Ease the cost of living crisis by making more people unemployed ?

The sandwich and coffee shops should find a new business model, delivering food and coffee to peoples homes, and the office space could be used for housing. Actually work from home can be beneficial to the economies of small towns and villages as if people aren’t commuting they are more likely to shop locally.
There are plenty of investment opportunities for pension funds outside of commercial and office property, and ant pension fund heavily invested in it is very risky and not diversified enough.

GrannyGravy13

Speaking from experience dealing with the tax office (various departments) has been getting gradually more stressful over the last 10 years, the last two years have been an abomination.

If you read the article posted earlier you can see that civil service employees were cut back heavily during the tory 'austerity' phase from 2010. So observed poor performance over a decade can be explained initially by that. They increased to deal with Brexit and then covid.

www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/civil-service-staff-numbers

As a counter anecdote, I can say that my application to have my driving licence upgraded, to include the category C1 entitlement I lost when I had to renew my licence at age 70, was dealt with quickly and efficiently,;well within the time given on the government website for renewing licences.

What infuriated me most was JR-M saying that all this is being efficient with the 'the tax payers' money'. This mantra is always trotted out to justify cuts, but apparently never considered in discussions of MPs' expenses or their subsidised meals.

Why are some of us arguing with posters who get their "information" from the Daily Mail and then post it as fact? What a waste of time

winterwhite

What infuriated me most was JR-M saying that all this is being efficient with the 'the tax payers' money'. This mantra is always trotted out to justify cuts, but apparently never considered in discussions of MPs' expenses or their subsidised meals.

'Tax payers money' is a load of b*llocks anyway. Taxation never fully funds spending, and, the Treasury is raking in £millions from the fuel duty on soaring fuel prices. And VAT on other VATable commodities which have increased in price...

HousePlantQueen

Why are some of us arguing with posters who get their "information" from the Daily Mail and then post it as fact? What a waste of time

Maybe it's in the vain hope that they might see the error of their ways

91,000 made redundant, perhaps having to start claiming benefits, so 91,000 people and their families spending less in shops, restaurants etc, so less incomes for shops and businesses….
Majority of civil servants in the high delivery departments are administrative assistants earning the minumum wage, administravie officers earning around £22,000 before tax, no, pension payments, or executive officers earning around £27,000 before tax, nI, pension payments. The people getting the sack will be Joe Muggins who works at the job centre.

Also jumping in a little late. I’ve worked for the civil service, the private sector, local government, and the third sector. I’ve also worked from home or hybrid for well over 30 years, across all bar one of those (local government).

When my department had to move very quickly to all home working, I was one of those involved in supporting the change, and measuring the impact. Overall, once early issues with technology were resolved, the experience was positive, for both staff and the department, with productivity increasing (we had smashed our annual KPIs within a quarter,) and remaining high. Alongside staff working better than ever, our annual ‘satisfaction surveys’ show that most staff are happier and feel more valued than when they were in the office full time. Those who don’t tend, unsurprisingly, to be younger and without space at home to work. However, even amongst this cohort, more locally based working in, for example, a shared workspace with limited time/days in a central office is the preferred option. Our retention rates bear out the increased level of satisfaction, too.

I also want to pick up the service delivery point: many of the problems (which I think are being greatly exaggerated by some media) were - are - caused by COVID itself. If people are off sick, they aren’t delivering, obviously. Still let’s all rush back to the office and make sure we exacerbate that problem.

Whoops. All of that should be in the past tense, since I retired at the end of the last financial year! I doubt two months has changed anything though.

If 91,000 people have been made redundant then there were 91,000 people who had become surplus to requirements. Why should the taxpayer have to fund the salaries, pensions and other incidental costs of people who have become surplus to requirements? You wouldn’t expect stakeholders in the private sector to do that.

Zonne, my son and daughter in law had covid a couple of weeks ago, not mildly either, but both worked from home throughout. No change in delivery of service to clients.

A good saving would be sacking Rees-Mogg from his job as a Minister of State (he isn’t a cabinet minister) at the Cabinet Office. Boris was desperate to get rid of him as Leader of the House so basically invented a non-job, with nothing to do, for him at the Cabinet Office. If he needs to fill up his time by walking around the cabinet office sticking notes on peoples desks he clearly has too much time on his hands. If he wants to check up what people are doing working from home all he needs to do is go on MS Teams and speak to them. ‘Minister for Brexit Opportunites’… it’s ridiculous Boris gave him a none-job because he didN’t want to upset his friends when he moved Res-Mogg as leader of the House of Commons. I’m sure Mogg is the only one in his department sitting around doing nothing.

ShropshireMiss

The sandwich and coffee shops should find a new business model, delivering food and coffee to peoples homes, and the office space could be used for housing. Actually work from home can be beneficial to the economies of small towns and villages as if people aren’t commuting they are more likely to shop locally.
There are plenty of investment opportunities for pension funds outside of commercial and office property, and ant pension fund heavily invested in it is very risky and not diversified enough.

In my town, a number of retail spaces (which haven't been doing too well in recent year) have been turned into work-at-home hubs. Spaces can be rented by the day by people who would normally work in London and don't have space at home. Apparently, they're very successful. People can network with each other and it's provided opportunities for the local sandwich bars/coffee shops.

GrannyGravy13

ShropshireMiss whilst I agree with the majority of your post, many many ordinary folks have their works/private pension invested in property.

If /when there is a substantial fall in inner city commercial rents, there could be a knock on effect for many pensioners if these properties are then sold on for lower prices.

The pension companies will see where the growth in property prices is and invest there.

Germanshepherdsmum

If 91,000 people have been made redundant then there were 91,000 people who had become surplus to requirements. Why should the taxpayer have to fund the salaries, pensions and other incidental costs of people who have become surplus to requirements? You wouldn’t expect stakeholders in the private sector to do that.

Oh, GSM. Just keep drinking the Kool Aid.

Do you seriously think that any sort of proper analysis has gone into this Boris Johnson soundbite?

growstuff

GrannyGravy13

ShropshireMiss whilst I agree with the majority of your post, many many ordinary folks have their works/private pension invested in property.

If /when there is a substantial fall in inner city commercial rents, there could be a knock on effect for many pensioners if these properties are then sold on for lower prices.

The pension companies will see where the growth in property prices is and invest there.

You know, GG13, that the only reliable, gold plated, cast iron money guaranteed investment is in government bonds. The government will always pay the interest due and redeem at value. All the rest, dress it up as one might, is speculation.

Delays in responding to calls, to any office, isn't new, nor, necessarily due to WFH. "You are in a queue, your call is important to us" is, sometimes, business-speak for "...but not enough to employ sufficient staff...", wherever they might be working.
As for BJ and his "bit of cheese"- maybe that's your work ethic, Mr Prime Minister, but don't tar everyone with the same brush.
I deliver lunch sometimes to my WFH daughter as she isn't able to leave the screen long enough to make something. She eats as she works, on occasion to the surprise of her Zoom caller.

Germanshepherdsmum

If 91,000 people have been made redundant then there were 91,000 people who had become surplus to requirements. Why should the taxpayer have to fund the salaries, pensions and other incidental costs of people who have become surplus to requirements? You wouldn’t expect stakeholders in the private sector to do that.

It depends what you think a "requirement" is. The cuts will fall most heavily on the big departments such as the DWP, which is already over-stretched. Working in the frontline for the DWP isn't a popular job anyway because the employees get so much flak and there's a high turnover, but it's no wonder they don't get back to people quickly, make mistakes and don't have enough time to deal with claimants. But who cares whether benefit claimants are treated badly? It's not a "requirement" to keep them happy.

I’m sure you’re well aware of the legal hoops that have to be jumped through before declaring someone redundant growstuff.

My understanding is that the 91,000 figure was picked out of thin air. They took the current number of civil servants, then took the number of civil servants employed at some point around 2015 or 2916, and subtracted one from the other to produce 91,000. No research or analyse has gone into it, snd Boris has said he isn’t telling departments how to make the cuts, he wants the departments to come to him. Civil Service numbers had been run down between 2010 to 2015 as part of the Lib Con government’s ‘austerity’ drive (remember that?) after the 2008 crash.

MaizieD I am aware of Government Bonds, the point I was trying to get over, somewhat clumsily is that many folks with an occupational pension have no choice where the money is invested.

There are some caring employers who do their own research and invest accordingly, whereas others just outsource to Independent Advisors who look for the best at the tine of opening the plan. I think this was the case several years ago when employers were compelled to offer all employees the chance of joining a pension scheme.

I wasn't aware that any of these departments ever answered the phone immediately and dealt with issues promptly before the pandemic.

No one should be investing more than say 10% maximum in commercial/office property otherwise they aren’t running a diversified portfolio.

What we need is a GE as soon as possible.

All parties can lay put their wares in their manifestos and the electorate can decide with their X

MaizieD

Germanshepherdsmum

If 91,000 people have been made redundant then there were 91,000 people who had become surplus to requirements. Why should the taxpayer have to fund the salaries, pensions and other incidental costs of people who have become surplus to requirements? You wouldn’t expect stakeholders in the private sector to do that.

Oh, GSM. Just keep drinking the Kool Aid.

Do you seriously think that any sort of proper analysis has gone into this Boris Johnson soundbite?

Oh look. I'm right. No 'plan'.

From a comment yesterday on Richard Murphy's blog site:

As an HMRC employee, this is what our Departmental Head put out today:

“Colleagues

You may have seen media reports this morning about the government’s decision to reduce the size of the Civil Service over the next 3 years. I am sorry that you have learned this from the media rather than from me or Civil Service leaders.

The Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service, Simon Case, wrote to all Permanent Secretaries yesterday saying that the Prime Minister has asked for a plan to return Civil Service workforce numbers to 2016 levels over the next 3 years. This means reducing the current workforce by around 91,000 over that timeframe, from across all departments and arm’s length bodies.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2022/05/13/the-government-might-be-paying-up-to-40-billion-a-year-in-unearned-money-to-banks-very-soon-and-will-cut-jobs-and-benefits-to-pay-for-it/