| Productive Time in the Public Sector |
Condensed ArticleArticle contributed by Rob Pinkham The Efficiency Review has brought the drive to modernise the public sector workforce into sharp focus. The review gives this drive new impetus. In local government the 'productive time' stream of savings must yield about a fifth of total savings, or about half a percent of total expenditure per year. In addition, the management of change to realise the savings sought from transactional services, procurement and corporate support services will rest on effective people management. This article addresses:
Labour efficiency To the extent that the review relies on increasing productivity we need to focus on labour efficiency. This means increasing the value of the output of each unit of labour we employ. In broad terms this will involve initiatives to reduce the amount of labour we employ to deliver services or to increase the value of the services our employees produce, or both. When we are able to reduce the number of people we need to deliver a service this should produce 'bankable' savings that can be used to improve services elsewhere. Where we can increase the value of the product from an existing workforce, this increase in value represents an efficiency gain. Options in raising labour productivity a) Absence management The visibility of the public sector absence management record, which shows up poorly against whole economy comparisons, has made this an early target for efficiency savings..... |
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