I am not an advocate of "cut spending matra" for political gains. It has to be done in a manner that creates a more efficient public service without impacting upon service delivery.
At least here in Australia, government programs are run really innefficiently.
I'll use my own work as an example, followed by some more general examples.
I work for a government Mental Health service provider.
I currently manage a $15 million budget and have a forecast $1 million deficit if we have all vacant positions filled because funding is inadequate.
Due to government cutbacks my budget this year is reduced to $14m, creating a $2 m structural deficit.
Now this implies we have to slash $2 million worth of services.
What happens to all those poor mentally ill patients who will miss out on services due to cutbacks?Answer: NOTHING
Current service is completely innefficient. E.g.
- The Inpatient facility (or temporary asylum for those not in the know) has declining patient numbers and is running with a surplus of 5-8 nursing staff alone.
So cutting 5-8 staff ($500k - $800k) = no service loss.
- Some of the community based case managers have case loads that are as few as 3 patients. Their allocation should be up to 20 clients.
Slash several inefficient lazy staff (say $300k = no service loss).
- We run with an average of 20 vacancies out of 100 positions. Most are never filled and we have several positions that have not been filled in 5+ years). They do have funding assigned to them.
Say abolish 10 perpetually vacant positions = savings of $1 million = no service loss.
- Receptionist pool at 2 different services is huge. Each one has about 3 receptionists, yet they probably don't see more than 20-30 clients a day.
Scrap 2 administrative positions = $100k = No service loss.
- Doctor's get paid oncall for a ratio of 1 in 3 days but actually are oncall 1 in 6.
Reduce oncall allowance = $50k = No service loss.
- We have 8 cars for community case managers and at any one time at least 4 are not being used.
Reduce fleet by 4 cars = $40k = no service loss.
We are meant to service 3% of the population. We serve 0.70%. That's how innefficient we are.
So we could save $1.7m - $2.0m with ease without any impact on clients.
Now I've also worked for the rural hospital sector and the local university who are just as innefficient.
At one stage we spent over $10 million on a computer program that was obsolete at the time we acquired it and never entered service.
Governments Australia wide are this innefficient. Here's some examples:
Over $1 billion spent on 11 1960's vintage SH-2 Seasprite helicopters after which the order was scrapped and the helos are in storage having never entered service.
Collins class submarine procurement - over $5 billion spent on 6 submarines that don't work and have issues with everything from water filtration to engines.
Spending millions of dollars on upgrading schools that were already scheduled to close within the next 6 months.
House Insulation Program - government funded insulating of homes. Scheme was badly implemented and led to 4 deaths and 100 house fires. Cost was $1 billion to implement and $1-$1.5 billion to reverse it and compensate all affected.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars being spent on commissions to look into saving Tamar River from siltation issues and no action ever being endorsed or undertaken.
I've read similar stories about British and US programs (e.g. $25,000 toilets brought for US Navy bases in the 1990s).
Hence Governments can slash a lot of funding without actually impacting any level of service delivery.
