Where Your Money Goes
Page 31
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IF it takes four permanently installed civil servants to study the interests of the Government on one small contract, what is the total number of men and women employed on similar duties throughout the country? Your answer is as good as ours.
A company which "The Commercial Motor" recently visited has a contract concerned with vehicle overhaul. It is not by any means a big contract, but the Government force needed to "supervise" it costs the country about £2,000 a year.
There is a chief inspector, a technical inspector who runs the vehicles for a few miles to see that the wheels do not come off, and two female clerks. One visiting inspector would be ample to cover such a contract, and so far as the clerical side is concerned, there would seem no logical reason why any Government staff is needed on the premises, because, as our representative was informed, it in no way speeds up the payment of accounts.
Productive industry is crying out for clerical assistants. How many women are tucked away in offices of organizations carrying out Government contracts, and how many men are spending their time walking aimlessly about workshops making fatuous remarks to justify their jobs?
Apart from the question of wasted man power, there is the financial side. It would be interesting 10 know how many civil servants are engaged on similar work, and the cost to the country to keep them in their " cushy " jobs.