To want to ban all outsourcing , tendering and rediscover the joys of institutional cohesion?

Sometimes outsourcing can be done in response to failure in management e.g. the car plant example.

Heartily agree Greatnan, pity no-one's listening .

I am afraid there is still widespread fraud in the EU. Questions are still unanswered about Neil Kinnock's stewardship:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/1402096/Kinnock-EU-whistleblower-hung-out-to-dry.html

I believe police officers are the most likely group to take early retirement in order to avoid disciplinary procedures.

I am sure we would all like to see fairness and good management, but it seems to me that outsourcing is not the way to achieve them.

Agree with you otw. A manager who knows how to play fair, is interested in her team, allows for personal stresses, and shows she can be flexible will get more out of her workers than some disinterested company that doesn't even know the workforce, applies back to work interviews like a punishment, and shifts people around to suit their poorly managed arrangements. I have seen too many TUPE'd and private workers going off with stress or falling asleep on the job whilst doing overtime covering for other stressed out workers, because their money-grabbing bosses don't have any investment in ensuring they balance work and home life. It was odd to work alongside private companies whose workers were not in a union, and who always wanted copies of our public sector whistle-blowing policy.

Problems of abuse regarding absenteeism and managing this in a humane and effective way comes from intelligent management. Each case is different and what none of it needs is the blunt tool of outsourcing , producing a whole series of extra layers in which to lose your service/company's purpose / mission ( mid-80's jargon ). Just a thought . I have been employed in the real world at various times during my career , and met management who instinctively knew just how to build good working relationships ( celebrating tgeir strengths but working on their weaknesses , and those that thought management was a device given to them to enforce their tunnel vision.

I'm replying to nightowl's generalisation micelf with an example to counter it.
I agree that is terrible, harrassing someone to go to occupational health at that stage in their illness. Probably had not done the bit of "managing sickness" where they keep in touch with the sick person. All this having been said... public employees like teachers and nurses have fantastic terms and conditions compared to most private sector workers. When I had breast cancer I worked for a utility that had public sector-type conditions and I was able to take 6 months off without a qualm. I was extremely fortunate. There are of course many employers in both public and private that are compassionate and do their best to bend rules.
But there are a lot of people that take the mick. Most irritating are the people who get in a bit of trouble at work, they maybe have a disciplinary pending or had their feathers ruffled by a formal warning. The predictably go to the GP and ask to be signed off on "stress" and disappear for months, thus putting disciplinary measures on hold. And get paid to sulk at home out of the public purse.

But JessM that's just one school. I don't think you can generalise from one example. I will give another example of a friend of mine who was HoD in a big school and whose attendance was poor. She had breast cancer. She was aggressively 'managed' and three weeks before her death ten years ago was ordered to attend occupational health to be assessed. Disgraceful, but I wouldn't say that was typical because I don't have sufficient knowledge.

nightowl some managers just don't get it do they. Unfortunately, in schools at least, they have training in something they call "leadership" but have little training in the basics of management e.g. how to manage absence. My experience is recent though (gave up being chair of govs 12 months ago) and we certainly had to keep leaning on managers to keep managing attendance. They didn't want to do this and if governor pressure lifted they would stop spending time on this.

When I took over a large remedial teaching service, I found that the former head had allowed things to slide and at least one teacher was taking her 'allowed' sick days off every month. Others were claiming travel expenses which were unjustified. One joked that she was very popular at the schools she visited because she cut short her teaching sessions in order to brew tea for the staff. I had to make myself unpopular for a time with the 'old guard' but I thought it was my job to make the service deliver to the children who needed it.
Where management in either the public or private sector is inefficient or corrupt, the answer is to replace it and make things work properly, not to simply hand over to some profit-making body, which may be just as inefficient.

There are certainly tough absence monitoring policies in place in the public sector now jess. These are applied consistently and with a complete lack of common sense. For example, after my return to work following three weeks sick leave after my mother's death, I was asked by my manager whether the absence was likely to be repeated. And yes, I did reply that I thought my mother was unlikely to die again.

This was 15 years ago and things are even stricter now. Staff who are off sick for genuine reasons are in real fear for their jobs.

Nurses in my family too. I also worked in an HR office in a hospital for a while. Favourite story re absence was that 2 members of catering staff kept taking time off at the same time. He very unattractive middle aged man and she attractive young woman. But they were indeed taking time off to have an affair.
Attendance/absenteeism an interesting phenomenon that varies a lot. Cultural norms can spring up in some workplaces e.g. my example above of the car workers who all thought it was their right to take their "entitlement" of 30 paid sick days even if they were perfectly healthy. The contract staff working next to them have a very very low rate of absence.
Small businesses have a better attendance rate than big ones. Private companies better than public. As a school governor had to put continual pressure on head to keep managing the attendance of staff and pupils. Surprising how it improves if you set tough targets for managers and they actively manage absence.

I signed that, too. Ryanair's CEO might yet come up with another of his plausible explanations. I'd be interested to hear it!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2395642/Ryanair-sacks-pilot-spoke-TV-documentary-safety-fears-gross-misconduct.html

I know Ryanair operates in Eire, but it is certainly in the EU!

I have just signed the petition about zero hours contracts. A slightly different abuse of workers - my grandson works in construction and has been forced to become self-employed which is of no help to him but enables his employer to avoid many responsibilities. I wish HMRC would clamp down on this practice. It is fine for highly paid employees of the BBC who can claim various expenses, but is just one more way for businesses to exploit other workers.

My son works on a psychiatric ward, so will phone in and check first. He has been in to work with the remains of a cold if he is dosed up, not sneezing and is scrupulous about hygiene. He wouldn't do meds, either.

It applies to anyone working in a hospital who comes into contact with patients so not just clinical staff

There are nurses in my family. They have to stay away from work if they catch colds or have mild stomach bugs, depending on which department they work in, so this will account for some absences that don't happen in other areas of work. One is a midwife who would not be allowed over the threshold with any infection that could be passed on to newborns, either on post-natal or special care. This costs the NHS, but seems unavoidable.

Jess, I hope you are right about the reduction in corruption, but how do you know?

I agree shelby that mothers should have the choice of staying at home. Bit of a tangent though.
Of course no room for complacent greatnan but I think it important to give credit where due - much less corruption in both public and private working worlds since there was a few decades ago. Most businesses do run ethically and responsibly, and the minority that don't are a disgrace.

It would be wonderful to see more co-operatives but, well, people have got to have the oomph to start them. The cooperative movement in the UK was started partly because of political action by women I think.
I agree with lilygran and others that sometimes in the public sector there is a political ideology (tory) behind outsourcing as in NHS reforms. But sometimes it is not. An example is using temp nurses. Nurses' attendance at work is one of the worst. This incurs a big cost whether you have bank nurses (zero hours contracts !!) or agency nurses (more expensive). But unless NHS managers can reduce nurses absenteeism down to a par with employees in private sector, these are the only options.
Lilygran temp agencies do normally put a big chunk on top of wages - to pay wages of those who work in office, cost of office etc. But they do now have to offer holiday pay. Not paying NI does not sound right either to me. When i worked for Reed i was technically employed by them and nI paid etc. To be paid on a self employed basis I would have had to invoice them, pay for my own indemnity insurance etc etc

Do you know I shall sleep better tonight knowing there are so many others feeling helpless about the way our country is 'progressing' . I don't like the American dream is the truth of it and I wish I could be reading about this level of debate happening in our commons . Jendurham, Greatnan, Lilygran , whenim64 , shelby75 and Iam 64 , Jessm and all others , I realise that we have differences of opinion but I have enjoyed learning from the debate . I too was a party member , from about 8years when I delivered 1000's envelopes ( I too have sat at home seething -feeling more guilty now). I think I tend to vote to assuage my conscience because I know how lucky I am. I feel that it is the weaker members , the young and the old and infirm that our government should be supporting through legislation redistributing fair tax ( let's collect the billions avoided by corporations ( maybe we could all pay what starbucks paus and we should stop outsourcing ) . It is a world that , if you have money , you can get money cheaply , if you're poorer, you'll have to pay upto 5 times as much . I've heard that if someone is unemployed , their car insurance doubles - that is business taking care of the bottom line without a thought about humanity !

A thanks from me to otw, greatnan, jendurham, when and so many others for telling it like it is. A group of close, life long friends had a discussion last night and decided to start The People's Party. I just wish we could - or would. What we concluded was that maybe it's time we became more politically active in real life, rather than simply signing all those petitions on line, for causes we believe in. I re-joined the Labour party after Ed became leader, but I haven't been active, other than leafletting and door knocking for our labour counsellor and MP. So, I'm building myself up to going to the next local party meeting. I have memories of membership in the 80's, where meetings were dominated by cliques, the obvious dislike when I took my baby to an evening meeting, in case she needed feeding (she didn't, the relief was palpable).
I accept the Labour Party made mistakes in government, the war in Iraq and all that goes with it, top of my list. But, they put money into schools, children's centres, the nhs. We may not agree with everything they did - but I find myself unable to agree with anything this lot are doing. Plus, where is the mandate to privatise the NHS, to attack the poor and vulnerable. It seems hard to believe that a tory led government, that didn't win an outright victory, so needed to form a coalition, is able to wreak the havoc it is doing within much needed services.

If they paid ridiculously inflated salaries to the staff who have been bought in, that would be one thing and still unsatisfactory. But I suspect most of the tax payers' millions that find their way into the vaults of these consultancies and agencies only make their way out again to the shareholders and senior managers. One of my DS went to work for a temp agency which was owned by a well known 'consultancy' and while the organisation he worked in was paying over £12 an hour for his services, he was being paid £7 and was treated as self-employed - no employment rights, no national insurance paid, no holiday pay, no sick pay.

http://sumofus.org/

This organisation campaigns for ordinary people against multinationals, etc
Guess how many CEOs of companies have been charged with manslaughter following industrial accidents? Guess how many corporate manslaughter charges have been brought?
The fragmentation of public services allows people to pass the buck.
Surely the profit motive cannot be allowed to take precedence over the lives and health and well being of the public and employees.

http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/how-corrupt-britain

See my comment on Harmoni just after 7 a.m.

The most corrupt nations are in Africa, but there is no room for complacency about the EU and Britain.

Lilygran, that's not the only area where they pay ridiculous amounts to temporary staff.
Out of Hours GP locums are being offered up to £1000 per day by Harmoni, a company that is owned by CareUK and cannot cope with the 111 system it tendered for, let alone Out of Hours.

Mishap, there is a 38 degrees petition to keep the East Coast mainline in public hands. The petition is organised by a group called we own it.
We do at the moment and the East Coast Mainline is the only one we own. It's also the only one that gives a profit to the government, which shows how ridiculous it is of the government to want to privatise it again.
You sound like you might want to reorganise the railways.