Under Tory plans, employee-owned co-operatives would be able to decide on management structures, "innovate" to cut costs and improve the standard of service, and share any financial surpluses among the staff.
Mr Cameron said: "I know that there are millions of public sector workers, that work in our public services. and who frankly today feel demoralised, feel disrespected, feel a lack of recognition.
"We will not only get rid of those targets and that bureaucracy that drives you so mad, we will give you the power in a way that is as radical as the right to buy your council home."

hmmm…

So no targets, pressure or bureaucracy in Local Government. Well that'll please the people I know who work at our council.

Can't wait to see how that is going to turn good old Stoke around!

Its a load of bollox. will be more expensive and no one but clowns will want to take it up

I am sure people will be desperate to take a over a co-operative and run it as they please whilst a conservative government slashes the funding of the public sector. .

Ah, the old emotive "slashing the public sector" comes out early on! Face it, folks, whoever is in Government next is going to have to make massive cuts. We simply can't afford to continue spending money as we are now. Labour have already said that they would make such cuts, but then I suppose that would never be "slashing" or "endangering lives….bringing dooooooom!" would it? Those would be responsible, sensible cuts, wouldn't they?

Anyway, back to the topic here. I'm all in favour of cutting back on state bureaucracy and all thee mindless targets etc. In fact, I'd like to see a lot of the guff cut out, as I'm sure it could be a massive saving without really having much impact on the vital services (not a slashing cut, though). However, I really can't see that this is the right/best approach here. The public sector doesn't really work effectively anyway, as there's less pressure to succeed. Comfy job, leave early on a Friday. No danger of getting sacked even when you get something wrong. * Give them even less accountability or pressure, and well, things would just stop. Not good.

A bit of a duff policy announcement, IMO

*Applies to the workshy idiots in much of the office based public sector. Not at all to the really hard working folks (NHS, Emergency Services etc)

Sounds like a recipe for the old structures but with more meetings.

And I thought Labour were supposed to be the loony left…

You thought correctly!

Errrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmm

Labour are a vaguely left of centre party.

This proposal is all about asset stripping, depressing wages and conditions of service and selling off to private companies.

its just cast iron dave cynically trying to appeal to the looney left voters who dont identify with nulabour

Applies to the workshy idiots in much of the office based public sector. Not at all to the really hard working folks (NHS, Emergency Services etc)

Nice wee edit, cfh. No generalisation, stereotyping etc going on then 😀

Thougt about it after I typed it, Vinney 😉 Realised I was being far too sweeping, so edited!

In my experience, bureaucracy exists because of legal/contractual reasons – no one creates bureaucracy for fun.

The "public sector doesn't really work effectively" CFH?
Well, the ultimate non-public sector would have to be the banking sector- does that work more effectively? (checks to see where my taxes went!)
as for the policy ; more tory drivel 🙄

The "public sector doesn't really work effectively" CFH?
Well, the ultimate non-public sector would have to be the banking sector- does that work more effectively? (checks to see where my taxes went!)

Privatisation works. Just not for the UK public.

The UK public?, WTF have they got to do with UK PLC? 😕

Privatised services always cost more, or reduce service, or reduce terms and conditions of employment and usually all 3

People whos job relies on bureaucracy create bureaucracy to keep them in a job. Things can often be much simpler but that would mean "slashing public sector jobs" which is bad politically. There are several projects on the go at the minute reducing the amount of paer work and form filling that goes on. I know some government departments that get you to fill a form in on the internet then they print it off to process it rather than using computer based systems. Needless waste.

As CFH and vinney said there is plenty of room for cutting the public sector without hurting the really important ones (like front line medical etc. etc.)

The policy itself does sound very bland and meaningless.

As CFH and vinney said there is plenty of room for cutting the public sector without hurting the really important ones (like front line medical etc. etc.)

This simply is not true. The amount of waste in the way you describe is minute.

Get real – want to cut public spending there is no way other than reducing services and savings will not be great anyway 'cos of all the dole that has to be provided for the people that are sacked. This is the lesson of thatcherism

Paging ernie_lynch. ernie_lynch to the forum…

Get real – want to cut public spending there is no way other than reducing services and savings will not be great anyway 'cos of all the dole that has to be provided for the people that are sacked. This is the lesson of thatcherism

Indeed. Cut public sector or in this case nationalized jobs, like in the 80's and you now have large pockets of long term unemployed, which has created a benefit dependency costing the UK tax payer more.

As for bureaucracy, the private sector is absolutely appalling for it. Never have I seen more middle managers create so much bureaucracy to justify their jobs, particularly in the former nationalized utilities.