Contracting Out

[drplokta]

Looks like any remaining in-house cleaning contracts in the Civil Service and NHS are getting contracted out, pronto. David Cameron plans to pay managers more if they can get all of their low-paid staff off their organisation's payroll and onto someone else's.

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

Ohh shit.

Not the civil service, but in the NHS cleaning is a core competence -- it's part of infection control! It went into eclipse from the mid-1940s onwards thanks to antibiotics, but it's come roaring back in the past decade.

I give it five years, max, before the rising death toll forces a re-think.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

Responsibility for ward cleanliness was removed from ward managers the last time the Tories were in power. Most clinical professionals I know regard the rise of hospital infections as a direct result of that contracting out. Don't believe what the managers say in public. Assuming they know what they are talking about (a doubtful assumption) they are lying.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

I recall an interview on PM with a former cleaning manager some years ago saying that she retired when they started asking her to clean wards in time periods she knew damn well couldn't be done.

That's not to say contracting out _couldn't_ be done properly. You implement an SLA on the contractors and higher somebody from one of the mobile network operators to enforce it.

Then, in other news, Daily Mail headlines - NHS using illegal workers in cleaning scam....

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

It might be illuminating to look at the ownership of the contractors and their relationship with those responsible for the allocation of contracts.

Typical Daily Mail headline, no reference to it being contractors using 'illegal workers' rather than the NHS, or that the dodgy contractors are paying less than legal wages as they do so often in the equally corrupt agricultural gang master system.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Re-think? I'll tell you what the re-think could be:

"The NHS, despite immense injection of capital, is irretrievably broken and we think only the competition from a private alternative health system will improve matters..."

[incy.livejournal.com]

While it makes a good headline I am not sure how much of a big deal it is:
The minimum wage is 5.80 an hour multiple that by 20 and you 116.00 hour, on a 40 hour week/52 week a year you get 241,280. Of course if they find limited by that amount of money or they do is offer there services on a contractor/consultant basis.

In fact IIRC the Tories said any public servant being paid more then the PM would have to be signed off by the Chancellor.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

I can't parse this comment. Any contractor would also have to pay at least minimum wage, unless that is abolished as a separate policy measures.

[incy.livejournal.com]

say for example the chief exec of an NHS trust works on a contractor basis, he would no longer be an employee of the NHS trust but of a private company and thus outside the NHS. Even then he is likely to be the only employee of his own company so would not have the problem (plus escaping playing a load of tax at the time). Since the trust is paying a company for services it is no longer bound by the rules either.

[evil-mogwai.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Not only that the costs of cleaning may actually rise as service fees and taxes are placed on the bill. Yes, the trust may be able to claim the taxes back (which they can do as long as it is still acceptable - government VAT reclaim rules are ridiculously complicated.) but its still money moving round for no reason when they could simply employ staff on Minimum wage instead.

[andrewducker]

That link doesn't go to that story for me.

Edit: Unless you're seeing that as a side-effect of avoiding pay differences.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Same with me, yes.

[drplokta]

Yes, of course. If you link managers' pay to the pay of their lowest-paid staff then they will get rid of those staff -- they won't be able to just pay them more, so they'll have to outsource their work.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

And the other shoe has dropped on bonuses. For the last ten years, instead of giving SCS rises in line with the recommendations, we've been given less, often much less, with some of the remainder being diverted into a 'bonus pot'. That bonus pot is about 10% of the paybill and I don't suppose there's a single senior civil servant who'd rather have the bonus than the diverted pay. And now, of course, the bonuses are going to be taken away without compensation; ie, 10% pay cut. And as far as I can tell, whether you get a bonus or not bears no relation to anything whatsoever to do with your year's work other than blind luck.

[andrewducker]

And, of course, bonuses don't count towards pensions (if you're lucky enough to be on a final salary pension of some kind).

[evil-mogwai.livejournal.com]

how about we sack the bloody managers instead. Cleaning should not be outsourced at all.