I've previously written about how many employees across all sectors deserve better from their pension schemes, whether final salary or defined contribution, public or private sector. What's clear from so many studies is how little most of us will be getting when we come to retire and how so many public sector pensions are not 'gold plated' at all, despite the rhetoric spouted in numerous debates.
So much of that debate about pensions has been skewed by government and its policy proponents as a public v private, cuts v fairness debate, when the actual position has most of us, across all sectors, looking forward to relatively little in retirement and after a decision made by Osborne in 2010, even less.
The attack on all pensions via the government's 2010 budget announcement that in future pension and benefits up-rates will be based on the Consumer Prices Index rather than the Retail Prices Index will be challenged in the courts by public sector unions this week. It's not only public sector pensions that will be affected by this 2010 decision, it's also estimated that hundreds of thousands of private sector workers will be affected as well.
Why the change? The CPI is less generous and the RPI a more accurate indicator of inflation, which of course is why Osborne claimed the former was the more appropriate index - it suited his agenda then and still does now. It's mean spirited, an attack on millions who had a 'contract' with their employers stretching back years. In numbers terms the estimated savings of this change equate closely to the vast sums shovelled into the banks to save our banking system (and keep those 'masters of the universe' in their inflated salaries, pensions and bonuses).
As we find too often, profit and benefit is privatised for the few, loss and cuts transferred as a burden to the public and those who serve the public. It appears the vested interests of the few continue to set the terms of policy, rather than the needs of the many. That's sad, iniquitous and will yet again find a voice in the wider society and economy over the longer term as people's quality of life and their sense of justice affected. Good luck to the challenge in the courts.
Sunday 23 October 2011
Tuesday 4 October 2011
More on Nokia, Santander and service quality
After yesterday's blog highlighting the groundbreaking work of public and third sector services in supporting families with multiple problems and challenges, I couldn't help but return to another service related theme.
In August I wrote about the appalling quality of a mobile 'phone product of Nokia that had blighted part of my life and business. Not opinion - fact, based on a personal experience. I also reported a while before that on Nokia's collapsing market value, i.e. from £200bn to £15bn in ten years. I made connections between the quality of their product and this collapse.
Now, some of that value collapse will also no doubt have been due to the panicking 'markets' - another bete noir of mine, i.e. the 'red braces' of the City who are incapable of managing their portfolios and our pensions on time horizons of more than 24 hours. Their inability to regulate their own emotions and make the rest of us pay, is simply the flip side of the venality of the bankers whose packaging of toxic debt has left us with a £60bn+ debt burden now being taken out of the hide of the public and third sectors (and tangentially from the private sector as well).
Where is this leading? Well, my eye was taken by a small side-bar in the press on 30.9.11 which simply read:
"Nokia is axing a further 3500 jobs on top of the £871m cost-cutting plan announced in April. Nokia will cut 1300 jobs from its location and commerce division, which makes maps for Nokia 'phones, and close its Cluj factory in Romania, resulting in 2200 job losses (which must be catastrophic for that city in one of Europe's poorest states - SL). The redundancies, which will not affect the UK (phew - dodged a bullet there then, didn't we - SL), follow a year of upheaval at Nokia. In April Nokia said it would cut 4000 jobs and transfer 3000 employees to Acccenture, as Stephen Elop, the new CEO, restructured the company to focus on smartphones."
All I would say to Stephen is this - if your company concentrated more on improving the quality and reliability of its products than a particular market segmentation, and spent a fraction of its almost £1bn restructuring costs on reliability, it might not have the reputational cache of a city trader (whether wearing red braces or not) and the future prospects of the Greek Government.
I was also tickled to read in an article side by side with the Nokia piece, that Santander's UK banking arm was suffering a profit hit due to slow economic growth, low interest rates and regulatory costs. As a result, a floatation of the UK arm was being delayed until 2013. Whilst I have not shared this before, my company had a long and fruitless dispute with Santander as a result of it peremptorily freezing an account of ours. Despite several rounds of appeal we were never able to extract a simple and courteous reply to two questions:
Why we were not informed the account was about to be frozen?
Why we were we not informed immediately it had been frozen?
Simple enough questions one would think and if posed of many public sector bodies would receive a reply and in good time. Not from Santander though. Britain's second (?) most complained-about bank simply quoted, or should I say parroted, its regulations in each response. In effect we were told "we did this because we could and we don't have to tell anyone we're going to do it or when we have done it'.
And this is the so called 'commercial' approach to service delivery that the public sector is exhorted to replicate? Well obviously not, but you get the point. I hope the two new CEO's of these organisations will finally attend to not only the strategic direction of their organisations, but also the experience of individual customers s upon whom their future economic and reputation prospects rest to a greater or lesser extent.
In August I wrote about the appalling quality of a mobile 'phone product of Nokia that had blighted part of my life and business. Not opinion - fact, based on a personal experience. I also reported a while before that on Nokia's collapsing market value, i.e. from £200bn to £15bn in ten years. I made connections between the quality of their product and this collapse.
Now, some of that value collapse will also no doubt have been due to the panicking 'markets' - another bete noir of mine, i.e. the 'red braces' of the City who are incapable of managing their portfolios and our pensions on time horizons of more than 24 hours. Their inability to regulate their own emotions and make the rest of us pay, is simply the flip side of the venality of the bankers whose packaging of toxic debt has left us with a £60bn+ debt burden now being taken out of the hide of the public and third sectors (and tangentially from the private sector as well).
Where is this leading? Well, my eye was taken by a small side-bar in the press on 30.9.11 which simply read:
"Nokia is axing a further 3500 jobs on top of the £871m cost-cutting plan announced in April. Nokia will cut 1300 jobs from its location and commerce division, which makes maps for Nokia 'phones, and close its Cluj factory in Romania, resulting in 2200 job losses (which must be catastrophic for that city in one of Europe's poorest states - SL). The redundancies, which will not affect the UK (phew - dodged a bullet there then, didn't we - SL), follow a year of upheaval at Nokia. In April Nokia said it would cut 4000 jobs and transfer 3000 employees to Acccenture, as Stephen Elop, the new CEO, restructured the company to focus on smartphones."
All I would say to Stephen is this - if your company concentrated more on improving the quality and reliability of its products than a particular market segmentation, and spent a fraction of its almost £1bn restructuring costs on reliability, it might not have the reputational cache of a city trader (whether wearing red braces or not) and the future prospects of the Greek Government.
I was also tickled to read in an article side by side with the Nokia piece, that Santander's UK banking arm was suffering a profit hit due to slow economic growth, low interest rates and regulatory costs. As a result, a floatation of the UK arm was being delayed until 2013. Whilst I have not shared this before, my company had a long and fruitless dispute with Santander as a result of it peremptorily freezing an account of ours. Despite several rounds of appeal we were never able to extract a simple and courteous reply to two questions:
Why we were not informed the account was about to be frozen?
Why we were we not informed immediately it had been frozen?
Simple enough questions one would think and if posed of many public sector bodies would receive a reply and in good time. Not from Santander though. Britain's second (?) most complained-about bank simply quoted, or should I say parroted, its regulations in each response. In effect we were told "we did this because we could and we don't have to tell anyone we're going to do it or when we have done it'.
And this is the so called 'commercial' approach to service delivery that the public sector is exhorted to replicate? Well obviously not, but you get the point. I hope the two new CEO's of these organisations will finally attend to not only the strategic direction of their organisations, but also the experience of individual customers s upon whom their future economic and reputation prospects rest to a greater or lesser extent.
Monday 3 October 2011
Open Public Services - Worcestershire Family Intervention Project
Here's an interesting piece from the Open Public Services website describing a family intervention model in Worcestershire. Below the short article you will find a link to a much longer piece on a larger scheme in the City of Westminster.
"What was the situation?
Worcestershire has pockets of deprivation and families with multiple problems and complex needs who are not coping. For some families, the patchwork of support and service silos was exacerbated by rural isolation and two tier local government and there was little prospect of breaking the cycle of multiple interventions.
Inspired by the Dundee Families Project, Mel Bailey from Vestia Community Trust set about building a partnership between Children’s Services, the Police and Worcestershire Housing Associations to establish a Worcestershire Family Intervention Project (WFIP).
Worcestershire has pockets of deprivation and families with multiple problems and complex needs who are not coping. For some families, the patchwork of support and service silos was exacerbated by rural isolation and two tier local government and there was little prospect of breaking the cycle of multiple interventions.
Inspired by the Dundee Families Project, Mel Bailey from Vestia Community Trust set about building a partnership between Children’s Services, the Police and Worcestershire Housing Associations to establish a Worcestershire Family Intervention Project (WFIP).
How does it work?
The WFIP has a pooled budget with contributions from Housing Associations, Supporting People and Worcestershire County Council. Project workers work intensively with a small caseload of families, over a prolonged period to help them transform their lives. Workers tasks are determined by the needs of each family and not their ‘service silo’ and they are recruited on their ability to do whatever it takes to help families turn their lives around
Staff work flexibly and are with the families when they need help the most; early mornings getting the household up and ready for school or evenings helping establish bed time routines. It is not the staff’s job to get the children up or put children to bed but to help the parents acquire the necessary skills
The WFIP has a pooled budget with contributions from Housing Associations, Supporting People and Worcestershire County Council. Project workers work intensively with a small caseload of families, over a prolonged period to help them transform their lives. Workers tasks are determined by the needs of each family and not their ‘service silo’ and they are recruited on their ability to do whatever it takes to help families turn their lives around
Staff work flexibly and are with the families when they need help the most; early mornings getting the household up and ready for school or evenings helping establish bed time routines. It is not the staff’s job to get the children up or put children to bed but to help the parents acquire the necessary skills
What were the results?
115 families across Worcestershire have been supported since 2009, and the scheme has generated estimated savings of £8 million (according to the DfE Negative Outcomes Costing Tool). Anti Social Behaviour has been reduced by 40% and those under threat of eviction have been reduced by 27%. 41% of cases have reported improved parenting as a result of the scheme and 36% have reported improved behaviour in school."
Also worth a read is a much longer report of a larger project in the City of Westminster, the Family Recovery programme that began in 2008 which, has some quite startling numbers concerning the savings and avoided costs from their programme. You can read it here:
Sunday 2 October 2011
Open Public Services White Paper
The Open Public Services White Paper is in the consultation stage and SOLACE have produced their response on behalf of 1700 Chief Executives and senior managers. Acknowledging that a peace, of sorts, has recently broken out between the profession and Eric Pickles, this still seems to satisfy itself to move along the surface of the White Paper, tending to make thoughtful, conciliatory comments. Admittedly, it identifies some important points about the centrality of local government to the probable success of the eventual legislation and what local government is already doing in regard to aspects like competition and procurement, neighbourhood working and community engagement. But it avoids mounting a more ‘in-terms’ critique of the underlying assumption, and massive risk, in the government programme, i.e. the fragmentation of local government services as the sine qua non of its plans for localisation. Nevertheless, there are recognisable strategic and tactical considerations in something as important as this first stage consultation and having the response point out, a touch trenchantly, it’s local government that leads the public sector in delivering so many of the changes required of the wider public sector, was welcome. Read SOLACE's response via the link.
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