Draco just because overpaid consultants (who are no doubt contracted to the public service in their day job) failed to find any waste, doesn’t mean to say there isn’t any!

No, it really does mean that there’s none to be found. One even had enough of a conscience to refuse to be paid. And, no, they weren’t part of the public service in their day jobs – they were external and independent.

But, as you are so quick to label my opinion & experience as BS, pray do share – what experience do you have to back up your views?

Oh, I’ve been all over the show from large public service to large corporations. I’ve seen comparable waste in all of them.

Perhaps though it comes down to the size of the organisation rather than the fact that they are private or public.

That would equate with the experience that I’ve had. Small bureaucracies tend to be more aware of what’s happening but that doesn’t mean that you should go out and make all large public organisations into lots of small ones as you rapidly hit diminishing returns.

where the public service & their back office is concerned, people start to mind their p’s & q’s a little more when the unlimited resources suddenly become limited.

They should never have been under the impression that resources were unlimited but that is not the same as cutting resources. They do, after all, need enough resources to do the job.

In the private sector there has been the move to involve employees in improving productivity…

Yeah, I’ve seen that. I told them to eff off as, although they wanted my ideas, they didn’t want to pay for them.

But, other than that, I actually do think it’s a good idea.

Labour did actually promote a number of initiatives that saw public services delivered in partnership with community and private interests. I think this needs to be handled carefully as the introduction of a profit motive into the delivery of important services can limit access, and see corners cut. But the bottom line is we do need to be flexible as to the best way to meet community needs.

I am in favour of a productivity commission like the Australian model, so long as we get the definition of productivity right. Efficiency can come in many guises. In the case of Archives NZ we have a very efficient small agency, providing better services than when it was part of a bigger bureaucracy.

Mate of mine is Surgeon. Every week he gets together with his team for a bite to eat & discuss their various patients etc. Just recently Management told them they were allowed to spend $4.93 (YES, that is the actual figure) on lunch each. But during those same lunches they get to perscribe $40K per annum of drugs for a person.

Sorry, but if there is a person who is focusing on $4.93 for the DHB then they should not be there!

As to the idea of centralisation, the problem is that there are advantages that occur from allowing different management strategy, and good ideas are discovered – the ones that deliver the best results. What is needed is performance accountability and systems which allow other DHB’s to follow the best practice of the best DHB in that field.

Only in some areas are their cost efficiency gains from centralisation, and the advantages from this can be lost if any trend in that direction goes too far (the risk of applying a flawed policy across the whole system – with no reference to a more effective approach so it is changed asap).