289. Why we need fewer civil servants
6/21/202648 min
Can Andy Burnham’s civil service employ fewer but more productive officials? Is it fair to blame Brexit and Covid for the rising headcount? Is the government buying British the best growth policy? How the government can save £30bn a year by being more efficient.
Tech boss Stephen Kelly - former CEO of Sage Group - tells us about working with David Cameron’s government to make £50bn in public sector efficiency savings. Plus find out why he thinks he was sent to the wrong building for a government meeting. Listen to Robert and Steph’s interview.
The Rest is Money is brought to you by Octopus Energy, Britain’s smart energy pioneer.
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Video Editor: Dylan Bonham
Senior Producer: Isabelle Bougeard
Exec Producers: Chris Sawyer and Tom Whiter
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:01
2010, we spent 3.6 billion a year on consultants. You know, people- Wow ... reading our watch, telling us the time. Civil service, Stephen, is like an infinite wall, infinitely high, infinitely wide. Every 10 billion pound we save is half a million junior nurses' salaries a year, is three million primary school places. But when you're running a business, and the civil service is fundamentally a business, needs to have a strategy, a vision, a plan, and then you've got to execute the plan. You wanna have the best talent in the right swim lanes to deliver that.
Steph McGovern· Host0:31
What percentage of procurement, that's government purchase of goods and services, A, went to British companies and, B, went to smaller companies, and how did that change on your watch?
Speaker 10:42
That's a great question. So, um, government spends on public procurement- Yeah ... billion a year.
Steph McGovern· Host0:48
Mm.
Speaker 10:48
430 billion.
Steph McGovern· Host0:49
We're delighted to say that this year The Rest Is Money is powered by Octopus Energy, so we're joined by its founder and CEO, Greg Jackson. So Greg, I heard that the prices of solar and home battery storage are falling, so is it worth waiting before you invest in them?
Greg Jackson1:06
Uh, first of all, we never know what's gonna happen to the future price of energy. It could go up or go down. So, uh, I think when people try to do a really detailed payback calculation, uh, the problem is you don't really know what the alternative is. But I don't know many people who've regretted getting these technologies, 'cause the one thing, whenever you get them, is it helps insulate you against the volatility of the market prices.