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As Eva Wiseman points out:
'while governments have an obsession with efficiency, its still limited solely to cost-cutting. There seems to be little interest in, for instance, making access to welfare payments more efficient or healthcare, or childcare... No, efficiency is only important when trying to maximise profit'!
efficiency defined by cost, rather than by effective practice(s);
we know the cost(s) off everything but the value of nothing!
And it's not even accurately defined by cost, because it typically doesn't take into account how cuts in one area lead to lost revenue or more funding needs in others.
There have been many studies based on 'SROI' - Social Return on Investment - particularly in the area of homelessness and mental health, showing that proper, and prompt support saves money, because it enables sufferers to stay in or go back to work, pay taxes their whole lives, use less medication and other government services, etc, etc.
Almost all 'public services' should really be viewed as social investment - education, health, transport, social housing, waste collection - whatever - it would be good to add utilities, as in most countries - are precisely the investments that enable everyone to work more productively, produce more wealth, pay more tax, etc...
Very well put; the disaster of false economies is all around us, but what I would add to your account is the domination of short-term reasoning behind the focus on costs; costs can be reduced relatively quickly in the budget cycle, investment returns, especially SROI take some time to materialise & so cannot be accounted for by the economically myopic.... this is an issue across the UK & lies (among other things) behind the 'productivity puzzle'...
@ChrisMayLA6 @GeofCox Access to treatment for diabetes is the best case study I’ve seen for this. Cost cutting there increased the number of amputations and of prosthetics and long-term disability support needed and offset the cost savings by over and order of magnitude. But the two are in totally different parts of the NHS budget and so the people responsible for the cost savings looked good to their management.
I like the study showing that universal free school meals wouldn't cost anything at all over the long term, because it's by those well-known radical lefties Price Waterhouse Coopers... https://urbanhealth.org.uk/insights/reports/expanding-free-school-meals-a-cost-benefit-analysis
@bencurthoys @GeofCox @david_chisnall @ChrisMayLA6 What a communist that guy was! ;)