Steve Lansdown's Business Partner

[Martyn Hocking]

There was a 'thought-provoking' article in the Telegraph yesterday by Steve Lansdown's business partner Peter Hargreaves in which he suggests:

* 80% of public sector jobs should be axed (increasingly unemployment at a stroke by around 4 million by my reckoning)

* remaining public sector workers could be paid 30% less than they currently are (starting salary for a nurse is currently £20,000, so that would become £14,000)

* flexitime should be abolished for public sector workers (making it much harder for women with young kids to return to full-time work in the public sector)

Makes me glad SL is running our club and not his partner.

If you want to read the piece, go to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...or-instead.html

Well_red

[Guest MaloneFM]

On the rare occasion both myself and Mrs M have met Mr Hargreaves we found him to be a bit Fred Elliot with attitude.

He was on one occasion talking to a lady that works with him and said he told her husband to 'eff off home more often to see the lovely little wifey'.

We began to move towards the door....

[cidercity1987]

There was a 'thought-provoking' article in the Telegraph yesterday by Steve Lansdown's business partner Peter Hargreaves in which he suggests:

* 80% of public sector jobs should be axed (increasingly unemployment at a stroke by around 4 million by my reckoning)

* remaining public sector workers could be paid 30% less than they currently are (starting salary for a nurse is currently £20,000, so that would become £14,000)

* flexitime should be abolished for public sector workers (making it much harder for women with young kids to return to full-time work in the public sector)

Makes me glad SL is running our club and not his partner.

If you want to read the piece, go to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...or-instead.html

Well_red

I suppose you can spin his comments any which way you want, but he has got a point. Check out the Guardian jobs page, high salaries being offered for pointless public sector jobs.

[numbeast]

I bet he has private health insurance. Cutting the public sector in either manpower or in pay would result in no NHS no Police no Fire Service no council workers etc. If the lowest paid employee in the NHS took a 30% wage drop they would be over £1 below the minimum wage. Cut Nurses pay and you'd have no nurses because who wants to study 3 years for a degree to get such pittiful pay?

I think Mr Hargreaves should try living in the real world. It's ok for multi-millionaires to advocate these things because it won't effect them. Perhaps if we started increasing the upper most tax band to say 75% for anything over £500000 he could help keep those jobs at the pay rate they now stand at. Bring back socialist Old Labour!!!!

[Nibor]

There was a 'thought-provoking' article in the Telegraph yesterday by Steve Lansdown's business partner Peter Hargreaves in which he suggests:

* 80% of public sector jobs should be axed (increasingly unemployment at a stroke by around 4 million by my reckoning)

* remaining public sector workers could be paid 30% less than they currently are (starting salary for a nurse is currently £20,000, so that would become £14,000)

* flexitime should be abolished for public sector workers (making it much harder for women with young kids to return to full-time work in the public sector)

Makes me glad SL is running our club and not his partner.

If you want to read the piece, go to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...or-instead.html

Well_red

Flexitime and flexible working (which is specifically aimed at young families) are not the same thing - flexitime should be abolished. Try and get anything involving government, local or national, done on a Friday and you will see why.

80% was a throwaway line not a serious suggestion - the context is civil service lackeys fussing around ministiers and in meetings not actually working.

When he talks about public sector here it seems to me he is talking about whitehall and middle management desk jobs not nurses.

I agree with his main points. We have a massively bloated state which has actually become an inefficient jobs programme and a stupidly high tax burden as a result which is going to cause long term damage to the economy as people who make the money **** off abroad with it.

[CotswoldRed]

Bring back socialist Old Labour!!!!

Erm ..... god, no.

[zookeeper]

I bet he has private health insurance. Cutting the public sector in either manpower or in pay would result in no NHS no Police no Fire Service no council workers etc. If the lowest paid employee in the NHS took a 30% wage drop they would be over £1 below the minimum wage. Cut Nurses pay and you'd have no nurses because who wants to study 3 years for a degree to get such pittiful pay?

I think Mr Hargreaves should try living in the real world. It's ok for multi-millionaires to advocate these things because it won't effect them. Perhaps if we started increasing the upper most tax band to say 75% for anything over £500000 he could help keep those jobs at the pay rate they now stand at. Bring back socialist Old Labour!!!!

The point he made in the article was to keep the front line workers and remover the levels of bureaucracy above them. Nice theory but in the days of budgets and targets I don't really see how workable it is. For example the BRI (and all NHS trusts) has a target of a maximum wait of 4 hours in A&E and to achieve this and other targets senior staff have to have a twice daily meeting to manage the bed situation, ensure discharges are done appropriately, manage the theatre lists etc. It's not just as easy as saying see people quicker and the layer of management is there to ensure that front line staff can concentrate more on what they do best. I agree that Mr Hargreaves should live in the real world. Maybe he should see what happens and what the managers do before he passes comment.

He has also just applied the pareto principal of the 80:20 rule thinking that 20% of workers do 80% of the work. It's such a nice easy generalisation that happens all too often that it is seen as fact rather than a nice anecdote.

The expectations in the NHS are of pay freezes, redundancies, and huge efficiency drives in the coming years.

[Andy Horsman]

Flexitime and flexible working (which is specifically aimed at young families) are not the same thing - flexitime should be abolished. Try and get anything involving government, local or national, done on a Friday and you will see why.

80% was a throwaway line not a serious suggestion - the context is civil service lackeys fussing around ministiers and in meetings not actually working.

When he talks about public sector here it seems to me he is talking about whitehall and middle management desk jobs not nurses.

I agree with his main points. We have a massively bloated state which has actually become an inefficient jobs programme and a stupidly high tax burden as a result which is going to cause long term damage to the economy as people who make the money **** off abroad with it.

I don't usually disagree with you Nibor, but it's this type of kneejerk neoliberalist crap that affects many people on low incomes who do work for local authorities, govt departments and the infrastructure of the welfare state. What Hargreaves alludes to is the kind of economics peddled by Milton Friedmann and the Chicago School of Economics which were implemented by Maggie's pal Pinochet in Chile and decimated that country's economy whilst surprise surprise lining the pockets of American and Western investors.

The Top 2-3% of public sector employess are on exhorbitant salaries and get the perks. I work for a local authority and trust me there is little evidence of the type of bloated decadent waste you have illuded to, in my department or in the others I interact with.

Flexitime is a useful perk, but you have to earn it to use it. It also creates more flexibility in terms of staff cover and when I get 20 days a year leave as opposed to 25 in my last PRIVATE sector job, it helps. Trust me I have worked for the DWP, the NHS, the County and District authorities during the last 25 years and despite Hargreaves cliched Daily Express soundbytes, our country would be infinitely poorer without these organisations. Isolated and ridiculous examples of public sector waste do exist, but they are far from the norm.

[zookeeper]

Flexitime and flexible working (which is specifically aimed at young families) are not the same thing - flexitime should be abolished. Try and get anything involving government, local or national, done on a Friday and you will see why.

Not quite sure what the difference is! The way flexitime works for us is that we have to work core hours. The office needs to be appropriately staffed but people are allowed to take time off if they build up enough hours.

As long as it is managed properly I don't really see the issue.

[numbeast]

I can only speak of the NHS having work in it for 25 years and if the pointless management were steamlines it would save a fortune. back in 84 frenchay was run by 4 senior managers. But as successive Govt. have imposed political targets so the managment structure has bloated and today each department has 3 or 4 managers. Perhaps Mr Hargreaves would like to come into North Bristol Trust and streamline the paper shufflers. As for the frontline workers Drs, Nurses, Cleaners lab staff and porters there is a case for increasing both manpower and saleries.

[CiderHider]

I agree with everything he has said.

This is globalization coming back to bite us hard and it will affect the UK more than any other country.

Our standard of living, disposable income and working pay/benefits has been the envy of the world. Now this country could become a dried up husk of a place as businesses move to less expensive parts of he world where the cost of living is servilely cheaper and more profit can be made.

If I'm a financial business owner and my firm can operate out of Singapore at an annual cost of say £4million, why would I operate out of London where my costs are near £8million, my staff have less time, less disposable income and unable to afford local housing? Not to mention getting taxed astronomically.

This country needs to face some hard facts about its economy, All of our jobs can be done for a fraction of what we are being paid in other parts of the world. Unless we sort out the hideous waste of taxpayers money by frivolous spending councils we are bankrupt.

Its funny, about 3 yrs ago while working for BCC I got talking to the EP editor about running a story on the massive, disgusting unnecessary wistful spending of BCC, i had evidence and people willing to testify to the corrupt and lazy nature of them. It was my view that this problem was institutional and BCC was rotten to its core. People abused their positions, took the piss with working rights, employed their friends over more suitable people. I dunno if its changed, I fear not. Thank fork I don't work there any more, I hated it, the very worst kind of scum seemed to work for BCC.

They took no pride in their work, the attitudes of the day was "they owe me and they are lucky i even turn up!" people who could not get a job anywhere else usually ended up there for some weird reason, I sometimes wonder if the government years ago created all these pointless jobs just to get the unemployment figure down, there is no other logical explanation.

So many people were constantly off sick, signed off with stress, taking 4 hr lunches, stealing from the hand that fed them and still they played the poor exploited victim!

Councils should operate like businesses, but they don't they are just money sponges who will soak up and spend every penny you thrown at them, they are a black holes, a bureaucratic birds nest nightmare and need shutting down and reforming or we are all forked.

[zookeeper]

I can only speak of the NHS having work in it for 25 years and if the pointless management were steamlines it would save a fortune. back in 84 frenchay was run by 4 senior managers. But as successive Govt. have imposed political targets so the managment structure has bloated and today each department has 3 or 4 managers. Perhaps Mr Hargreaves would like to come into North Bristol Trust and streamline the paper shufflers. As for the frontline workers Drs, Nurses, Cleaners lab staff and porters there is a case for increasing both manpower and saleries.

Back in 84 something like 30% of patients were waiting for over a year to have elective procedures.

There have been significant improvements in public healthcare attributable to both the front-line staff and the paper shufflers.

[croax]

I'm assuming the 30% wage cut is aimed at directors and various middle management rather than those on around £8 an hour. Wouldnt be much attraction to study to get a third of that..

Another point being by cutting wages, some people will change jobs. However, some will stay for various factors. Those who do stay may take on extra hours to maintain their previous annual income. The benefits being a possible increase in productivity and efficiency.

He does seem a bit of a tool though!

[Nibor]

Not quite sure what the difference is! The way flexitime works for us is that we have to work core hours. The office needs to be appropriately staffed but people are allowed to take time off if they build up enough hours.

As long as it is managed properly I don't really see the issue.

Flexitime is "you must work 35/37.5/40 hrs a week and when you work them is up to you". What happens then is that people accrue the hours Monday through Thursday by working a little early and a little late and having half a lunch, don't achieve any more on those days than they would normally, and take Friday off. It also tends to encourage people to build up large amounts of TOIL which then gets taken in one chunk and unbalances everything. Flexitime was in theory supposed to help both employer and employee but it actually is a management intensive and often grossly abused perk.

Flexible working is about encouraging employers to support employees who need unusual but regular work patterns to fit with things like child care and being generally flexible within reason so that people have a better work life balance and are happier and more effective. Sounds like you have this - most places in the private sector that do office work seem to allow this now. IE you must be in between 10 and 4 every day and you must do xx hours a week. If you need a few hours off or something you can usually get that by prior arrangement but you can't come and go as you please.

I've worked both and the latter seems better for everyone to me.

[SnozRobin]

Good lord.

I know it's been a long old pre-season but come on guys - this is far too serious a discussion for this forum!!!!

[zookeeper]

Flexitime is "you must work 35/37.5/40 hrs a week and when you work them is up to you". What happens then is that people accrue the hours Monday through Thursday by working a little early and a little late and having half a lunch, don't achieve any more on those days than they would normally, and take Friday off. It also tends to encourage people to build up large amounts of TOIL which then gets taken in one chunk and unbalances everything. Flexitime was in theory supposed to help both employer and employee but it actually is a management intensive and often grossly abused perk.

Flexible working is about encouraging employers to support employees who need unusual but regular work patterns to fit with things like child care and being generally flexible within reason so that people have a better work life balance and are happier and more effective. Sounds like you have this - most places in the private sector that do office work seem to allow this now. IE you must be in between 10 and 4 every day and you must do xx hours a week. If you need a few hours off or something you can usually get that by prior arrangement but you can't come and go as you please.

I've worked both and the latter seems better for everyone to me.

Thanks.

I'd say we work a hybrid of the two. We must be in between 10 and 4 but can have up to a 2 hour lunch and any time off needs to be agreed. However we can also accrue time if we work extra hours. Generally I see it as a way of managing the more busy periods. Certain times of the month / year are busier than others and the job needs a few extra hours. Getting those back is a bonus. Some people probably do take the mick but this is more about their managers than the system.

I think it works well.

[Nibor]

I don't usually disagree with you Nibor, but it's this type of kneejerk neoliberalist crap that affects many people on low incomes who do work for local authorities, govt departments and the infrastructure of the welfare state. What Hargreaves alludes to is the kind of economics peddled by Milton Friedmann and the Chicago School of Economics which were implemented by Maggie's pal Pinochet in Chile and decimated that country's economy whilst surprise surprise lining the pockets of American and Western investors.

The Top 2-3% of public sector employess are on exhorbitant salaries and get the perks. I work for a local authority and trust me there is little evidence of the type of bloated decadent waste you have illuded to, in my department or in the others I interact with.

Flexitime is a useful perk, but you have to earn it to use it. It also creates more flexibility in terms of staff cover and when I get 20 days a year leave as opposed to 25 in my last PRIVATE sector job, it helps. Trust me I have worked for the DWP, the NHS, the County and District authorities during the last 25 years and despite Hargreaves cliched Daily Express soundbytes, our country would be infinitely poorer without these organisations. Isolated and ridiculous examples of public sector waste do exist, but they are far from the norm.

I agree the way he expresses himself in the article is over the top and looks like a knee jerk reaction.

I don't agree on Flexitime, I find that the only places that have it without it being grossly abused are those where managers have to intensively monitor it. Flexible working is better IMO. Give people the right amount of holiday and make sure they take it regularly and are out of contact when they do.

I think if you look at the public sector in general you find that the trend in the last few decades has been increasing numbers of middle management posts, more bureaucracy and proportionally less front line staff with less responsibility. Overall this makes the public sector top heavy and ineffective despite the spend going up.

This view isn't based on just reading papers, I've got close family that work in the NHS and have for years and the things they tell me are truly frightening. I'm also a member of the trust. We spend roughly £100bn a year on the NHS in England and employ 1.3 million people in that organisation. There are more managers than GPs, more administrators than nurses and hospital doctors combined. You can't tell me there isn't massive mounts of fat to trim there.

Hargreaves' article is deliberately provocative and poorly written, it comes across as whiney city boy wants to pay less tax, but the underlying points are reasonable I think. Some people in this country create wealth and business and he is one of them, make the tax burden too high and they will do it elsewhere and we will all suffer for it. The company I am plying my trade at for the moment employs 15,000 globally. It has a head office in Dublin which is pretty much just a P.O. box and an accountant - why? Lower tax.

[fka dagest]

Interesting one this. I work in the civil service, earning a meagre £18000 after 6 years service, I also use flexi-time, so I can look after my daughters on a Friday (it's a consequence of poor pay). However, for the record I assure you the office does not close on a friday and is adequately staffed. To be frank, without these minor perks (flexi-time, penisons) half the public sector workers would desert the civil service over night.

However, my personal opinion is that the civil service seems to operate on two tiers. One tier performs all the 'bloody work' and generally receives little or a reasonable recompense. A second tier of very well-paid management/conultant types exist to carry out an annual cycle of meetings where they can discuss targets or new names for old things. In essence they seem to produce nothing of any value or use. If these are the people Hargreaves is referring to then I agree, however, from what I've elarnt in life it's generally the people at the 'bottom' who receive the kick-in when cuts have to be made.

[Nibor]

Interesting one this. I work in the civil service, earning a meagre £18000 after 6 years service, I also use flexi-time, so I can look after my daughters on a Friday (it's a consequence of poor pay). However, for the record I assure you the office does not close on a friday and is adequately staffed. To be frank, without these minor perks (flexi-time, penisons) half the public sector workers would desert the civil service over night.

However, my personal opinion is that the civil service seems to operate on two tiers. One tier performs all the 'bloody work' and generally receives little or a reasonable recompense. A second tier of very well-paid management/conultant types exist to carry out an annual cycle of meetings where they can discuss targets or new names for old things. In essence they seem to produce nothing of any value or use. If these are the people Hargreaves is referring to then I agree, however, from what I've elarnt in life it's generally the people at the 'bottom' who receive the kick-in when cuts have to be made.

I think he is referring to the second tier you mention (and I totally agree) and that is where I think there needs to be change. It's not just a money saving exercise, these people generally know **** all about what actually happens on the front line, they are too far removed from it to make effective decisions and they take power out of the hands of those who could.

Top heavy management tends to happen in any organisation that gets very large and is over centralized and it only really gets rationalised by breaking that organisation down into smaller, more independent units with more autonomy and more scope to quickly respond to local needs. I think that's where we are with the public sector, we need to allow doctors and nurses and policemen and firemen to make decisions, not middle managers.

[zookeeper]

I think he is referring to the second tier you mention (and I totally agree) and that is where I think there needs to be change. It's not just a money saving exercise, these people generally know **** all about what actually happens on the front line, they are too far removed from it to make effective decisions and they take power out of the hands of those who could.

I think this is a reason why the layers of middle management have come about.

Top heavy management tends to happen in any organisation that gets very large and is over centralized and it only really gets rationalised by breaking that organisation down into smaller, more independent units with more autonomy and more scope to quickly respond to local needs. I think that's where we are with the public sector, we need to allow doctors and nurses and policemen and firemen to make decisions, not middle managers.

Part of the work I do is about providing information to clinical teams about their performance and hopefully engaging them to become more involved. A lot of them are involved and probably an equally high number are frustrated by not having the appropriate information for them to make informed decisions. Unless NHS has a radical overhaul of the target based system that it currently is I can't see much benefit in removing a layer of management.

[Nibor]

Part of the work I do is about providing information to clinical teams about their performance and hopefully engaging them to become more involved. A lot of them are involved and probably an equally high number are frustrated by not having the appropriate information for them to make informed decisions. Unless NHS has a radical overhaul of the target based system that it currently is I can't see much benefit in removing a layer of management.

I agree that target based management of the public sector is quite possibly the root cause. You have to be very careful when setting targets because you will get *exactly* what you target for (and nothing else positive and plenty of other side affects). It comes from centralized authority not trusting the people on the ground as they should.

[Antman]

I can only speak of the NHS having work in it for 25 years and if the pointless management were steamlines it would save a fortune. back in 84 frenchay was run by 4 senior managers. But as successive Govt. have imposed political targets so the managment structure has bloated and today each department has 3 or 4 managers. Perhaps Mr Hargreaves would like to come into North Bristol Trust and streamline the paper shufflers. As for the frontline workers Drs, Nurses, Cleaners lab staff and porters there is a case for increasing both manpower and saleries.

totally agree (and agree about old labour too mate - bring back some true socialism!)

my wife works as a classroom assistant on such p1ss poor wages it's not true. But she cares about the kids she looks after (special needs) and thats what keeps her going. it's the same with a lot of 'low grade' jobs, cleaners, caretakers etc etc but the education dept consultants are all coining it with room to spare.

We've lost the plot, but Mr Hargreaves has his head up his arse and needs to look at the other end of the pay scales for cutting.

[Guest churchill gaffer]

There was a 'thought-provoking' article in the Telegraph yesterday by Steve Lansdown's business partner Peter Hargreaves in which he suggests:

* 80% of public sector jobs should be axed (increasingly unemployment at a stroke by around 4 million by my reckoning)

* remaining public sector workers could be paid 30% less than they currently are (starting salary for a nurse is currently £20,000, so that would become £14,000)

* flexitime should be abolished for public sector workers (making it much harder for women with young kids to return to full-time work in the public sector)

Makes me glad SL is running our club and not his partner.

If you want to read the piece, go to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...or-instead.html

Well_red

His partner Peter Hargreaves hates football!

Thank God! He is not running us!!!!!

Public secter workers, get paid far less than private. But thats our choice. He is not in the public secter, and so should mind his own buisiness

[Tales From The Front]

His partner Peter Hargreaves hates football!

Thank God! He is not running us!!!!!

Public secter workers, get paid far less than private. But thats our choice. He is not in the public secter, and so should mind his own buisiness

The major difference is if he makes a mistake, his business suffers. The Public Sector (in all its forms) make a mistake we all suffer. He clearly isn't everyone cup of tea, but I don't suspect he has got where is is by being nice. One thing that cannot be disputed is that he is one half on a very succesful business that has evolved from modest beginnings and now has a market capitlisation of circa £1 billion, employees 600+ employees and contributes to the tax that enables the public sector to opperate.

Everybody which includes Peter Hargreaves has a right to ask questions about the public sector as we are all technically investors in it.

PS indirectly he has had a massive influence on Bristol City whether he hates football or not.

[Eddie]

Flexi-time is an absolute joke. It is a system abused by public sector office workers who only work at 10-15% capacity anyway. We all work through our lunches and work late sometimes, but we do it to get the job done. These wasters do it and expect to work a 4 day week as a result.

I agree with Hargreaves

[fka dagest]

Flexi-time is an absolute joke. It is a system abused by public sector office workers who only work at 10-15% capacity anyway. We all work through our lunches and work late sometimes, but we do it to get the job done. These wasters do it and expect to work a 4 day week as a result.

I agree with Hargreaves

Aww, bless. Are you Maggie T's long lost son?

I guess you've never worked in the public sector, but you appear to be an expert.

Daily Mail fill you in, did it?

[Eddie]

Aww, bless. Are you Maggie T's long lost son?

I guess you've never worked in the public sector, but you appear to be an expert.

Daily Mail fill you in, did it?

My housemate was just telling me that he worked for Hampshire council for a year and totally abused the system. He told them that he worked through his lunch everyday (but actually took a full hour), did nothing when he was in the office and took as much 'flexi' as he wanted.

I take it you work for the council or something? I don't want to say anymore because you may get 'stressed' and need a year off on long term sick!

[fka dagest]

My housemate was just telling me that he worked for Hampshire council for a year and totally abused the system. He told them that he worked through his lunch everyday (but actually took a full hour), did nothing when he was in the office and took as much 'flexi' as he wanted.

I take it you work for the council or something? I don't want to say anymore because you may get 'stressed' and need a year off on long term sick!

Ha ha! Good one. So from your housemate's actions you deduce all public servants must be the same! And yet, using your logic and from reading your posts I could resonably deduce that all private sector workers are a bit thick.

Would I?

[Guest churchill gaffer]

The major difference is if he makes a mistake, his business suffers. The Public Sector (in all its forms) make a mistake we all suffer. He clearly isn't everyone cup of tea, but I don't suspect he has got where is is by being nice. One thing that cannot be disputed is that he is one half on a very succesful business that has evolved from modest beginnings and now has a market capitlisation of circa £1 billion, employees 600+ employees and contributes to the tax that enables the public sector to opperate.

Everybody which includes Peter Hargreaves has a right to ask questions about the public sector as we are all technically investors in it.

PS indirectly he has had a massive influence on Bristol City whether he hates football or not.

[zookeeper]

Ha ha! Good one. So from your housemate's actions you deduce all public servants must be the same! And yet, using your logic and from reading your posts I could resonably deduce that all private sector workers are a bit thick.

Would I?

Touché!