Efficiency savings

What surprises me in the course of the UK government's financial crisis and the election campaigns, is how the efficiency savings and forthcoming budget cuts are perceived as so difficult.

The other day, dropped in to a BBC election piece, was a line about how 'senior Whitehall officials' were meeting to look at how they could achieve the Tory's planned £6,000,000,000 savings. This was portrayed as news.

Now I've worked mostly in the private sector all my adult life, with occasion temping forays into the public sector, and I'm wondering why efficiency savings aren't standard procedure. Why doesn't every single member of the public sector payroll find themselves every month or every week in a team meeting with their colleagues where their team leader/manager asks "how can we do our jobs quicker, more efficiently, more easily and for less money?"

And then as a result of this productivity increases, efficiency improves and costs come down. And additionally there's a big heap of ideas for how to save time and money that are never acted on for unspecified reasons of hassle but when belt-tightening time comes along, can easily be 'actioned'.

Doesn't this happen?

It sure happens in the private sector, its how companies stay in business and make profits. Its not a difficult thing, in fact its incredibly satisfying.

I guess there are quarters of the public sector where some private sector manager has wandered in by mistake and such efficiency meetings do take place. But why isn't it standard practise?

Why does the government make out like its like trying to get blood from a stone?
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