Are public sector job cuts short-term fixes?

Employment in the Public Sector has been strongly affected over the last year with over 35,000 job losses in 2011, through cuts and redundancies enforced by central office. The Chancellor’s current plans to reduce spending in the Public Sector will only result in a potential saving for the economy of £400 million per year.

However, The Times recently published an article highlighting that the number of civil servants will rise again unless departments overhaul their working practices, according to the public spending watchdog. The article points out that, following redundancies, staff numbers will simply creep back up over time unless there are long terms plans to operate permanently with a lower number of staff.

“Without fundamental redesign in departments’ working practices, staff numbers will probably rise as soon as restrictions on recruitment and spending have been lifted. The savings that have been achieved in staff cuts will not be sustainable unless departments now complete long-term operating models for their businesses.”

Richard Bacon, Conservative Member of the Public Accounts Committee.

With further cuts likely the next spending review will be much more difficult to achieve. Many organisations do not have strategies in place to cope with sudden changes in their competitive environments leaving them vulnerable to customer dissatisfaction, low staff morale and getting poor value-for-money.

ChangeWise can help by streamlining processes to increase efficiency and reduce costs, enhancing customer interactions to improve service delivery, improving quality and re-organising work and operating models to give greater effectiveness.