Public Sector

Let's hear three cheers for New Zealand's minster of labor, Trevor Mallard, for his recent speech on improving public sector productivity.

The context in which people work is of vital importance. That means articulating a concise and relevant purpose which defines the shared tasks of all staff.

Des Dearlove talks to psychologist Howard Gardner about the qualities of thinking that will allow people to survive and prosper in the 21st century, both in work and life generally.

Professor Mark H. Moore talks to Des Dearlove about public value and citizenship and poses some challenging questions about the way we view public services

Public sector managers, sit up and take note, because here's what your subordinates really think of you.

Britain's public sector pensions liability has risen to and astonishing £1,025 billion – the equivalent to 80 per cent of gross domestic product and than double the size of the country's national debt.

The amount of time British workers are taking off sick may be declining, but public sector absence rates remain stubbornly high and – in some cases - are actually increasing.

Private companies that have taken over the delivery of public services in Britain are among some of the country's best employers, a report by the Confederation of British Industry has claimed.

The National Health Service in England spent an estimated £1 billion last year on management consultants - a figure that dwarfs the funding deficit in the health service.

Surveys of some 150,000 civil servants have revealed that Britain's government departments are badly managed, unable to cope with change, and riddled with bullies and poor performers.

Almost half of all adults in Britain - 44 per cent – receive at least half their income from the state, while almost a quarter of the workforce – some 6.8 million people - now works for the State in one form or another.

The madness of the nanny state seems to know no bounds. Staff at government-run jobcentres in Manchester have been told that Christmas decorations are a safety hazard and that they cannot put decorations on office ceilings in case someone falls off a desk or chair in the process.

British public sector workers are nearly three times more likely to be critical of the services they provide than their colleagues in the private sector, a new poll has revealed.

As the annual conference of Britain's largest employers organisation, the CBI, opens in London today, relations between the government and business have hit an all-time low.

Federal employees in the U.S are more motivated, engaged and happier than their counterparts in the private sector, but at the same feel unappreciated by their immediate bosses.

The British government needs to grasp the nettle on public sector pension reform to stop private sector workers and tax-paying pensioners being forced to subsidise generous retirement and pension arrangements for civil servants.

Public sector organisations in Britain are increasingly offering six figure salaries to high-fliers in an attempt to compete with private sector companies and retain experienced staff.

The British public sector is continuing to expand at a rate of knots, despite Government pledges to slash civil service jobs and make huge cost savings.

Over the past seven years, the government has raised salaries and strengthened the terms, conditions and pension rights of Britain's public sector employees to a level that would be the envy of most private sector workers, writes Gabriel Rozenberg in the Times today.

Workers in the private sector have more confidence in where their organisation is going and feel greater pride in the job it is doing for customers and clients than their public sector counterparts.

Private-sector workers in Britain are gradually waking up to the fact that, just as their occupational schemes are winding down, they face being forced to pay higher taxes to help pay for the generous index-linked pensions of the growing army of public sector workers.

The gap between the number of sick days taken in the private sector in the UK versus the public sector has reached its widest in four years, new figures have suggested.

Abuse of workplace computers, including viewing online pornography while at work, is still a major problem for the public sector in the UK, an influential study has suggested.

The number of days lost to industrial action in Britain almost doubled between 2003 and 2004, although the number of strikes were the lowest on record.

The billions of pounds of taxpayer's money pouring into Britain's public sector has had no effect at all on its absenteeism levels, as new figures reveal that sickness rates have continued to rise.

Six out of ten doctors in Britain do not have adequate access to affordable childcare, forcing many to put their careers on hold, the British Medical Association has warned.

A growing sense of gloom is enveloping Britain's gradates as new survey reveals that only a third expect to land a graduate-level job when they leave university compared to half in 1998.

The civil service is proving resistant to allowing staff to work from home, despite it being a key part of the Government's ambitious cost-saving drive for central government.

Britain's burgeoning public sector bureaucracy coupled with large regional economic disparities have caused it to plunge down the global economic competitiveness league since Labour came to power in 1997, according to new research.

The "bowler hats and bureaucrats" image of the public sector – and the view that job cuts can be made without having a negative impact on services – is a myth, unions have argued.

They may be graduating in a little over four months’ time, but just one in five undergraduates say they already have jobs lined up, and one in 10 have not even started looking yet.

Writing in The Business yesterday, John Seddon argued that Britain's public services have not improved – and places the blame for their continuing failure on the management failings of politicians and bureaucrats.

Businesses are dissatisfied with progress on public service reform and sceptical about the Government’s cost-saving plans, according to a survey.

New figures on the rocketing number of public sector employees will do little to quell controversy surrounding the types of public sector jobs being created.

Delivering public sector change is hard enough without managers constantly having to cope with political meddling and back-seat driving.

Britain's historically high levels of employment are not all that they seem. According to new figures, almost half the jobs created in the UK since 1997 have been in the public sector.

Public sector workers in Britain get three to four days’ more holiday each year on average than their counterparts in the private sector.

The cost of meeting Britain's public sector pension liabilities has soared to an astonishing £690 billion and is rising at a rate of £35 billion a year.

The UK could soon find itself facing a major IT skills shortage in key areas like project management as the public sector and the banking industry fight for scarce talent.

British trade unions face a painful journey to extinction if they fail to evolve, according to a provocative analysis from a leading business academic.

The number of Maths graduates deciding to go into teaching has doubled in a year, according to a survey by the graduate careers’ service Graduate Prospects.

A prison officer at Holloway jail who was on sick leave for more than a year had in fact emigrated to New Zealand, a report reveals today.

The Prison Service should follow the example of private sector employers such as Tesco and curb sick pay for its staff in a bid to cut its £80 million absenteeism bill, MPs have said.

Trade union members across the UK are planning a nationwide day of campaigning in February to protest against changes the government is planning to make to the pensions of public sector workers.

A future Conservative government would slash the size of the Department of Trade and Industry by more than three quarters in a bid to reduce red tape.

Whitehall needs to get better at ensuring it has a diverse workforce if it wants its public services to meet their full potential, a Government watchdog has warned.

All the absence management initiatives in the world won’t be effective if central government cannot tackle the low levels of trust and satisfaction displayed by public sector employees.

Britain's public sector faces a crackdown on sickness absence following the revelation that the absenteeism rate at the Department for Work and Pensions was more than 60 per cent higher than the private sector average.

Civil servants could have their pay docked for taking unjustified sick leave as part of a clampdown on the public sector's 'sicknote culture'.

The British government is preparing to open the Pandora's box of public sector pensions by forcing five million teachers, police, firefighters and town hall staff to contribute up to two thirds more to fund their final-salary pensions.

Official figures show that the average civil servant in the UK took two weeks off sick last year, more than 40 per cent more than their private sector counterparts.

Amid the acres of newsprint devoted to reactions to yesterday's pensions report, one thing that everybody – except the government - agrees on is that Gordon Brown's pensions policies have been an unmitigated disaster.

Official figures show that while some councils have an average absenteeism rate of just four sick days per employee per year, Corby's rate is ore than four times this.

The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers list is published today and it includes four public sector employers in the top ten.

A nobel prize winning chemist is leaving Britain for America because he says raising funds for his work will become increasingly difficult after he reaches retirement age later this year.

The UK government has unfunded public sector pension liabilities of approximately £580 billion and will have to hike taxes or cut public spending to pay for it, according to a new report.

The government is facing the threat of industrial action after Gordon Brown unveiled plans to cut more than 100,000 civil service jobs to free up resources for frontline public services.

Staff working in the public sector view it as bureaucratic, outdated and poorly-paid but gain some consolation from its enlightened flexible working policies.

Workers in Britain’s public sector take 40 per cent more days off than their private sector counterparts, costing the taxpayer £4bn a year - the equivalent of an extra 1p on income tax.

The explosion in the number of jobs in the UK public sector has continued unabated, with official statistics showing that some 162,000 new jobs were created in the public sector in the year to June 2003.