Salmond outlines plan to reform civil service if SNP win..

azzuri · Salmond outlines plan to reform civil service if SNP win..

see - http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/66070.html

Salmond outlines plan to reform civil service if SNP wins power

SNP leader Alex Salmond wants a major reform of the civil service if his party wins power at Holyrood, and plans to begin talks with the country's top official as soon as this autumn.

The pressure to get planning started more than nine months from the election has brought a response from Scotland's most senior civil servant that he expects to invite a broader range of party leaders to discuss a possible new administration, including the Greens.

Mr Salmond's preparations for winning power next May, and leading a fast-moving first 100 days, include reforming departments of the Scottish Executive, with streamlining, cutting bureaucracy costs and focussing on three dominant departments - sustainable growth, health and education.

There are currently nine departments, which do not all match with ministerial portfolios. Mr Salmond said: "There has to be a streamlining and far more focus, but there would be a comprehensive discussion of the pros and cons. Presumably there's a rationale, but it's not easy to see what it is."

Leaving out the justice department as a priority department leaves the SNP vulnerable to the charge from Labour that Mr Salmond is underplaying the importance of law and order, which Labour is gearing up to use as its main campaign plank.

There is also potential for tensions between an SNP administration and the civil service, which remains part of the UK civil service, but a Nationalist administration is likely to pressure officials into creating a distinct organisation, without lines of control from London.

Mr Salmond, who worked as a Scottish Office economist in the 1980s, wrote last week to Sir John Elvidge, permanent secretary at the Scottish Executive, to ask for an early start to talks about a possible transition to an SNP-led administration. This is part of a strategy intended to increase voters' perceptions of the SNP leader as the alternative to Jack McConnell as first minister.

A civil service spokesman has made clear that there are plans to widen the range of opposition leaders who could be involved.

While Mr Salmond and Annabel Goldie, the Scottish Tory leader, can expect to be invited to discussions, it is likely to expand to Robin Harper and Shiona Baird, joint leaders of the Scottish Greens. The Greens have been talking themselves up as well-placed to play a part in government after the 2007 election. The leadership had talks on the issue with Mr Salmond earlier this year.

The SNP leader is soon to set out his plans for the first 100 days of a potential SNP-led administration, and yesterday made clear that legislation will include replacement of council tax with local income tax, abolition of the student endowment scheme, an independence referendum bill and the setting up of a £5m Saltire Prize for innovation.

He also wants to prioritise "fundamental" reform of Scottish Enterprise.

Oops! Oh No Eck, that's blown it! The civil servants will never let you win now! Very Happy

azzuri

and it seems like Labour plan to do something similiar...

see - http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=1042422006

Labour election promise to slash costly council staffing

LABOUR ministers are drawing up plans to make sweeping cuts in the number of bureaucrats and managers in Scotland's councils by demanding that departments merge across local authority boundaries.

The Scotsman has learned that Labour intends to go into the 2007 Holyrood elections with a promise to reduce bureaucracy in Scotland's councils.

If elected, this would mean thousands of job cuts at the top, highly-paid end of local authority management.

Labour leaders do not believe that every council needs its own education department, for example, with its own director and deputy director.

Other departments which Labour believe could be merged across councils include human resources, accounts, information technology and refuse collection.

The Labour plans will not result in a widespread merger of councils themselves, as feared by many councillors. There may be moves to consolidate the three councils in Ayrshire, but aside from that, most councillors will retain their jobs.

Clackmannanshire and Stirling councils have already approved a "joint delivery" plan to work out which departments can be merged and this is the model Labour ministers want others to follow.

Other potential departmental mergers may happen in Mid and West Lothian - which is only responsible for 11 secondary and 66 primary schools - as well as Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.

Tom McCabe, the public service minister, has hinted at this sort of restructuring but it has never been clear exactly what he intends to do.

Last month, writing in The Scotsman, the minister said that concentrating on the number of councils in Scotland was "missing the bigger picture".

Senior Labour sources have now revealed that Mr McCabe believes councils are over-staffed and that amalgamations and mergers across council boundaries can divert more money for front-line services.

One Labour insider said: "Why does every council have a director of education? Wouldn't it be better to have one director of education looking after three departments?

"The experience for the parent will be the same, they will still have a department to go to with their problems, but there will be fewer managers."

By targeting council officers and telling councillors that their jobs will be safe - as long as they come up with plans for cuts elsewhere - Labour leaders believe they can get councillors on their side, isolating senior managers.

The only likely candidates for full amalgamation are the three Ayrshire councils of North, South and East and ministers are not looking for any other full mergers.

A spokesman for COSLA, the umbrella group for local authorities, said ministers had to make sure they did not single out councils for unfair treatment.

He said: "It would undermine the process of public-sector reform if either any part of it is exempt, or if parts of it are allowed to restructure and reform without the implications of that reform for others being considered."

Graeme Morrice, the leader of West Lothian Council, also urged caution, saying it was wrong to be prescriptive.

He said: "There may be instances in which local authorities may want to join up departments and we will look at all these things but, at the end of the day, it has to be on the basis of: will it make things better?"

John Swinney, for the SNP, said described the Labour plans as "too little, too late".

He said: "It is all very well for the Labour Party to dictate to local authorities, but Labour ministers have presided over a massive expansion of the quango state so it's hard to take any of this very seriously."

Murdo Fraser, for the Tories, said he would be nervous about an "Executive-driven top-down approach".

Of course, isn't it strange that Labour are promising to do this only now an election is coming up? The party that created the bloated public sector now wants to start dismantling it?

Seems the civil servants can't trust Labour to keep their jobs either.....spooky! Smile

SLG

Well, all parties say that they'll cut bureaucracy etc, and usually fail to deliver. In this case, Labour and the Lib Dems have been in power for long enough. It may be all talk from the SNP, but there's only one way to find out. It's about time they were given a shot at government.

Anthropos

Morph

No i think you will find that in the book of Labour history, "Big boys Did it and Ran away" Rolling Eyes

Aventinian

SF102

SLG

It can be done. Labour and Lib Dems have had their chance. The SNP have never been in a position to have to follow through on their commitments, so they deserve a chance IMO. If they fail, which I'm sure there is a very good chance that they will, then they can be lumped in with the rest of them.

Aventinian

Cado

Its interesting to note that Labour are proposing the same - so it seems the SNP are leading the debate and labour are following - though it helps in not making issues which are fundementally important to the future well being of scotland devisive - in that eveyone realises something must be done.

I think reform can be made to happen - 99% of the reasons politicians are unable to do things are simply because the civil service can't be arsed IMO.

Its often been a feature of my rants but what people often fail to see (IMO) is the vast corporate structure that is government - it exists below politicians and sits at the heart of all the important civic/national functions. It is organised like any other large corporation - with directors etc - yet politicians have (in reality) no way whatsoever of forcing it to do anything - you can't sack them - you can only offer them early retirement and a very large solid gold carriage clock.

Politicians can write/pass as many laws/policies as they want - if the department, in all reality, is unwilling to enact them there is nothing politicians can do about it - yet these depts dominate every aspect of may of the most essential aspects of the nation.

Either way - we need to books to balance whilst keeping to country bouyant.

George

SLG

Aventinian

George

Cado

I always go by the series 'Yes, Minister' when thinking of the civil service.

I don't deny that we need 'national administration' but when you stp to think that virtually 100% of the countries essential functions are in some way tied up with the civil service then it is a feature of our society that we can't ignore.

Many of my older relatives berate me when I condemn polticians for failing on this and that - I make the claim they're all powerful - they tell me they actually have very little power.

All Ministers of state effectivily act as the chairperson of a department.

This minister wants to enact X - yet they have no power (in effect) to sack - they can't use any other company - they have no power to affect pay etc - they are stuck with how many people they've got and they have no levers whatsoever to get them to do what the minister wants.

It would be a bit like the Govt banning all message boards and telling us to use the BBC ones - look how much influence we've got over that! And we STILL have to pay full whack...

when a minister gets sacked for failing to implement policy X - you never hear about the Chief Executive and Directors of the department whose job it was to implement that policy.

We only elect the Chairpeople of the board - the bulk of government is run by Cheif Execs and Directors none of us have ever heard of - these are the people who are responsibile for getting results - the politicians are mearly there as our representatives to tell them what to do.

Take the Home office - Ried and Clarke have had/are having a whole host of problems getting it working - yet its the job of the bosses within the Home Office to do it - not the minister.

We have in effect one single monopoly running the country - we just change the few individuals at the very top every few years - but they have no power to see things through.

In essence I think the civils service (ie direct Govt employees) should be trimmed down to the minimum - if that requires things redesigned to suit that then so be it - the politicians should also be able to have far more discretion in sacking those at the top.

The director that oversaw the tax credit fiasco did resign from his post - only to take up a job on GB advisory team!!! No doubt with a little pay rise also.

If your into hunting out corporate monopolies then the British Government is it - ikts one of the largest - most cash hungry organisations there is - and no-one, not even our elected representatives have much influence over it.