Bye Bye Sunak..

[Swervin_Mervin]

Re. public school VAT.

I think it's worth considering quantum here before hand wringing too hard over the marginals who will be priced out of the market

The average cost of private education in the UK is just over £20k a year. VAT on that raises £4k per year per child
The average cost of state education is £7k per year.

So the tax raised from the vast majority of private pupils who stay in the private system more than pay for the additional places needed in the state system.

Even if 10% (60k) left the private sector, the revenue raised would pay for a theoretical 300k state places (assuming the revenue was re-invested in the education rather than pissed up the wall on some white elephant project)

I think this bit says it all though unfortunately.

The extra capacity needed to cover the current demand (let alone any increase) in some areas would I imagine take a good 10 years. And that money is just going to get absorbed by whoever shouts the loudest (NHS probably), not ringfenced for education after perhaps a couple of token years.

It's not going to happen. Are they seriously going to implement a policy with immediate effect that could leave some kids needing to be home-schooled because there's no capacity?

[ZedLeg]

See I think we're hitting a fundamental disagreement here. You think internal waste is the biggest problem and I think underfunding is. No amount of efficiency savings is going to help if they aren't getting enough money in the first place.

[dinny_g]

Is this the right place for an NHS is fucking brilliant post.

Missus felt something on May 19th. Got a doctors appointment the next day (given her age and circumstance) confirmed it was worth checking. Had full Hospital treatment (Various scans, specialist assessments and ultimately a biopsy) on Wednesday 22nd (3 days later). Results back in on Wednesday 29th and thankfully, nothing to be concerned about.

I'm not going to say the NHS doesn't need mahoosive investment but I'll NEVER say anything other than NHS is brilliant

[duncs500]

See I think we're hitting a fundamental disagreement here. You think internal waste is the biggest problem and I think underfunding is. No amount of efficiency savings is going to help if they aren't getting enough money in the first place.

Even coming from your view point surely it is going to help even if it's not the full solution.

Maybe I'm tarnishing all sectors with the ones I've experienced, but out of my sample of different sectors, I'm yet to see one that was not wasting a bucket load. It is, I acknowledge, possible that I've just been unlucky! However, I haven't met anyone (in person at least) that had a different experience.

[duncs500]

Is this the right place for an NHS is fucking brilliant post.

Missus felt something on May 19th. Got a doctors appointment the next day (given her age and circumstance) confirmed it was worth checking. Had full Hospital treatment (Various scans, specialist assessments and ultimately a biopsy) on Wednesday 22nd (3 days later). Results back in on Wednesday 29th and thankfully, nothing to be concerned about.

I'm not going to say the NHS doesn't need mahoosive investment but I'll NEVER say anything other than NHS is brilliant

Conversely my mum was constantly misdiagnosed, unnecessarily over medicated and put at the back of long queues until she eventually died.

It's brilliant that we've got an NHS, and it is capable of being brilliant, but my experience of it has not been brilliant either personally or for my family.

[ZedLeg]

See I think we're hitting a fundamental disagreement here. You think internal waste is the biggest problem and I think underfunding is. No amount of efficiency savings is going to help if they aren't getting enough money in the first place.

Even coming from your view point surely it is going to help even if it's not the full solution.

Maybe I'm tarnishing all sectors with the ones I've experienced, but out of my sample of different sectors, I'm yet to see one that was not wasting a bucket load. It is, I acknowledge, possible that I've just been unlucky! However, I haven't met anyone (in person at least) that had a different experience.

It would only help if there are significant wastages to stop.

Cutting budgets with no aim is how we ended up with endless austerity, I don't think we want to be encouraging it into a new government.

I'm not saying that the NHS never wastes money but show me an org of that size in the public or private sector that doesn't, we should hold public services to a high standard but not an impossible one.

It's an easy beating stick to say that public services waste money so don't deserve any more but these statements are usually pretty light on the details.

[duncs500]

It would only help if there are significant wastages to stop.

Cutting budgets with no aim is how we ended up with endless austerity, I don't think we want to be encouraging it into a new government.

I'm not saying that the NHS never wastes money but show me an org of that size in the public or private sector that doesn't, we should hold public services to a high standard but not an impossible one.

It's an easy beating stick to say that public services waste money so don't deserve any more but these statements are usually pretty light on the details.

I'm not suggesting aimless cutting of budgets at all, I'm suggesting the model is improved and some real thought is given to how things are managed.

I can only speak about my personal experiences, but there was ample opportunities for reducing waste, it just wasn't a priority (in fact often the opposite). I've sat in those meetings, it's eye opening.

[ZedLeg]

The budget hole is in the billions, I'd be surprised if there were enough operational savings to touch the sides on it tbh.

[Jimexpl]

Re. public school VAT.

I think it's worth considering quantum here before hand wringing too hard over the marginals who will be priced out of the market

The average cost of private education in the UK is just over £20k a year. VAT on that raises £4k per year per child
The average cost of state education is £7k per year.

So the tax raised from the vast majority of private pupils who stay in the private system more than pay for the additional places needed in the state system.

Even if 10% (60k) left the private sector, the revenue raised would pay for a theoretical 300k state places (assuming the revenue was re-invested in the education rather than pissed up the wall on some white elephant project)

This is pretty wide of the mark though. The average cost may well be £7k, but that is to provide a space in an underperforming school with underfunded facilities and 35+ kids in a cramped classroom.
When we were looking for our first kid and visited schools I had a chat with the head at the local church-linked primary. In 2019 it was costing them £9k per pupil, maxing the classrooms out at 32 children. The church provides all of the buildings and amenities free of charge and subsidises the difference between the government payments and actual costs.

The true cost of providing decent state education is more like £12-15k a year.
Add on to that the cost of procuring additional classroom space, and five years to build it.

The numbers do not stack up, and the chaos of introducing it before creating the infrastructure is madness.

[Rich B]

It would only help if there are significant wastages to stop.

Cutting budgets with no aim is how we ended up with endless austerity, I don't think we want to be encouraging it into a new government.

I'm not saying that the NHS never wastes money but show me an org of that size in the public or private sector that doesn't, we should hold public services to a high standard but not an impossible one.

It's an easy beating stick to say that public services waste money so don't deserve any more but these statements are usually pretty light on the details.

I'm not suggesting aimless cutting of budgets at all, I'm suggesting the model is improved and some real thought is given to how things are managed.

I can only speak about my personal experiences, but there was ample opportunities for reducing waste, it just wasn't a priority (in fact often the opposite). I've sat in those meetings, it's eye opening.

I imagine the process to fix these a million and one issues would involve spending more money and time on investigating and fixing them though. Do we carry on cutting public services in the meantime?

The reality is, we need to fix these issues, but that can only happen if there's resource allocated to do so, and that can't be at the expense of other services.

[duncs500]

The budget hole is in the billions, I'd be surprised if there were enough operational savings to touch the sides on it tbh.

Maybe you're right, but it's still the right place to start IMO.

Anyway this lively debate is much appreciated on a long train journey. A very expensive one... at the tax payer's expense I might add.

[Beany]

I mean, the private sector isn't much better - the number of times I got slapped down for suggesting spending money on updating systems and putting process in place to make up long term efficiencies and make future certification easier to gain is laughable at this rate. My most recent job just pissed the thick end of £100k of consultancy and staff time into just scraping ISO27001 because they wouldn't spend £10k and some time rejigging processes at some point over the last five years.

I'll lambast AI till the cows come home, but if you want a more efficient systems across all sectors, replace a solid 75% of middle and upper managers - you all know exactly which ones, I bet - with a chatGPT prompt and you'd probably save huge swathes of money and get better decision making on the whole

[ZedLeg]

I saved the company I worked for £250kish last year, my reward was being made redundant because I didn't want to move to Brighton.

That's how you save money

[Beany]

imagine the process to fix these a million and one issues would involve spending more money and time on investigating and fixing them though. Do we carry on cutting public services in the meantime?

The reality is, we need to fix these issues, but that can only happen if there's resource allocated to do so, and that can't be at the expense of other services.

Which is exactly what austerity didn't do.

Can't imagine why our roads look like the surface of the moon and the local library has been closed, sold off and turned into a pub...

[ZedLeg]

The budget hole is in the billions, I'd be surprised if there were enough operational savings to touch the sides on it tbh.

Maybe you're right, but it's still the right place to start IMO.

Anyway this lively debate is much appreciated on a long train journey. A very expensive one... at the tax payer's expense I might add.

I think my problem with this is that if you don't increase the budget, even if the NHS was running at 100% efficiency they wouldn't be able to provide the services expected as they have no money.

The people who're saying that we need private investment "to save the NHS" would jump on that like Hyenas.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Is this the right place for an NHS is fucking brilliant post.

Missus felt something on May 19th. Got a doctors appointment the next day (given her age and circumstance) confirmed it was worth checking. Had full Hospital treatment (Various scans, specialist assessments and ultimately a biopsy) on Wednesday 22nd (3 days later). Results back in on Wednesday 29th and thankfully, nothing to be concerned about.

I'm not going to say the NHS doesn't need mahoosive investment but I'll NEVER say anything other than NHS is brilliant

Conversely my mum was constantly misdiagnosed, unnecessarily over medicated and put at the back of long queues until she eventually died.

It's brilliant that we've got an NHS, and it is capable of being brilliant, but my experience of it has not been brilliant either personally or for my family.

The NHS is capable of doing wonderful things for a huge number of people. But as Duncs says, don't ever let that blind you to the fact that it's also capable of significant ineptitude and harm to lots of people as well. My family has seen both sides of that - my wife is not only still here because of the NHS but we have a child because of it as well. Whereas my uncle was lost at a young age due to significant failures and those involved closing ranks.

We should never be afraid of criticising it as long as that is done with a view to fixing its issues. Of all the public sector behemoths it's always seemed to me to be the one with the worst reputation for closing ranks and protectionism. And yet no one ever does seem to learn.

[duncs500]

The reality is, we need to fix these issues, but that can only happen if there's resource allocated to do so, and that can't be at the expense of other services.

I don't disagree, and if that was presented in a clear way, with a clear plan then I'd probably be quite enthusiastic about it. Seems like all we tend to get though is "we're going to tax more here and spend more here".

[ZedLeg]

How do you make a clear plan to completely change an org as big as the NHS

[Beany]

How do you make a clear plan to completely change an org as big as the NHS

Carefully.

It'll take two years of meetings with a per diem of all members of the board of £300 each for food and accomodation.....etc etc

[dinny_g]

The NHS is capable of doing wonderful things for a huge number of people. But as Duncs says, don't ever let that blind you to the fact that it's also capable of significant ineptitude and harm to lots of people as well. My family has seen both sides of that - my wife is not only still here because of the NHS but we have a child because of it as well. Whereas my uncle was lost at a young age due to significant failures and those involved closing ranks.

We should never be afraid of criticising it as long as that is done with a view to fixing its issues. Of all the public sector behemoths it's always seemed to me to be the one with the worst reputation for closing ranks and protectionism. And yet no one ever does seem to learn.

Look I get that but that has not been my experience - OK, my local GP's a bit crap but when the chips are down, I've had amazing medical services provided and only once saw fit to go Private...