4 ms·

This is exactly why many areas of government should be privatized. With zero competition and virtually no accountability, these bureaucracies have no incentive

This is exactly why many areas of government should be privatized. With zero competition and virtually no accountability, these bureaucracies have no incentive to become more efficient.

badsock 13y ago
I disagree based on my experience with equally bureaucratic and wasteful private organizations. My take is that we simply don't have the right organizational frameworks to undertake large, ongoing tasks involving lots of people. I don't know what the answer is, but watching the results of privatization binges in a number of countries in the past, I don't think it involves moving things along the public/private axis. There are more ways to motivate people than just competition.
- noir_lord 13y ago
  Having worked with many people on teams from a couple to hundreds. The answer is a smart self-directing AI that must be obeyed. Pretty much everything else I've seen tried and failed. The unofficial motto of the last place I worked was "the beatings will continue until morale improves".
kiba 13y ago
Just because you shift the organization from public to private does not make the problem goes away. The true problem is incentive. For example, private contractors build the rockets for NASA. But there is no incentive to do it cheaply and right. Any cost overrun is covered by the government. This is in contrast to the COTS program initated by NASA which is oriented toward rewarding space contractors on efficiency and milestones reached. They don't cover cost overrun and responsibility lies with the suppliers. For example, if SpaceX or Orbital Science's cargo ship blows up, they're responsible.
- asdfologist 13y ago
  That's why I said there needs to be competition and accountability. You're not going to get competition in the public sector.
acdha 13y ago
If you read the article again, notice how the fast majority of those millions of dollars have gone to private companies who failed to deliver working systems. Each of those companies passed multiple rounds of competitive bidding, too. The government staff processing things by hand can at least point to a ton of successfully processed requests rather than a complete write-off. Outside of shallow libertarian magical thinking, privatization isn't a panacea. Anyone who has worked for or with a large corporation has stories which are at least this bad — the main difference being that you rarely about about the failures unless it leads to a major lawsuit. The usual argument is that you aren't required to do business with those companies but … just try to live without insurance, telecommunications, cars, etc. Markets allow you to select the least-bad option but it often takes regulation or changing the problem to make significant improvements. Before someone mentions Google: consider how happy you'd be if their QA-in-production / no live support mentality was applied to your retirement checks rather than your free email… There are two real problems here: the first is the well-known fact that we're still figuring out how to deal with large-scale IT projects, which affects everyone, and the fact that government agencies are significantly blocked from doing things the right way. For the last couple decades, politicians have “shrunk” government by giving jobs to the private sector rather than hiring lazy government workers. What this actually means is that instead of hiring the same person directly they're hired at a significant markup – equal or greater pay plus the overhead costs of all of the contracting company's staff and profits – and all of the work is pushed into a procurement process which forces you into the worst possible form of waterfall. You're not the first person to notice that things aren't efficient – and I'm certain that staff at OPM would agree, given how many of them were quoted saying just that. The solution is easy – allow them to hire good people in house at market rates and give them the needed support / autonomy – but that's politically dicey. This and your proposed solution are both likely to fail as long as Congress has a sizable contingent of people who benefit from problems, even those created by their policies, and everyone receives donations from companies which do business with the government. This also won't magically go away with privatization, as anyone who has seen large deals go to the company which bought the best lunch can tell you, but at least in the case of the government the details are public knowledge.
- ef4 13y ago
  > If you read the article again, notice how the fast majority of those millions of dollars have gone to private companies who failed to deliver working systems. Each of those companies passed multiple rounds of competitive bidding, too. Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. It's the government that's responsible for spending that money well, and it's the government that's failing at it. > The solution is easy... but that's politically dicey. Which is another way of saying the solution is not easy.
protomyth 13y ago
The US Government has a conflict of interest problem with private contractors in that they tend to be the next stop of government workers. If you actually want competition[1] at the Federal level than this really needs to stop. I still say it should be illegal for government employees or elected officials to take jobs with a company holding or bidding on Federal contracts for a period of 5 years after leaving government service. The only exception I can see is military personnel that have not served on a procurement job. 1) competition for contracts at this time is a joke
- acdha 13y ago
  I would go further: at least double the salaries of the government staffers who approve or oversee non-trivial contracts on the condition that they have a long ban like what you described on receiving any form of compensation from that company, its officers, or the employees which they dealt with. When you consider the cost overruns on, say, a single massive project it's much cheaper to pay people well than having a routine cycle to make up for low civil wages.
  - protomyth 13y ago
    Have you looked at the current salary and benefits of these staffers? They are quite well compensated.
    - acdha 13y ago
      Yes. They're well compensated compared to the average office worker but not compared to private sector managers overseeing equivalent amounts of money. Someone making low six figures in the DC area is doing well but hardly living lavishly enough not to be tempted away by an offer of significant raise in return for selecting someone's bid. I'd pair a future employment restriction with enough money to make the job interesting to good people who otherwise aren't going to be willing to put up with the higher scrutiny of working in the public sector.
      - protomyth 13y ago

This is exactly why many areas of government should be privatized. With zero competition and virtually no accountability, these bureaucracies have no incentive to become more efficient.

badsock 13y ago

I disagree based on my experience with equally bureaucratic and wasteful private organizations. My take is that we simply don't have the right organizational frameworks to undertake large, ongoing tasks involving lots of people. I don't know what the answer is, but watching the results of privatization binges in a number of countries in the past, I don't think it involves moving things along the public/private axis. There are more ways to motivate people than just competition.

noir_lord 13y ago
Having worked with many people on teams from a couple to hundreds. The answer is a smart self-directing AI that must be obeyed. Pretty much everything else I've seen tried and failed. The unofficial motto of the last place I worked was "the beatings will continue until morale improves".

kiba 13y ago

Just because you shift the organization from public to private does not make the problem goes away. The true problem is incentive. For example, private contractors build the rockets for NASA. But there is no incentive to do it cheaply and right. Any cost overrun is covered by the government. This is in contrast to the COTS program initated by NASA which is oriented toward rewarding space contractors on efficiency and milestones reached. They don't cover cost overrun and responsibility lies with the suppliers. For example, if SpaceX or Orbital Science's cargo ship blows up, they're responsible.

asdfologist 13y ago
That's why I said there needs to be competition and accountability. You're not going to get competition in the public sector.

acdha 13y ago

If you read the article again, notice how the fast majority of those millions of dollars have gone to private companies who failed to deliver working systems. Each of those companies passed multiple rounds of competitive bidding, too. The government staff processing things by hand can at least point to a ton of successfully processed requests rather than a complete write-off. Outside of shallow libertarian magical thinking, privatization isn't a panacea. Anyone who has worked for or with a large corporation has stories which are at least this bad — the main difference being that you rarely about about the failures unless it leads to a major lawsuit. The usual argument is that you aren't required to do business with those companies but … just try to live without insurance, telecommunications, cars, etc. Markets allow you to select the least-bad option but it often takes regulation or changing the problem to make significant improvements. Before someone mentions Google: consider how happy you'd be if their QA-in-production / no live support mentality was applied to your retirement checks rather than your free email… There are two real problems here: the first is the well-known fact that we're still figuring out how to deal with large-scale IT projects, which affects everyone, and the fact that government agencies are significantly blocked from doing things the right way. For the last couple decades, politicians have “shrunk” government by giving jobs to the private sector rather than hiring lazy government workers. What this actually means is that instead of hiring the same person directly they're hired at a significant markup – equal or greater pay plus the overhead costs of all of the contracting company's staff and profits – and all of the work is pushed into a procurement process which forces you into the worst possible form of waterfall. You're not the first person to notice that things aren't efficient – and I'm certain that staff at OPM would agree, given how many of them were quoted saying just that. The solution is easy – allow them to hire good people in house at market rates and give them the needed support / autonomy – but that's politically dicey. This and your proposed solution are both likely to fail as long as Congress has a sizable contingent of people who benefit from problems, even those created by their policies, and everyone receives donations from companies which do business with the government. This also won't magically go away with privatization, as anyone who has seen large deals go to the company which bought the best lunch can tell you, but at least in the case of the government the details are public knowledge.

ef4 13y ago
> If you read the article again, notice how the fast majority of those millions of dollars have gone to private companies who failed to deliver working systems. Each of those companies passed multiple rounds of competitive bidding, too. Those companies didn't fail of course, they were wildly successful at raking in millions of dollars. It's the government that's responsible for spending that money well, and it's the government that's failing at it. > The solution is easy... but that's politically dicey. Which is another way of saying the solution is not easy.

protomyth 13y ago

The US Government has a conflict of interest problem with private contractors in that they tend to be the next stop of government workers. If you actually want competition[1] at the Federal level than this really needs to stop. I still say it should be illegal for government employees or elected officials to take jobs with a company holding or bidding on Federal contracts for a period of 5 years after leaving government service. The only exception I can see is military personnel that have not served on a procurement job. 1) competition for contracts at this time is a joke

acdha 13y ago
I would go further: at least double the salaries of the government staffers who approve or oversee non-trivial contracts on the condition that they have a long ban like what you described on receiving any form of compensation from that company, its officers, or the employees which they dealt with. When you consider the cost overruns on, say, a single massive project it's much cheaper to pay people well than having a routine cycle to make up for low civil wages.
- protomyth 13y ago
  Have you looked at the current salary and benefits of these staffers? They are quite well compensated.
  - acdha 13y ago
    Yes. They're well compensated compared to the average office worker but not compared to private sector managers overseeing equivalent amounts of money. Someone making low six figures in the DC area is doing well but hardly living lavishly enough not to be tempted away by an offer of significant raise in return for selecting someone's bid. I'd pair a future employment restriction with enough money to make the job interesting to good people who otherwise aren't going to be willing to put up with the higher scrutiny of working in the public sector.
    - protomyth 13y ago