Improve IT infrastructure to make it more streamlined and fit for purpose, this requires an audit so you can see what is and isn't being used reducing the support time invested in 'dead' services.
- Streamline services, remove services that are not needed/scarcely used ones be moved onto a consultancy role (treated as
- Tax Management
- Branch locations (moving non-customer service facing services to remote locations where possible releasing high rent space)
- reduce mail costs, offer customers paperless options
- reduce utility costs
- Automate services where possible/feasible

Administration:
- Cross Training, this allows employees to better fill roles and makes the business more flexible
- Accuracy of information, put systems in place to reduce wasted time due to incorrect/unfiltered information.
- Consistent Information, forms etc.. should be standardised across the business reducing mistakes
- Implement a procedure infrastructure for your business so the entire business knows the procedures and practices, e.g. for IT most companies use ITIL nowadays (this means everyone uses the same terminology etc...

I would look at, its a EU report so quite bloated but pretty good:
http://www.administrative-burdens.com/filesystem/2007/12/annual_government_report_2007_452.pdf

Strategic:
Implement a change approval board, change freezes, etc...
usual strategy stuff tbh

Start by giving government workers SSP, rather than full pay. Public sector workers take the piss when it comes to sick leave wheras us private sector workers just man up.

Youd save about a £billion a year by doing that

nonsense, you will need to pay them more to balance it out or the better people will just leave as there is no incentive to stay

 

[Marc]

nonsense, you will need to pay them more to balance it out or the better people will just leave as there is no incentive to stay

Yes because my comment wasnt tongue in cheek at all was it!

 

[Chronictank]

Yes because my comment wasnt tongue in cheek at all was it!

he asks for help on his cswk and you give him semi-viable info
I clarified it

I don't see why you are getting your panties in a twist

 

[Aoami]

The thing with the public sector is they really couldn't give a toss about cost savings or efficiency, its not as if they are making profit so who cares? The country is in recession, don't worry budgets are hardly affected!

Not true at the moment, certainly for Hampshire County Council. With rought £1b of equal pay claims they're likely to lose, the purse strings are being well and truely tightened. They get £2b a year from central government, £1b is A LOT of money to them.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Thx every1 for the responses so far (keep 'em coming!! )

Got a nice hints from Chronic's link and after a session with Uncle Google, it appears there is some stuff on this matter both from UK researchs and US (newyork state)