Government seems to spouse the idea that cuts equal savings, a rather twisted mathematical assumption that equals zero, which is not the same as ‘savings’. Savings means finding ways of doing things better and still getting the benefits.

How are we supposed to support thousands of regulatory regimes and the staff, local authorities and agencies that deliver it without proper systems and structures? they cost money, true, but that does not make them unnecessary.

True savings come from understanding what we do and finding out how to do it better, that generally brings larger savings than deciding (by a bunch of people who will probably not even read the business case and if they did would barely understand the first two sentences of it) something should be cut and ignoring why it is there in the first place.

In many cases what government calls ‘waste’ is what the rational world calls ‘required to function’, true waste is never tackled.

I too am seeing bright talented people leave the Government and it’s leaving a hole that isn’t going to get filled.

Even more disturbingly I’m seeing system developers resigning because of the uncertainty of whether or not they have a job in the next couple of weeks when their contract expires because we can no longer renew them easily. It now involves filling out numerous HR Justification forms, going through at least 4 separate Senior Management approval stages with no guarantee that you will actually be able to renew the contract – as a manager how can you deliver against your Objectives in keeping the systems running, providing the technical skills, helpdesk, configuration enhancements when your own Senior Management take away the very resources you need to deliver all that?

There are the people in the background that keep our systems running, performing patches, upgrades, change control, configuration enhancements, trouble shooting connectivity problems, Server errors etc – non-PSG skills that aren’t recognised when it comes to pay, so it’s *extremely* difficult to recruit perm civil servants with these non-PSG skills set, thus we buy these specialised skills in through contractors who keep up to date with the latest technologies, coding principles,qualifications to keep themselves employable. They also keep our systems working, up to date and adaptable to a changing environment or business requirements.

We’re being told to cut, to lose staff, to lose contractors – it’s being made so difficult now that it’s extremely hard to renew an existing contract. But what I’m not hearing is what our Management want us to *stop* doing. The message I’m receiving is that we are still expected to deliver against existing objectives, responsibilities and more. But with what?

Something has to give. If Government is to become ‘leaner’, ‘smaller’ etc, then decisions need to be made as to what we *stop* doing. Once we *stop* doing ‘things’, the next step is maintain the status quo and not think outside the box, or to innovate because normally there is a price tag associated with innovation.

Even if you look to innovate internally, to do that you need skilled staff, skilled staff that aren’t fire fighting problems constantly. They need space to think, to try avenues perhaps a little less orthodox and be given room to succeed or fail – innovation doesn’t just ‘magically’ happen. You need to create an environment that allows for innovation to happen, but what is happening now throughout Whitehall isn’t exactly conducive to that.

I fear innovation will be the first of many casualties in this new era of fiscal austerity.