I think it's more broad-brush than that. I think to talk about "black holes" in the public finance and to say "it will get worse before it gets better" are the sort of headline soundbites that stick in the memory and give an unnecessary "doom-and-gloom" feeling. Steering away from that is a good idea. But not to the extent of wildly overpromising.
Oversteer response to being told they were being too depressing perhaps ?
That must certainly be part of it. They are failing to show people hope for something new. That is partly because there communication department is rubbish.
You must be reading different media. I'm reading that they have plans to refurbish schools and hospitals, make big investments in energy and the digital sector, etc. Are you reading the Telegraph?
I think it's more broad-brush than that. I think to talk about "black holes" in the public finance and to say "it will get worse before it gets better" are the sort of headline soundbites that stick in the memory and give an unnecessary "doom-and-gloom" feeling. Steering away from that is a good idea. But not to the extent of wildly overpromising.
Labour should desist from harping on about these financial black holes untill they are able to explain them.
Whether or not there are "black holes" is irrelevant: the settling of the rail dispute by chucking money at it without any qualifying additional action such as improved productivity was unwise, and the same goes for the increase in civil service pay,
At the moment it is looking less like Labour Government for the people than Public Sector Government for the Public Sector.
Whether or not there are "black holes" is irrelevant: the settling of the rail dispute by chucking money at it without any qualifying additional action such as improved productivity was unwise, and the same goes for the increase in civil service pay, At the moment it is looking less like Labour Government for the people than Public Sector Government for the Public Sector.
The civil service has grown massively in the past few years. It needs to shed 100,000 job gained since Covid started.
I am not demanding redundancies. I am suggesting a ban on recuitment for as long as necessary.
Whether or not there are "black holes" is irrelevant: the settling of the rail dispute by chucking money at it without any qualifying additional action such as improved productivity was unwise, and the same goes for the increase in civil service pay, At the moment it is looking less like Labour Government for the people than Public Sector Government for the Public Sector.
The civil service has grown massively in the past few years. It needs to shed 100,000 job gained since Covid started.
To get to a figure of 100 you have to back to at least 2017. The pre-Covid growth was largely on the back of Brexit related activities and taking competencies back from the EU.
I am not demanding redundancies. I am suggesting a ban on recuitment for as long as necessary.
That's a terrible idea that would cause a shortage of junior staff in the near term and then a corresponding loss of an entire cohort of managers and senior staff in succeeding years.
The pay rises were largely the effect of catching up - pay was frozen for a number of years, then capped at under 1% until 2017 and inflation went up in 2022/2023.
Whether or not there are "black holes" is irrelevant: the settling of the rail dispute by chucking money at it without any qualifying additional action such as improved productivity was unwise, and the same goes for the increase in civil service pay, At the moment it is looking less like Labour Government for the people than Public Sector Government for the Public Sector.
The civil service has grown massively in the past few years. It needs to shed 100,000 job gained since Covid started.
To get to a figure of 100 you have to back to at least 2017. The pre-Covid growth was largely on the back of Brexit related activities and taking competencies back from the EU.
I am not demanding redundancies. I am suggesting a ban on recuitment for as long as necessary.
That's a terrible idea that would cause a shortage of junior staff in the near term and then a corresponding loss of an entire cohort of managers and senior staff in succeeding years.
The pay rises were largely the effect of catching up - pay was frozen for a number of years, then capped at under 1% until 2017 and inflation went up in 2022/2023.
Yes. I think the myth of public sector pay rises needs to be quashed.
Virtually the entire public sector has had a real terms pay cut ranging from 10 to 30%.
Most of us are doing the same work, just for a lot less.*
The recent pay deals make good headlines but mostly they are a partial catch-up. No one in the public sector has had a genuine increase.
And the key point here, which I will keep repeating is that the drop in morale, the very poor staff retention rates are what's really killing the NHS. Fixing pay is only one part of what's needed but it is really needed. Not doing it would cost a lot more in the long term. This is just one of the poison pills left by the previous government.
AFZ
*It's more complex than that. We have had a drop in productivity but that's often due to the paradoxical efficiencies. I'll give you an example. We have fewer nurses on the ward than we used to. A crude assessment of the numbers would show that the ward is looking after the same number of patients but costing less. The problem is that fewer staff on the ward makes for delays when patients need to go to theatre. There are quite a few steps involved for safety reasons in taking a patient from the ward to theatre.
However the delays mean that I can do 6 small cases in a day. When we had smoother change over between cases, I did 8 in a day.
Simplistic arguments like 'cut 100,000 of whatever' rarely make for practical or effective policy.
Whether or not there are "black holes" is irrelevant: the settling of the rail dispute by chucking money at it without any qualifying additional action such as improved productivity was unwise, and the same goes for the increase in civil service pay, At the moment it is looking less like Labour Government for the people than Public Sector Government for the Public Sector.
The civil service has grown massively in the past few years. It needs to shed 100,000 job gained since Covid started.
To get to a figure of 100 you have to back to at least 2017. The pre-Covid growth was largely on the back of Brexit related activities and taking competencies back from the EU.
I am not demanding redundancies. I am suggesting a ban on recuitment for as long as necessary.
That's a terrible idea that would cause a shortage of junior staff in the near term and then a corresponding loss of an entire cohort of managers and senior staff in succeeding years.
The pay rises were largely the effect of catching up - pay was frozen for a number of years, then capped at under 1% until 2017 and inflation went up in 2022/2023.
Yes. I think the myth of public sector pay rises needs to be quashed.
Virtually the entire public sector has had a real terms pay cut ranging from 10 to 30%.
Most of us are doing the same work, just for a lot less.*
The recent pay deals make good headlines but mostly they are a partial catch-up. No one in the public sector has had a genuine increase.
And the key point here, which I will keep repeating is that the drop in morale, the very poor staff retention rates are what's really killing the NHS. Fixing pay is only one part of what's needed but it is really needed. Not doing it would cost a lot more in the long term. This is just one of the poison pills left by the previous government.
AFZ
*It's more complex than that. We have had a drop in productivity but that's often due to the paradoxical efficiencies. I'll give you an example. We have fewer nurses on the ward than we used to. A crude assessment of the numbers would show that the ward is looking after the same number of patients but costing less. The problem is that fewer staff on the ward makes for delays when patients need to go to theatre. There are quite a few steps involved for safety reasons in taking a patient from the ward to theatre.
However the delays mean that I can do 6 small cases in a day. When we had smoother change over between cases, I did 8 in a day.
Simplistic arguments like 'cut 100,000 of whatever' rarely make for practical or effective policy.
It would seem (as a relative of someone currently in hospital) that those types of issues are at play throughout the system which makes for lots of delays and knackered stressed staff which clearly affects the care patients receive and the outcomes.
Oversteer response to being told they were being too depressing perhaps ?
That must certainly be part of it. They are failing to show people hope for something new. That is partly because there communication department is rubbish.
You must be reading different media. I'm reading that they have plans to refurbish schools and hospitals, make big investments in energy and the digital sector, etc. Are you reading the Telegraph?
They have just started saying this sort of thing. Mostly it has been bad news. In fact the BBC is reporting that Starmer has said again we are in for a hard time. They have time and again emphasised the doom and gloom not the good times after that. This sort of attitude is regarded by many commentators as one of the reasons remain lost the Brexit vote. Leave were positive, telling lies but positive ones. Remain was criticised for being too gloomy.
It has been obvious for decades that the NHS needs root-and-branch reform and most, if not all, of the changes over the past 40+ years have been ineffective at best, ruinous and foolish at worst - and far too many fall into the latter category. Just chucking money into a system that is clearly broken achieves little.
Example of part of the problem? When UCH and the Middlesex hospitals in London were amalgamated they had a combined number of 1200 beds. When at last they were moved into a shiny new hospital everyone was thrilled, except there are only 600 beds: a child of 10 could work out that an increasing population would require more beds, not fewer - and then there is the problem that lenghening waiting lists mean sicker people needing longer as in-patients. No amount of "make the NHS work 7 days a week" (which is sensible) can alter the fact that increasing patient through-put isn't possible if you do't have the capacity in ICUs or ordinary wards, never mind the staff to run them.
"Fixing" the NHS as it stands isn't possible: reforming the NHS is, but will require not only billions but action from the ground up, starting with the number of doctors, nurses, radiologists, etc in training. Unless the governent - any government - is prepared to fund the number of people in-training required, and to sort out not only pay but working conditions to keep them once trained, more money poured into a failing system is senseless. I'd go further and say that the funding of education for medical staff needs a radical re-think. We cannot keep on stripping other nations of their medical staff just to prop-up our inadequate system - not only is it unsustainable, it is immoral.
It has been obvious for decades that the NHS needs root-and-branch reform and most, if not all, of the changes over the past 40+ years have been ineffective at best, ruinous and foolish at worst - and far too many fall into the latter category.
Obvious according to whom? It's clear looking around the world that there are multiple ways of making a health service work, and the NHS does reasonably well when it's funded properly - as when it topped the Commonwealth Fund's rankings on the back of Blair/Brown era spending.
Just chucking money into a system that is clearly broken achieves little.
These are all value laden words with very little data to actually back them up. In GDP terms the cost of the NHS has been comparably lower than similar economies in Europe - and almost half the cost of American system. There is no measure by which the UK government is 'just chucking money' into the NHS.
It has been obvious for decades that the NHS needs root-and-branch reform and most, if not all, of the changes over the past 40+ years have been ineffective at best, ruinous and foolish at worst - and far too many fall into the latter category. Just chucking money into a system that is clearly broken achieves little.
Example of part of the problem? When UCH and the Middlesex hospitals in London were amalgamated they had a combined number of 1200 beds. When at last they were moved into a shiny new hospital everyone was thrilled, except there are only 600 beds: a child of 10 could work out that an increasing population would require more beds, not fewer - and then there is the problem that lenghening waiting lists mean sicker people needing longer as in-patients. No amount of "make the NHS work 7 days a week" (which is sensible) can alter the fact that increasing patient through-put isn't possible if you do't have the capacity in ICUs or ordinary wards, never mind the staff to run them.
That's not a given at all - the evidence suggests that long hospital stays are counter-productive in many cases, and modern techniques don't necessarily have the same recovery time. Take maternity care as an example. It used to be incredibly common for women to stay in hospital for a week or more even after a straightforward delivery. Now it might be a day or two. Loads of surgeries are now done keyhole that in the past would have had you fully opened up.
And pumping money into the NHS does make a big difference, as we saw up to 2010. It doesn't fix everything, but having enough money is a pre-requisite for any long term structural change. You can't expect "reform" to work in a system that's already under-resourced.
It has been obvious for decades that the NHS needs root-and-branch reform and most, if not all, of the changes over the past 40+ years have been ineffective at best, ruinous and foolish at worst - and far too many fall into the latter category. Just chucking money into a system that is clearly broken achieves little.
As others have noted, this is not true. It is not supported by the evidence.
In 2010, 70% of patients were very or quite satisfied with the care they received. 18% unsatisfied. 2023: 24% satisfied, 52% unsatisfied.
There is a huge amount of literature on this. Some of it is quite complex as outcomes from most diseases are driven by socioeconomic factors as well as healthcare provision. However, I point to these two snippets to make two points.
1. Between 2000 and 2010, cardiovascular mortality was significantly reduced (which was one of the government's key aims).
2. Between 2000 and 2010, patient satisfaction with the NHS improved to record levels. Since 2010, satisfaction has fallen to a record low.
Hence, many of us would argue that we know how to deliver effective healthcare and how to make the NHS work, but we have been starved of the resources we need to do so.
The NHS has not been starved of resources. It's a bottomless pit.
You're falling into the trap of thinking "resources" = money. The greatest resources the NHS, or any other healthcare system have, is people followed by kit.
The NHS has not been starved of resources. It's a bottomless pit.
You're falling into the trap of thinking "resources" = money. The greatest resources the NHS, or any other healthcare system have, is people followed by kit.
People and kit have to be paid for. Perhaps all the money is being spent on the wrong people
The NHS has not been starved of resources. It's a bottomless pit.
You're falling into the trap of thinking "resources" = money. The greatest resources the NHS, or any other healthcare system have, is people followed by kit.
People and kit have to be paid for. Perhaps all the money is being spent on the wrong people
Who do you think it is being spent on?
I mean, I assume you have some actual data behind your conclusions here.
I think it's more broad-brush than that. I think to talk about "black holes" in the public finance and to say "it will get worse before it gets better" are the sort of headline soundbites that stick in the memory and give an unnecessary "doom-and-gloom" feeling. Steering away from that is a good idea. But not to the extent of wildly overpromising.
Labour should desist from harping on about these financial black holes untill they are able to explain them.
Labour, and others, are saying there's a gap between current spending (as planned and approved by the previous government) and current government income (from tax rates and borrowing plans set by the previous government) of £20b (ish). This is the "black hole" they've inherited - the obvious fixes would require a combination of cutting back on the spending plans of the previous government (which is mostly tinkering around the edges, because so much spending is non-negotiable) and increasing income compared to the previous government plans (both in tax and borrowing).
Of course, the costs of implementing Brexit to the government (combination of lost tax income from suppression of economic growth and direct additional costs, such as hiring staff to take over roles previously done very efficiently by a proportionately smaller EC staff and new position in border controls etc) is approximately £20b. I'm sure the similarity between the cost of implementing Brexit and the "black hole" is purely coincidental.
When did bus fares start being considered a tax ? I thought it was a cap on what a private company was charging ?
(I would favour public transport free at the point of use with a citizens bus pass, provided by state owned companies - which would involve raising tax.)
When did bus fares start being considered a tax ? I thought it was a cap on what a private company was charging ?
(I would favour public transport free at the point of use with a citizens bus pass, provided by state owned companies - which would involve raising tax.)
It’s not a tax, obviously. It’s a benefit.
Most bus passengers are not affluent. And raising the cap to £3 is a 50% increase for some of the lowest paid workers.
When did bus fares start being considered a tax ? I thought it was a cap on what a private company was charging ?
(I would favour public transport free at the point of use with a citizens bus pass, provided by state owned companies - which would involve raising tax.)
It’s not a tax, obviously. It’s a benefit.
Most bus passengers are not affluent. And raising the cap to £3 is a 50% increase for some of the lowest paid workers.
I'm not sure of the details of the cost (it's an English policy not implemented in Scotland), but there will be government money (either UK government or local authority) spent to cover the difference between £2 and the bus operators cost (presumably what they would charge without the cap). In Scotland, the government picks up the cost of free bus travel (for under 22s and over 60s, hopefully Scot Gov will see sense and re-instate the plan for free buses for asylum seekers), and was picking up the difference in peak rail fares before scrapping that support for working people and students. As I say, I don't know exactly how much that costs but raising the cap to £3 would reduce the amount of money the government is spending to support that.
Calling it a benefit is accurate. And, raising the cap is a cost-cutting exercise rather than income raising.
I have reservations about how this scheme (and, free bus travel schemes) funnels government money raised through taxation into the pockets of private companies, and would much prefer public transport to be in public ownership, but the benefits to society in supporting affordable travel for all far exceed the costs to society of subsidising private businesses taking money from society.
When did bus fares start being considered a tax ? I thought it was a cap on what a private company was charging ?
(I would favour public transport free at the point of use with a citizens bus pass, provided by state owned companies - which would involve raising tax.)
It’s not a tax, obviously. It’s a benefit.
Most bus passengers are not affluent. And raising the cap to £3 is a 50% increase for some of the lowest paid workers.
I'm not sure of the details of the cost (it's an English policy not implemented in Scotland), but there will be government money (either UK government or local authority) spent to cover the difference between £2 and the bus operators cost (presumably what they would charge without the cap). In Scotland, the government picks up the cost of free bus travel (for under 22s and over 60s, hopefully Scot Gov will see sense and re-instate the plan for free buses for asylum seekers), and was picking up the difference in peak rail fares before scrapping that support for working people and students. As I say, I don't know exactly how much that costs but raising the cap to £3 would reduce the amount of money the government is spending to support that.
Calling it a benefit is accurate. And, raising the cap is a cost-cutting exercise rather than income raising.
I have reservations about how this scheme (and, free bus travel schemes) funnels government money raised through taxation into the pockets of private companies, and would much prefer public transport to be in public ownership, but the benefits to society in supporting affordable travel for all far exceed the costs to society of subsidising private businesses taking money from society.
It looks like Reeves is going to extend the freeze on income tax thresholds. Technically that's not an increase in income tax, but it will result in "working people" paying more income tax. In fact, it's something that a couple of years ago the Shadow Chancellor said would be "picking the pockets of working people". If only that Shadow Chancellor was in Number 11 now - oh, wait...
Technically it will only result in any individual working person paying more tax if their pay increases.
And, unless their pay rise is very large, it would be a very small increase in their contribution to public services. It would only result in an increase in percentage of income taxed if their pay rise pushes pay into a higher tax band, and it's only the income in that tax band that is taxed at the higher rate.
That said, raising the lowest tax band, and thus cutting the tax paid by the poorest, is a very effective way of putting more money in the pockets of some of the poorest people in the country with the resulting high bang-for-buck boost in the economy.
Budget day arrives - I’ll reiterate what I said somewhere above.
As a research professional unless something is catastrophically wrong, I’d ignore any ‘hot takes’ in the media or from commentators and see what people are saying around next Tuesday/Wednesday. Particularly given the expected volume of changes coming.
That’s (genuinely) without prejudice to my own feelings about whether it’s likely to be a good budget or not.
Too easy to spend today/tomorrow/the weekend clapping like a seal or lashing out!
Budget day arrives - I’ll reiterate what I said somewhere above.
As a research professional unless something is catastrophically wrong, I’d ignore any ‘hot takes’ in the media or from commentators and see what people are saying around next Tuesday/Wednesday. Particularly given the expected volume of changes coming.
That’s (genuinely) without prejudice to my own feelings about whether it’s likely to be a good budget or not.
Too easy to spend today/tomorrow/the weekend clapping like a seal or lashing out!
I think that wise.
The Mail has an editorial out this morning condemning a budget that hasn't been delivered yet.
If anyone wants a bit of fun for budget day, there's a budget game on the FT.
Of course, real budgets are probably a bit more complex, but without much effort I managed to remove the two child benefit cap and keep winter fuel payments, restore and exceed the 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid, lock in annual real term increases in health and education budgets over the Parliamentary term, and with modest tax increases balance the budget with a smaller than forecast budget deficit and sticking to forecast public sector debt. OK, so the American government isn't happy at reduced defence spending ... but I don't consider the role of the UK government including keeping the US government happy.
I think reducing defence spending is unwise. At this point in time:
1. Service personnel are long overdue a pay rise (like the rest of the public sector).
2. Ukraine and on-going war in Europe is a real issue. We will need to be ready to fight with our European allies. Whilst I hope we can avoid it, we cannot avoid the need to prepare.
Richard Tice on Radio 5 was asked if there was anything he liked in this budget. After a slight pause he said "No."
I can think of no better recommendation for Ms Reeves work. Brilliant budget!!
This is very much like idea that the BBC is getting things right because everyone complains about it.
It's a very middling budget, which is unlikely to please many people and also unlikely to lead to higher growth (in fact the idea of growth has been largely thrown out in favour of hitting around 1% a year).
Richard Tice on Radio 5 was asked if there was anything he liked in this budget. After a slight pause he said "No."
I can think of no better recommendation for Ms Reeves work. Brilliant budget!!
This is very much like idea that the BBC is getting things right because everyone complains about it.
It's a very middling budget, which is unlikely to please many people and also unlikely to lead to higher growth (in fact the idea of growth has been largely thrown out in favour of hitting around 1% a year).
It was mostly meant as a facetious/humorous comment. As I said, I want to look at the details properly.
However, I will say this (and I am happy to change my mind as the details become clear but, ) I suspect "middling" is very unfair.
Oh, you mean like the Tories did over their whole 14 years of government? That will be a "no". Spending money they couldn't account for is, and always has been, a Tory thing. Now they have been nailed for it by the Office of Budget Responsibility. This will be on their list of charges against them for a very long time.
Oh, you mean like the Tories did over their whole 14 years of government? That will be a "no". Spending money they couldn't account for is, and always has been, a Tory thing. Now they have been nailed for it by the Office of Budget Responsibility. This will be on their list of charges against them for a very long time.
The Office of Budget Responsibility is rergarded as a joke. They always get their forcasts very wrong.
Oh, you mean like the Tories did over their whole 14 years of government? That will be a "no". Spending money they couldn't account for is, and always has been, a Tory thing. Now they have been nailed for it by the Office of Budget Responsibility. This will be on their list of charges against them for a very long time.
The Office of Budget Responsibility is rergarded as a joke. They always get their forcasts very wrong.
The irony here, of course, is that the Office of Budgetary Responsibility is criticising this budget on the grounds that it will stall growth. Big story about that in The Times this morning, that well-known 'woke' and leftwing newspaper.
I daresay @Telford would agree with them on that, it's what he has been predicting for some time.
So it looks like we may have a situation where the OBR are a 'joke' when they criticise a Conservative government but not when they take issue with a Labour one.
If the OBR are a 'joke' and 'often get their forecasts very wrong' then surely we must expect them to be wrong this time and that we'll see economic growth rather than stagnation?
Time will tell, of course and I think this budget is pretty mixed. With the best will in the world, I don't think it's a good budget for small businesses and small entrepreneurs, such as those in the hospitality industry for instance.
We'll see how things pan out. If Reeves has got it wrong we'll soon find out.
Overall the OBR has growth rates of 1-1.5% each year over the next few years. That's quite low. I suspect in reality, it will be higher. In which case, Reeves will be in a very good position in about three years' time being able to do more than planned in terms of public sector spending and tax cuts at the same time. Which is political gold for a chancellor.
Let me explain why I think this is the case.
I came across this yesterday evening: https://x.com/DominicCaddick/status/1850891864808759508
"Therefore, it may be surprising to find out that, by default, the OBR assumes that fiscal policy has no effect after 5 years. "
What's going on here is that the OBR are making very conservative (small c) assumptions. This is a very conservative assumption. What we're talking about here is fiscal multipliers. Money spent by the government doesn't just disappear - it is part of the economy. In fact, the government is the single biggest actor in the economy. Some government spending has a positive multiplier - by which we mean that the benefits are so big you end up getting more back in tax than the original cost. This is not magic, in fact in should not be surprising. Money spent educating people means they are more productive and thus cost the state less and pay more in tax. Good infrastructure spending has similar pay offs. Obviously, not all government spending will have a positive pay off in purely economic terms, but are really important for other reasons. Much of healthcare spending is in this category, it's important for its own sake. It can have an economic benefit as well but that is usually smaller than the cost.
So, the OBR modelling assumes that fiscal spending's return reduces to zero five years out. That's not a realistic assumption. It certainly reduces over time but reaching zero in such a short time frame doesn't make sense.
Imagine that you owned ten fields. If you plant seed in five of them, then when you harvest it, you have produce from five fields. Now, imagine you decide to buy enough seed for six fields. So your costs have gone up by a massive 20% but all other things being equal, your returns have also gone up by 20%, which means overall you're better off.
This analogy can be played with a bit, by talking about the number of fields left fallow, the effect on prices of producing more if there isn't demand for it, stipulating whether you actually have the time to plant all six etc. etc. but the point is simple that when you do certain kinds of things as a government, there is always a macroeconomic effect from doing so.
That is not controversial. The argument is always about how big the effect is. When studying historic data on these kinds of things, correcting for a large number of variables makes it difficult to precisely identify the effects. When making projections, there's also the effect of unpredictable extraneous events, making it even more difficult. This is why professional economic modelling (such as the OBR or the Bank of England) produce a range of predictions.
Anyway, the idea that 5 years out, the effect of fiscal measures will be reduced to zero is a very strong claim. It will be reduced - the biggest effect is in the first year (as shown by that table) but reducing to zero is very unlikely.
OK, all of that was a long way round to get to my point. Which is this: If the OBR is using such conservative modelling and is expecting growth rates of 1-1.5% then in the real world, growth rates of 1.5-2% are much more likely.* Which means two things:
1. overall we're all be better off
2. the chancellor will have more money to play with in the second half of this parliament.
For comparison - I'll just highlight here, how the opposite was true for George Osborne because he used over-optimistic assumptions: Osbornomics
TL:DR - The OBR modelling is very conservative. Reeves is likely to have significant headroom for more spending and/or tax cuts in 3-4 years time.
AFZ
*For most of the post war period UK growth was around 2.5% per year.
Comments
It's been covered elsewhere too:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/29/what-are-rachel-reeves-spending-cuts-and-how-do-the-sums-add-up
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/reeves-departments-billions-pounds-savings-autumn-budget
Labour should desist from harping on about these financial black holes untill they are able to explain them.
At the moment it is looking less like Labour Government for the people than Public Sector Government for the Public Sector.
The civil service has grown massively in the past few years. It needs to shed 100,000 job gained since Covid started.
I am not demanding redundancies. I am suggesting a ban on recuitment for as long as necessary.
To get to a figure of 100 you have to back to at least 2017. The pre-Covid growth was largely on the back of Brexit related activities and taking competencies back from the EU.
That's a terrible idea that would cause a shortage of junior staff in the near term and then a corresponding loss of an entire cohort of managers and senior staff in succeeding years.
The pay rises were largely the effect of catching up - pay was frozen for a number of years, then capped at under 1% until 2017 and inflation went up in 2022/2023.
Yes. I think the myth of public sector pay rises needs to be quashed.
Virtually the entire public sector has had a real terms pay cut ranging from 10 to 30%.
Most of us are doing the same work, just for a lot less.*
The recent pay deals make good headlines but mostly they are a partial catch-up. No one in the public sector has had a genuine increase.
And the key point here, which I will keep repeating is that the drop in morale, the very poor staff retention rates are what's really killing the NHS. Fixing pay is only one part of what's needed but it is really needed. Not doing it would cost a lot more in the long term. This is just one of the poison pills left by the previous government.
AFZ
*It's more complex than that. We have had a drop in productivity but that's often due to the paradoxical efficiencies. I'll give you an example. We have fewer nurses on the ward than we used to. A crude assessment of the numbers would show that the ward is looking after the same number of patients but costing less. The problem is that fewer staff on the ward makes for delays when patients need to go to theatre. There are quite a few steps involved for safety reasons in taking a patient from the ward to theatre.
However the delays mean that I can do 6 small cases in a day. When we had smoother change over between cases, I did 8 in a day.
Simplistic arguments like 'cut 100,000 of whatever' rarely make for practical or effective policy.
They have just started saying this sort of thing. Mostly it has been bad news. In fact the BBC is reporting that Starmer has said again we are in for a hard time. They have time and again emphasised the doom and gloom not the good times after that. This sort of attitude is regarded by many commentators as one of the reasons remain lost the Brexit vote. Leave were positive, telling lies but positive ones. Remain was criticised for being too gloomy.
Example of part of the problem? When UCH and the Middlesex hospitals in London were amalgamated they had a combined number of 1200 beds. When at last they were moved into a shiny new hospital everyone was thrilled, except there are only 600 beds: a child of 10 could work out that an increasing population would require more beds, not fewer - and then there is the problem that lenghening waiting lists mean sicker people needing longer as in-patients. No amount of "make the NHS work 7 days a week" (which is sensible) can alter the fact that increasing patient through-put isn't possible if you do't have the capacity in ICUs or ordinary wards, never mind the staff to run them.
"Fixing" the NHS as it stands isn't possible: reforming the NHS is, but will require not only billions but action from the ground up, starting with the number of doctors, nurses, radiologists, etc in training. Unless the governent - any government - is prepared to fund the number of people in-training required, and to sort out not only pay but working conditions to keep them once trained, more money poured into a failing system is senseless. I'd go further and say that the funding of education for medical staff needs a radical re-think. We cannot keep on stripping other nations of their medical staff just to prop-up our inadequate system - not only is it unsustainable, it is immoral.
Obvious according to whom? It's clear looking around the world that there are multiple ways of making a health service work, and the NHS does reasonably well when it's funded properly - as when it topped the Commonwealth Fund's rankings on the back of Blair/Brown era spending.
These are all value laden words with very little data to actually back them up. In GDP terms the cost of the NHS has been comparably lower than similar economies in Europe - and almost half the cost of American system. There is no measure by which the UK government is 'just chucking money' into the NHS.
That's not a given at all - the evidence suggests that long hospital stays are counter-productive in many cases, and modern techniques don't necessarily have the same recovery time. Take maternity care as an example. It used to be incredibly common for women to stay in hospital for a week or more even after a straightforward delivery. Now it might be a day or two. Loads of surgeries are now done keyhole that in the past would have had you fully opened up.
And pumping money into the NHS does make a big difference, as we saw up to 2010. It doesn't fix everything, but having enough money is a pre-requisite for any long term structural change. You can't expect "reform" to work in a system that's already under-resourced.
As others have noted, this is not true. It is not supported by the evidence.
Let me give you a couple of sets of data.
First, this is the UK cardiovascular mortality from 2000-2022.
The graph clearly shows an improvement in the first half of the graph followed by a plateau in the second half.
Secondly, this is the patient satisfaction data 2000-2023.
In 2010, 70% of patients were very or quite satisfied with the care they received. 18% unsatisfied. 2023: 24% satisfied, 52% unsatisfied.
There is a huge amount of literature on this. Some of it is quite complex as outcomes from most diseases are driven by socioeconomic factors as well as healthcare provision. However, I point to these two snippets to make two points.
1. Between 2000 and 2010, cardiovascular mortality was significantly reduced (which was one of the government's key aims).
2. Between 2000 and 2010, patient satisfaction with the NHS improved to record levels. Since 2010, satisfaction has fallen to a record low.
Hence, many of us would argue that we know how to deliver effective healthcare and how to make the NHS work, but we have been starved of the resources we need to do so.
AFZ
It's not all bad, then.
And you base that conclusion on what, precisely?
You're falling into the trap of thinking "resources" = money. The greatest resources the NHS, or any other healthcare system have, is people followed by kit.
In the past few years the NHS has been given more money than ever. It has not been used well
People and kit have to be paid for. Perhaps all the money is being spent on the wrong people
Who do you think it is being spent on?
I mean, I assume you have some actual data behind your conclusions here.
And one for whom new treatments are available for conditions previously untreatable - but at a cost.
Of course, the costs of implementing Brexit to the government (combination of lost tax income from suppression of economic growth and direct additional costs, such as hiring staff to take over roles previously done very efficiently by a proportionately smaller EC staff and new position in border controls etc) is approximately £20b. I'm sure the similarity between the cost of implementing Brexit and the "black hole" is purely coincidental.
(I would favour public transport free at the point of use with a citizens bus pass, provided by state owned companies - which would involve raising tax.)
It’s not a tax, obviously. It’s a benefit.
Most bus passengers are not affluent. And raising the cap to £3 is a 50% increase for some of the lowest paid workers.
Calling it a benefit is accurate. And, raising the cap is a cost-cutting exercise rather than income raising.
I have reservations about how this scheme (and, free bus travel schemes) funnels government money raised through taxation into the pockets of private companies, and would much prefer public transport to be in public ownership, but the benefits to society in supporting affordable travel for all far exceed the costs to society of subsidising private businesses taking money from society.
Agree.
Evidence, please.
That said, raising the lowest tax band, and thus cutting the tax paid by the poorest, is a very effective way of putting more money in the pockets of some of the poorest people in the country with the resulting high bang-for-buck boost in the economy.
As a research professional unless something is catastrophically wrong, I’d ignore any ‘hot takes’ in the media or from commentators and see what people are saying around next Tuesday/Wednesday. Particularly given the expected volume of changes coming.
That’s (genuinely) without prejudice to my own feelings about whether it’s likely to be a good budget or not.
Too easy to spend today/tomorrow/the weekend clapping like a seal or lashing out!
I think that wise.
The Mail has an editorial out this morning condemning a budget that hasn't been delivered yet.
Of course, real budgets are probably a bit more complex, but without much effort I managed to remove the two child benefit cap and keep winter fuel payments, restore and exceed the 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid, lock in annual real term increases in health and education budgets over the Parliamentary term, and with modest tax increases balance the budget with a smaller than forecast budget deficit and sticking to forecast public sector debt. OK, so the American government isn't happy at reduced defence spending ... but I don't consider the role of the UK government including keeping the US government happy.
1. Service personnel are long overdue a pay rise (like the rest of the public sector).
2. Ukraine and on-going war in Europe is a real issue. We will need to be ready to fight with our European allies. Whilst I hope we can avoid it, we cannot avoid the need to prepare.
However, notwithstanding thar I will offer you this:
Richard Tice on Radio 5 was asked if there was anything he liked in this budget. After a slight pause he said "No."
I can think of no better recommendation for Ms Reeves work. Brilliant budget!!
AFZ
This is very much like idea that the BBC is getting things right because everyone complains about it.
It's a very middling budget, which is unlikely to please many people and also unlikely to lead to higher growth (in fact the idea of growth has been largely thrown out in favour of hitting around 1% a year).
It was mostly meant as a facetious/humorous comment. As I said, I want to look at the details properly.
However, I will say this (and I am happy to change my mind as the details become clear but, ) I suspect "middling" is very unfair.
The Office of Budget Responsibility is rergarded as a joke. They always get their forcasts very wrong.
Regarded as a joke by whom?
I daresay @Telford would agree with them on that, it's what he has been predicting for some time.
So it looks like we may have a situation where the OBR are a 'joke' when they criticise a Conservative government but not when they take issue with a Labour one.
If the OBR are a 'joke' and 'often get their forecasts very wrong' then surely we must expect them to be wrong this time and that we'll see economic growth rather than stagnation?
Time will tell, of course and I think this budget is pretty mixed. With the best will in the world, I don't think it's a good budget for small businesses and small entrepreneurs, such as those in the hospitality industry for instance.
We'll see how things pan out. If Reeves has got it wrong we'll soon find out.
Maybe.
https://x.com/garyfoskett/status/1851645030554874073?t=RkdtVMiS7BoRVaoior0J8w&s=19
and
https://x.com/MartinSLewis/status/1851704007212884370
Overall the OBR has growth rates of 1-1.5% each year over the next few years. That's quite low. I suspect in reality, it will be higher. In which case, Reeves will be in a very good position in about three years' time being able to do more than planned in terms of public sector spending and tax cuts at the same time. Which is political gold for a chancellor.
Let me explain why I think this is the case.
I came across this yesterday evening:
https://x.com/DominicCaddick/status/1850891864808759508
"Therefore, it may be surprising to find out that, by default, the OBR assumes that fiscal policy has no effect after 5 years. "
What's going on here is that the OBR are making very conservative (small c) assumptions. This is a very conservative assumption. What we're talking about here is fiscal multipliers. Money spent by the government doesn't just disappear - it is part of the economy. In fact, the government is the single biggest actor in the economy. Some government spending has a positive multiplier - by which we mean that the benefits are so big you end up getting more back in tax than the original cost. This is not magic, in fact in should not be surprising. Money spent educating people means they are more productive and thus cost the state less and pay more in tax. Good infrastructure spending has similar pay offs. Obviously, not all government spending will have a positive pay off in purely economic terms, but are really important for other reasons. Much of healthcare spending is in this category, it's important for its own sake. It can have an economic benefit as well but that is usually smaller than the cost.
So, the OBR modelling assumes that fiscal spending's return reduces to zero five years out. That's not a realistic assumption. It certainly reduces over time but reaching zero in such a short time frame doesn't make sense.
Imagine that you owned ten fields. If you plant seed in five of them, then when you harvest it, you have produce from five fields. Now, imagine you decide to buy enough seed for six fields. So your costs have gone up by a massive 20% but all other things being equal, your returns have also gone up by 20%, which means overall you're better off.
This analogy can be played with a bit, by talking about the number of fields left fallow, the effect on prices of producing more if there isn't demand for it, stipulating whether you actually have the time to plant all six etc. etc. but the point is simple that when you do certain kinds of things as a government, there is always a macroeconomic effect from doing so.
That is not controversial. The argument is always about how big the effect is. When studying historic data on these kinds of things, correcting for a large number of variables makes it difficult to precisely identify the effects. When making projections, there's also the effect of unpredictable extraneous events, making it even more difficult. This is why professional economic modelling (such as the OBR or the Bank of England) produce a range of predictions.
Anyway, the idea that 5 years out, the effect of fiscal measures will be reduced to zero is a very strong claim. It will be reduced - the biggest effect is in the first year (as shown by that table) but reducing to zero is very unlikely.
OK, all of that was a long way round to get to my point. Which is this: If the OBR is using such conservative modelling and is expecting growth rates of 1-1.5% then in the real world, growth rates of 1.5-2% are much more likely.* Which means two things:
1. overall we're all be better off
2. the chancellor will have more money to play with in the second half of this parliament.
For comparison - I'll just highlight here, how the opposite was true for George Osborne because he used over-optimistic assumptions: Osbornomics
TL:DR - The OBR modelling is very conservative. Reeves is likely to have significant headroom for more spending and/or tax cuts in 3-4 years time.
AFZ
*For most of the post war period UK growth was around 2.5% per year.