Talking about the inefficiency of UK Government spending...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11512287

Apperntly according to Sir Philip Green says that the Government "wastes" £191 billion pounds.

Seriously tell me at least half of that goes to some good use .

 

The problem is that all government departments used to have a central purchasing department called HMSO (Her Majesty's Stationery Office), which meant that there were standardised prices for most things civil servants used - not to mention the huge amount of buying power that gave HMSO.

But someone thought that getting rid of HMSO would be a good idea, which meant that each department became responsible for its own purchasing - and surprise, surprise a hundred different departments were paying a hundred different prices for the same item.

Although, bear in mind that Philip Green said in the same interview that Arcadia was paying £12m per day in taxes, and he would be looking at ways of reducing that - so in the same breath as lambasting the government for wasting money, he was also lambasting the government for making him pay tax...

 

Private businesses want to avoid paying just as much as the Government wants them to pay; the Government could probably learn a lot about how to close tax loopholes from a hard look at Philip Green's affairs (note however that tax avoidance is not the same thing as tax evasion, obviously).

Given that Philip Green didn't get where he is today by wasting £191bn, I reckon the Government should sit up and pay attention. He knows what he's doing when it comes to business and the UK is, in fact, a Plc after all...

 

I wasn't saying that Green was a tax cheat - I just found it ironic that while saying that the government was wasting taxpayers' money, he was also saying that he didn't want to be a taxpayer

Even if the government managed to save 10% of that £191bn overspend, that would cover the most painful of the planned budget cuts.

 

I don't understand the conflict. Green says he wants to reduce Arcadia's costs, and tax is a big part of those costs.

He's now using that logic to review the government spending. He's saying that they too should be concerned about costs. Seems fair enough to me.

Whether you are are a low-tax market forces capitalist wanting a tax break, or a tax-and-spend, big government socialist, you have a vested interest in getting the government to spend it's money more wisely. And it is clear that over the last decade, a poor purchasing record has got even worse.

I read somewhere that Green discovered that a toner cartridge cost between £80 and £480 depending on the department. Personally, I think £80 is a bit on the rich side.. how the hell does it ever cost £480???

IMHO this is one consequence of being staffed by generic bureaucrats as opposed to specialists experienced in purchasing & contracts.

 

The trouble is that companies can easily cover up the cost of 'toner cartridges'. I've been offered it myself, where I could order anything and they'd put down that it was several cartridges. I would be suprised if a few of the admin staff questionned over purchasing £480 toner cartridges didn't have a side business flogging laptops on ebay!

 

On the news they mentioned some laptops were purchased at £375 and some at over £700, is that really surprising?

Also paper between £5 and £18 a box?

There was no mention of these being the same products as each other. Often the news people take this stuff out of context just for a more catchy headline.

I do agree though that overpaying needs to be cut out. The downside to a central purchasing dept is that all the small companies who supply the government agencies will lose out and all the new orders will go through a single larger company.

 

Seems a congruent position to me. If your tax money is being wasted, why should you feel happy about paying it?

From what I heard they were basically comparable products.

Currently it is large companies ("approved suppliers") that are raking it in.

 

See, our definition of comparable and anybody else's is wildly different. Give people two identical looking laptops, and they'll assume they cost the same, but we know it depends what hardware is actually inside. So laptops purchased at £375 are just as feasible as those at £700, depending on exact models. They may all be, say, Dell Inspirons or whatever, but that's as far as "comparable" goes.

Prime example is my work machine. Looks like a run-of-the-mill Dell desktop for business, so assumed cost is £300-400. Open it up and you'll find 8GB of RAM, an nVIDIA Quadro GPU, a hard drive and an SSD, along with a CPU upgrade from stock. My desktop cost probably about 3-4x as much as that other machine, but they look identical and go on the inventory as the same model of machine.

Paper costs vary massively due to quality...recycled paper is cheap as chips, whereas a higher GSM stock used for formal letterhead paper etc will cost much more. But again, it's all "A4 white paper in a box".

Whilst I totally agree that inefficiencies like this need to be eradicated, I agree with sparkyboy22 that it isn't always quite what is in the news.

 

Not sure how relevant to the conversation this is, but North Yorkshire Police now don't have a vehicle older than 2007, and have just bought a fleet (for want of a better word) of '60' reg Range Rovers and BMW 5 series'... When there's nothing wrong with the Astras and Volvos they were using before -_-

Prime example of a waste of taxpayers' money right there

 

They pay millions in child benefits abroad, when the kids ain't even ever entered the country,

sucks ^.^

them volvo t5's are super quick, lovely cars, we've got one <3

 

Sure, so we'll accept a variance of +/- 100%... but not +/- 500%. You can only explain away so much...

 

You've clearly not bought paper...
Of course, if those prices *are* for standard 80GSM copy paper, then the pricing is ludicrous.

 

not sure on that one. I would want to ask how many miles a year they put on them and under what circumstances. There comes a point where maintenance costs overtake purchase costs. Many police cars get driven over 50,000 miles a year, and driven fast over city streets, all of which impact reliability much more quickly than a normal car.

Another example is fire engines. many departments, including the one where I live are moving to a program of replacing their entire fleet in one go every 3-5 years. They keep a couple of the old ones around as spares and replace the front line ones. By doing it this way they can plan ahead for the cost and get a significant discount and bargaining position with the manufacturer. In a department with 6 engines and a ladder the savings are significant.

One of the advantages is commonality. Every engine and ladder has the same layout and same options, and works exactly the same. That means if you need to go do something on a different company's truck you can find what you need because it is the same as yours.

My long, rambling point is that these things are often not what they seem at first glance.

 

My company buys a special type of 'parchment' for certain legal documents, which will cost around £20 per ream, but even our most expensive 'normal' paper doesn't cost more than a fiver per ream.

The more telling example is toner. What toner costs £480 per cartridge??

 

Actually its not. Its a prime example of basic economics.

Consider a Brand new car that cost 20k, after 3 years of hard use and regular routine maintenance its sold for 10k. That car has only coat you 10k and you've reliable service from it.
Now consider that car is kept till it has an mechanical failure 8 years down the line that car is now worthless and has thus cost you 20k plus what ever serious repairs its needed over those extra 5 years and its had much more down time over the years.

Its exactly the same reasons why pool cars and company cars are only kept for 3 years its the optimal balance of use to resale value.

 

But the thing is I don't see why they need to use BMW 5 series' (with their not insignificant price difference over a 3 series or even another fleet of Astras), and I'm sure the souped up Volvos they used last time round cost a fair amount less new than souped up Rangerovers...

I also can't understand why they haven't replaced their Transit Connect fleet if they do it all in one lump

 

The comparisons using paper were for letterhead for two different departments - so it's safe to assume the same weight and similar printing requirements. So they were comparing like for like, which makes the price difference ludicrous.

I get what you're saying about laptop specs, but how many civil servants need a laptop that can do anything more than a bit of Excel, Word and email? Especially considering that most government departments outsource their IT?

 

Probably becuase the bean counters have worked out that the depreciation of a 3 year old 5 series is less than that of a 3 year old Astra. Or they got a fantastic deal from BMW that Vauxhall couldn't match or the reliability of the Astra fleet caused concern... the list of reasons to go with a better car for the police is fairly long towards the bottom is wasting money or kickbacks.

If you were really concerned you could probably put in FOI request the tendering proccess should all be a matter of public record. With out any real facts its just speculation on both our parts.

 

Truth is: the best company car would be an Aston Martin. OK, hear me out. The initial outlay is huge, and they are not the cheapest on servicing but about 90% of Aston Martin's ever made are still on the road, and depreciation value is rock solid.

If they seem too much money, consider a Lexus. 100.000 miles and the interior doesn't even squeak.

As for Laptops: they outdate quickly. For an office drone the most basic model is just fine. They only need to be structurally tough to withstand abuse by careless muggles.