Public sector redundancies: back office v front line staff

[patslatt]

The Irish economy's extreme dependance on international trade coupled with very high consumer debt makes us vulnerable to a collapse in exports and a big drop in consumer spending. A borderline depression is a strong possibility in 2009, with a massive drop of say 10% in GNP and unemployment in the teens.

This would put tremendous pressure on the government's finances.But even in a conventional recession,the government budgetary deficit will be a shambles,let alone in a near depression.

The spectre of massive looming deficits for years to come will force the government to think the unthinkable. It will have to implement massive redundancies in the civil service and the public sector,with layoffs of maybe 50,000 or more. Some of these layoffs could be prevented if the public sector trade unions agree to pay cuts for the huge numbers of overpaid public sector workers in the €50,000 to €100,000 a year bracket. Given the unions' influence and power over the government, that is unlikely unless the economy is approaching depression.

The hue and cry of the public sector unions will be to stop the sackings of nurses,teachers and gardai,the front line staff essential to good public services. The unions would like the public to overlook the fact that a government that has expanded rapidly for a decade has become very bloated and overstaffed in its back office functions. That is where the cuts must be concentrated. However,the tendency is for managers in these jobs to cut front line staff to save their own skins.

[Rebel CNC]

Plenty of fat in the frontline as well - look at nurse numbers per 1,000. Why do we need twice as many nurses as France, which is generally considered to have one of the best systems in the world. Maybe there are nurse shortages in France but hardly to the level that we need to employ double the number of nurses!

Nurses employed : OECD: Number of nurses employed, per 1000, in selected countries, 2004 (interactive figure) - EUphact


Of course, easy to pick on a soft target like those pesky HSE managers or Fas execs rather than the nurses or teachers.
Benchmarking Bertie wasted a huge opportunity to develop a world class health service. He threw huge money at it all right but it all went to keep the Unions on side rather than delivering better hospitals, equipment, screening services, etc.

[patslatt]

Plenty of fat in the frontline as well - look at nurse numbers per 1,000. Why do we need twice as many nurses as France, which is generally considered to have one of the best systems in the world. Maybe there are nurse shortages in France but hardly to the level that we need to employ double the number of nurses!

Nurses employed : OECD: Number of nurses employed, per 1000, in selected countries, 2004 (interactive figure) - EUphact


Of course, easy to pick on a soft target like those pesky HSE managers or Fas execs rather than the nurses or teachers.
Benchmarking Bertie wasted a huge opportunity to develop a world class health service. He threw huge money at it all right but it all went to keep the Unions on side rather than delivering better hospitals, equipment, screening services, etc.

The high numbers of nurses in Ireland relative to France may reflect lack of computerised patient records in Ireland,with nurses wasting time dealing with paper files. There also may be quasi sinecures in the back offices created for nurses too old to stand the stresses of front line hospital work.

France probably consolidated its hospital functions into far fewer hospitals relative to population to achieve economies of scale.

Also, the quality of public sector management in France is better than that of most countries as public sector managers are encouraged to work in the private sector from time to time to develop businesslike attitudes as opposed to an ultra cautious bureaucratic mentality.

[Bobert]

Cut back on administrators. There is nothing to be gained from firing nurses.

Also, Northern Ireland has one fire officer and he/she one assistant. In the republic, each county council has two with each having two assistants. Madness!

[Rebel CNC]

Cut back on administrators. There is nothing to be gained from firing nurses.

There is if you divert the savings from the unneccesary nursing staff to implementation of cervical cancer immunisation programme, more modern clinical equipment, hiring of more speech therapists, etc.

Don't go all misty eyed at mention of nurses and start thinking of angels of mercy. The nursing unions have been very robust in maintaining inefficient work practices and ensuring no procedures are put in place to fire poor nurses.
For all the INO's crocodile tears about "the patient comes first" they have been most active and vociferous in securing a 37.5 hour working week for their members.


Bring our nursing levels down to that of France or Germany and use the money to bring our level of service closer to theirs.

[Bobert]

There is if you divert the savings from the unneccesary nursing staff to implementation of cervical cancer immunisation programme, more modern clinical equipment, hiring of more speech therapists, etc.

Don't go all misty eyed at mention of nurses and start thinking of angels of mercy. The nursing unions have been very robust in maintaining inefficient work practices and ensuring no procedures are put in place to fire poor nurses.
For all the INO's crocodile tears about "the patient comes first" they have been most active and vociferous in securing a 37.5 hour working week for their members.


Bring our nursing levels down to that of France or Germany and use the money to bring our level of service closer to theirs.

Ahem... look who you're talking to. I once suggested we privatise the poor and implement work houses. So don't talk to me about Misty Eyes.

But there are people who work in the HSE who don't have an idea of what they do there. All administration. The health service is too tied up in red tape for it to be effective. Firing nurses won't help.

[Rebel CNC]

I too know for a fact that the HSE is inefficient with a huge number of "non jobs" and a ridiculous admin structure.

However, it doesn't change the fact that we also have too many nurses as the table above shows.

[patslatt]

There is if you divert the savings from the unneccesary nursing staff to implementation of cervical cancer immunisation programme, more modern clinical equipment, hiring of more speech therapists, etc.

Don't go all misty eyed at mention of nurses and start thinking of angels of mercy. The nursing unions have been very robust in maintaining inefficient work practices and ensuring no procedures are put in place to fire poor nurses.
For all the INO's crocodile tears about "the patient comes first" they have been most active and vociferous in securing a 37.5 hour working week for their members.


Bring our nursing levels down to that of France or Germany and use the money to bring our level of service closer to theirs.

Do you have information on inefficient work practices and failures to dismiss poor nurses?
Are there statistics on nurse dismissals? In the case of teachers,the number of published dismissals was laughably low,yet any teenager could tell you that at least one of his or her teachers should be dismissed for incompetence or burnout.

[SJL4277]

The Irish economy's extreme dependance on international trade coupled with very high consumer debt makes us vulnerable to a collapse in exports and a big drop in consumer spending. A borderline depression is a strong possibility in 2009, with a massive drop of say 10% in GNP and unemployment in the teens.

This seems a bit far fetched, even for a worst case scenario

[patslatt]

This seems a bit far fetched, even for a worst case scenario

The international economic outlook is poor for our export dependant economy.The US, EU and Asian stock markets suffered the biggest losses in 30 years,indicating massive recessions/depressions to come. Housing and property prices are dropping everywhere internationally,causing massive defaults in mortgages. The banking system and credit markets have seized up in the US and the UK thanks to reckless landing and derivatives losses,depriving sound businesses of credit. EU banks may have to take massive writeoffs on lending to Eastern Europe and emerging markets,a "business" in which they have most of the market. Heavily indebted consumers in the US and the UK have experienced big losses in their assets in houses,shares and pension plans,so their consumer oriented economies will suffer from drops in consumer spending,the biggest portion of GNP.