One of the effects of the hideous news about the UK’s banana republic-style national debt will be to shift attention onto waste in the area of public spending. For the foreseeable future, all those in the private sector will be huffing and puffing about cost in everything from health, through education, to transport and defence. ‘Why can’t they just lop 10% off their annual budget? We’ve had to,’ is the typical cry, usually followed by a rant about index-linked retirement pensions for layabout civil servants.

This is going to make pretty boring reading for public servants while they are engaged in the perfectly laudable activity of trying to improve our roads, schools, hospitals and cruise missiles. They went through it with the Gershon efficiency review of 2004, which led to what is claimed to have been £26.5bn of government savings. Now a further £9bn by 2013-14 is promised.

The problem is, Gershon hasn’t changed the way in which the public sector operates. Sorry to be parochial, but nowhere is this better illustrated than outside my house at the moment. Late last year, our local council decided it was time to relay the pavement on both sides of the road. This was not a bad idea as the existing pavement was an ugly patchwork of broken paving stones, tarmac patches and stretches of concrete. The contractor did a surprisingly good job – a couple of workmen spent about two months carefully replacing all the paving stones and created neat, herringbone brickwork sections for the lowered crossovers onto people’s driveways.  It must have cost a small fortune but everyone was pleased. Not often you can say this about the efforts of Lambeth Council.

Imagine our dismay, therefore, when last month we received a letter from Thames Water (a private sector organisation feeding, as some utilities do, off a monopoly) informing us they were about to rip up the road and large swathes of the pavement as part of their quest to replace London’s ageing Victorian mains water supply.  This is a classic example of ‘non-joined up’ – i.e. stupid – practice. And it drives both us and the local authority (who can do nothing to resist Thames Water) around the bend. It’s inevitable that it will spoil what has been done, and hasten the day when the pavement needs to be re-laid all over again. With us footing the bill. The paradox is that it’s the weakness of the council that is causing the waste.

In the private sector at the moment, nobody does anything without thinking about the cost implications. Does it have to be done? Could it be done cheaper? Could I get two for one if I am doing it? Far too often they are terrible negotiators in the pubic sector – they do not have the skills of the souk, simply asking where they sign after being given a price. If we are all going to be broke together then this is going to have to change.  In the meantime the public sector is keeping our economy afloat.

In today's bulletin:
BAA losing passengers, money and business support
Fiat to acquire GM Europe?
Adidas takes a shoeing as profits plunge
Editor's blog: Crazy paving highlights public sector waste
Nick Hood: Austria gears up for insolvency rush