November 2010 - Rick

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Wikileaks to turn its fire on corporations

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says his next targets will be major corporations. He told Forbes magazine that fifty percent of the documents he is waiting to release relate to the private sector and that he is planning to publish material about a major...

Published 30 Nov 2010 8:53 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Eric Pickles and the Ghost of Winterval Past

Christmas is a time for telling old stories and legends. Eric Pickles has started early with an annual favourite - Winterval. The Conservative Party’s web-site reports: As the lights are turned on for Christmas all over the country, Mr Pickles urged...

Published 29 Nov 2010 7:59 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Away overseas

I’m off overseas for a few days. (Does anyone else apart from the British say ‘overseas’?) Some good stuff on the Irish debacle from Mary-Anne Sieghart, Chris Farrell, Lisa O’Carroll and John Naughton. I liked this from the Redundant...

Published 23 Nov 2010 10:39 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Recruitment freeze = increase in agency staff. Who’d a thought it?

The folk at the Guardian have been having some fun with the government’s recently released public spending data. Among other things, they have discovered that the spending on agency staff went up by 65% after the recruitment freeze. Well who’d...

Published 19 Nov 2010 3:14 PM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Do it yourself – or else…!

For some reason, probably my state of mind at the moment, this made me roar with laughter this morning: The Queen, Baroness Thatcher, Parliament and flagship West End stores have only just escaped an extraordinary plan by Conservative-controlled Westminster...

Published 19 Nov 2010 12:13 PM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Sarah Baskerville and the hounding of the public sector

By now, you have probably heard about Sarah Baskerville, the Department for Transport civil servant who was attacked by Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail. His article has been thoroughly fisked by Adrian Short so I won’t bother to do a line-by-line...

Published 16 Nov 2010 11:41 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

Filed under: Uncategorized
Why efficiency savings won’t save us from frontline cuts

Was anyone surprised when the House of Commons public accounts committee found that only £6bn of the promised £35bn government efficiency savings had been delivered? Well, I have to admit that I was surprised but only by the fact that the … Continue...

Published 15 Nov 2010 11:08 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

Filed under: Uncategorized
Why? Because it says so in the policy manual!

This week, it’s the Redundant Public Servant’s turn to tell us what he’d like to change about HR. To the point, as usual, he lays into HR, and to other managers in his organisation, for slavishly sticking to processes, even … Continue...

Published 11 Nov 2010 2:16 PM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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A warning from Gartmore – losing talent could mean losing your business

‘People are our greatest asset’ is one of those clichés that chief executives repeat at conferences or in the annual report but, more often than not, don’t really believe. For many companies, though, their assets really are in the heads...

Published 10 Nov 2010 8:48 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Can private sector bosses help the government make savings?

According to the Independent, Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell is planning to ask business leaders for help with downsizing government departments and identifying those ever elusive efficiency savings. The government is refusing to say who the...

Published 9 Nov 2010 12:16 PM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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And sir and friends were crucified (Part 2)

Guy Hands has lost his fight with Citigroup. I didn’t buy the story about a seasoned buyer and seller of companies being duped into taking on a basket-case by a slippery investment banker, and neither did the New York court. Not that EMI …...

Published 5 Nov 2010 1:27 PM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Should the public sector sack ‘em more often?

It’s too hard to sack people in the public sector. That, at least, was the suggestion made in the Radio 4 programme Sack ‘Em earlier this week. The BBC had used Freedom of Information requests to show that very few people get … Continue...

Published 5 Nov 2010 11:52 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Another good reason to keep interest rates low

Former Bank of England economist Danny Gebay has warned that many British households are being kept afloat by low interest rates and that a rate rise could cause a large number of them to default. The problem, he says, is that banks have “lent …...

Published 4 Nov 2010 11:45 PM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

Filed under: Uncategorized
Serco’s letter – a PR cock-up but not a disaster

You may recall that, back in July, the government called its twenty biggest suppliers into a meeting and asked them to share the pain of the public spending cuts by reducing their prices, even where contracts have been agreed. Inevitably, … Continue...

Published 3 Nov 2010 8:51 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

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Redundancy – should you make people work their notice periods?

When you make people redundant, should you get them out of the organisation immediately or make them work out their full notice period? It is becoming increasingly common in the private sector for people not to work their full notice periods when …...

Published 1 Nov 2010 8:17 AM by Flip Chart Fairy Tales

Filed under: Uncategorized

November 2010 - Rick

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Wikileaks to turn its fire on corporations

Eric Pickles and the Ghost of Winterval Past

Away overseas

Recruitment freeze = increase in agency staff. Who’d a thought it?

Do it yourself – or else…!

Sarah Baskerville and the hounding of the public sector

Why efficiency savings won’t save us from frontline cuts

Why? Because it says so in the policy manual!

A warning from Gartmore – losing talent could mean losing your business

Can private sector bosses help the government make savings?

And sir and friends were crucified (Part 2)

Should the public sector sack ‘em more often?

Another good reason to keep interest rates low

Serco’s letter – a PR cock-up but not a disaster

Redundancy – should you make people work their notice periods?