There is much gnashing of teeth over public sector cuts at the moment and, while The Northern Echo has expressed its concern over the pace of the cuts, there is undoubtedly waste to be tackled.
For a start, you should see some of the public sector press releases that fill up my email inbox every day. 99 per cent of them are a complete waste of time.
For example, the Department of Health sent one this morning, headed: "STATISTICAL PRESS NOTICE: ACCESS TO GUM SERVICES."
It goes on: "This data shows the number of attendances to a GUM clinic for each clinic provider, how many of these were offered an appointment within 48 hours and how many were seen within 48 hours."
That's followed by a lot of statistics with no explanation of what a GUM clinic even is.
Naturally, I assumed it was something to do with controlling plaque and reducing fillings.
But no, upon further investigation undertaken by myself, I discovered a GUM clinic is for Genitourinary Medicine.
My point is that there are an army of people in Whitehall or wherever churning out this bilge and they don't even bother to give basic information.
One for David Cameron to get his teeth into, methinks.
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