More spending vs Better spending
Today's Dom Post includes an article about National's plans to cut taxes and the possible effect on Health and Education spending. Dr Cullen complains that tax cuts will cause spending in Health and Education to be cut as well.
It could be that is not such a bad thing - so many bureaucrats have been added to Education and Health that both systems are now struggling to cope with the demands bureaucracies demand on them.
For instance, under Labout spending in Health has gone up by an additional 50% since 1999. Since then, Hospital waiting lists have gone up, the number of operations has remained pretty much static, and scandals about underfunding in various areas of Health (think Psycriatric Care) have surfaced from time to time.
The question for Don Brash is to make a pledge that more operations will be done and more teachers (who are paid more) will be in the classrooms then follow through on that by showing how the bureaucracy can be cut without detrimenting output.
Thankfully that's not hard.
It could be that is not such a bad thing - so many bureaucrats have been added to Education and Health that both systems are now struggling to cope with the demands bureaucracies demand on them.
For instance, under Labout spending in Health has gone up by an additional 50% since 1999. Since then, Hospital waiting lists have gone up, the number of operations has remained pretty much static, and scandals about underfunding in various areas of Health (think Psycriatric Care) have surfaced from time to time.
The question for Don Brash is to make a pledge that more operations will be done and more teachers (who are paid more) will be in the classrooms then follow through on that by showing how the bureaucracy can be cut without detrimenting output.
Thankfully that's not hard.
posted by Michael at
8:33 PM
2 Comments:
So which bureaucrats are these, Michael? Would you mind listing them? Or are they simply a figment of your imagination?
By
Jordan, at 5:34 PM
In the year ended June 1999 the Ministry of Health spent $30.2 Million on employee costs. (Source MOH Annual Report 1999)
In the year ended Jun 2004 this was $73.8 Million. (Source MOH Annual Report 2005)
I concede there were mergers of some of the smaller agencies into the Ministry but the Ministry is now double the size it was in 1999 and is not producing better outcomes.
By
Michael, at 1:15 PM
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