PUBLIC SECTOR SICKNESS...

Shocking to see the extent to which the Northern Ireland economy is heavily dependent on the British taxpayer has been growing, according to a new study. It now relies for a remarkable 71.3% of its economic output on the public sector, by far the highest proportion in the UK. Or the world. I wonder which other nations have such a gross imbalance - maybe Iraq?

Economists at the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), who carried out the research, have warned that private sector investment here could be "crowded out". The next most dependent region in the UK is Wales, where public spending is equal to 62.4% of its economic output. At the other end of the spectrum, London had a mere 33.4% public sector share of Gross Domestic Product.

GDP is one of the main indicators of total economic activity within a region, providing a measure of the output. Thushani Gajasinghe, a CEBR economist who helped carry out the analysis, told the Belfast Telegraph: "Private sector investment in Northern Ireland is at risk of being crowded out."

However let us be clear. Government is QUITE CONTENT to grow it's share of GDP as it allows it to CONTROL more and more of every facet of our lives. I would love to see the Public Sector shrink but there are so many vested interests to keep it bloated. 

Comments

[Peter]

In the past few months the government have announced plans to cut back on quangos and the number employed in the public sector in NI. One example will be the reduction in the number of local authorities from 26 (!) to 7. Other reductions will come through privatising the water service (they've denied it, but have set up a public sector company in preparation and a large programme of redundancies is in action).

So the 71% will slowly reduce, but without radical surgery such as seen in the old soviet block after 1989 and which would entail tens of thousands of redundancies, the proportion of public sector output is likely to be above 60% even in ten years' time.

It will be hard to shift the culture from a public-sector dependent one to a more entrepreneurial one. That is likely to take a generation.

[David Vance]

I agree Peter - and the implications are profound at so many levels. It gives Government massive control over a huge chunk of society, it enables greater Statist control, it's just so wrong.

[Scouseproud]

I dont suppose Ross s Royal Lime Juice cordial is stii available! Barrys Amusements still going? Is the Belgravia still on Ulsterville Avenue? The Cafe Royal in Wellington Place? Are the Rotary still meeting in the Grand Central Hotel? Can you still get a supper in the Presbyterian war memorial Hostel? Are Robinson and Cleaver still supplying linen to the Royals?
Is Sir Basil Brooke still the Prime Minister? Unfortunately we have to live now!
If the public sector hadnt stepped in and provided these jobs, what would the unemployment rate be! Gone are the days when Ulsters catholics were all working for the big Protestant firms! Nothings what it was ! In the old days you learnt your trade by working on the building sites with the plasterer, bricklayer, and it would be 2to 3 years before they would let you do anything unsupervised. Today they go to college for 6 months, they think they are plasterers, bricklayers etc and they are not!! The work is substandard. And they wonder why theres so many East Europeans now?

[Tom Tyler]

This news is scandalous. What is needed is a full public enquiry. The government needs to set up a consultation committee of civil servants to investigate this shocking wastage and abundance of quangos. They will in turn need to appoint regional investigative teams, in fact I feel that the scope of this scandal calls for a whole new civil service department to be created, in order to investigate it fully. I suggest a core staff of 15,000, whose job it will be to appoint 35 regional investigative taskforces (staff of 25,000 each should be enough). Ah, we also require an independent auditory commission to ensure that their findings are balanced and fair. Let's call it "CivSted". Say, 1.45 million staff, just to start off with. Of course, this in turn will require an increase in the staffing of administrative/transport/communications/IT/Human resources/interdepartmental departments.

[Monica-Philadelphia]

I think willowfield - that fan of huge government - will have a thing or two to say about this one!

[Nic]

Hi all, if I may dissent from the dissent for a moment:
To propose that "the state" has less control over our lives because we privatise certain sectors from time to time is, I feel, naive. Privatising is actually little more than outsourcing. Ultimate control still remains with government through licencing and labour and environmental and planning rules, regulations and laws as well as inumerable other devices direct and indirect like duties, VAT, subsidies, incentive schemes... the list goes on and on.
Instead of corrupting our government, entrepreneurs making campaign donations are in fact engaging in a bidding war for the role of acting as government agents. So government is arguably corrupting entrepreneurs rather than the other way 'round.
Chomsky (who is like sooo 1980s these days and I know I'm not doing my cred any good by quoting him) sums up our western capitalist system very well when he describes it as "socialising the risks and privatising the profits".
It's the way of the world.
Cheers,

[Nic]

Apropos state control via private enterprise: what about those New York Times revelations today that the US government basically forced SWIFT to secretly siphon off confidential bank transactions and report them to the US' GeStaPo (lit. secret state police) aka CIA?
I. Rest. My. Case.