4 ms·

It's possible to have very efficient bureaucracy. European Commission that basically runs European Union (500M people) has just around 25,000 employees [1]. T

by bd 18y ago

It's possible to have very efficient bureaucracy. European Commission that basically runs European Union (500M people) has just around 25,000 employees [1]. This is tiny. Just to get an idea about the scale: New York City (8M people) government employs 250,000 people (though to be fair, I have no idea who is included in this total) [2]. EC seems to be doing something very right. They offer very good working conditions (pay, holidays, benefits, security), so they are able to attract good people. There is a tough competition for these civil servant jobs. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Commission [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_New_York_City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_of_New_York_City

barrkel 18y ago
The EC is only the inter-government stuff. To be fair, you'd have to include all the employees of all the member states' governments too; or alternatively, compare e.g. London governmental employees, though scaled to population and leaving out actual England and UK administration. For example, http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/investorrelations/4480.aspx http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/investorrelations/... shows that Transport for London (buses, trains and underground) alone employs about 18,000 people (and probably quite a bit higher now).
gaius 18y ago
There is a tough competition for these civil servant jobs Because they are massively, massively corrupt. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article399380.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_co... "For nine consecutive years the EU court of auditors has refused to sign off the budget. The numbers are huge. The annual EC budget is around ¤100 billion (£65 billion). The auditors cannot clear 95 per cent of that. We simply cannot tell what is happening to that money"
- bd 18y ago
  Do you really believe that they could get away with 95% fraudulent spending? That nobody would notice 95 billion Euro corruption? Or to put it another way, if this is true, it means that they are able to run real EC functions with just 5 billion Euro budget. That would quite efficient indeed.
  - gaius 18y ago
    Nah, it just means (for example) instead of putting function X out to tender, they just gave it to a friend or a family member. The work still gets done, it just could just be done quicker/cheaper/better with more transparency. I don't believe it's literally the case that Neil Kinnock is socking away a billion Euros a year into his Swiss bank account. Interesting to note that practically his entire family are EC employees tho'.
    - bd 18y ago
      Well, I have zero illusions about top dogs that got their positions by political means/connections. My whole point was about low ranking civil servants that do the bulk of the nitty-gritty administration work and that all must pass through a highly selective competitive exams (1 in 29 applicants [1] cf. Harvard's 1 in 14 [2]). And for these people, from my limited anecdotal evidence I got impression that they are indeed efficient, at least for bureaucracy standards. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSO [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard#Admissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard#Admissions

by bd 18y ago

barrkel 18y ago

The EC is only the inter-government stuff. To be fair, you'd have to include all the employees of all the member states' governments too; or alternatively, compare e.g. London governmental employees, though scaled to population and leaving out actual England and UK administration. For example, http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/investorrelations/4480.aspx http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/investorrelations/... shows that Transport for London (buses, trains and underground) alone employs about 18,000 people (and probably quite a bit higher now).

gaius 18y ago

There is a tough competition for these civil servant jobs Because they are massively, massively corrupt. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article399380.ece http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_co... "For nine consecutive years the EU court of auditors has refused to sign off the budget. The numbers are huge. The annual EC budget is around ¤100 billion (£65 billion). The auditors cannot clear 95 per cent of that. We simply cannot tell what is happening to that money"

bd 18y ago
Do you really believe that they could get away with 95% fraudulent spending? That nobody would notice 95 billion Euro corruption? Or to put it another way, if this is true, it means that they are able to run real EC functions with just 5 billion Euro budget. That would quite efficient indeed.
- gaius 18y ago
  Nah, it just means (for example) instead of putting function X out to tender, they just gave it to a friend or a family member. The work still gets done, it just could just be done quicker/cheaper/better with more transparency. I don't believe it's literally the case that Neil Kinnock is socking away a billion Euros a year into his Swiss bank account. Interesting to note that practically his entire family are EC employees tho'.
  - bd 18y ago
    Well, I have zero illusions about top dogs that got their positions by political means/connections. My whole point was about low ranking civil servants that do the bulk of the nitty-gritty administration work and that all must pass through a highly selective competitive exams (1 in 29 applicants [1] cf. Harvard's 1 in 14 [2]). And for these people, from my limited anecdotal evidence I got impression that they are indeed efficient, at least for bureaucracy standards. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPSO [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard#Admissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard#Admissions