Public service numbers (updated)

Kiwiblog draws our attention to an editorial in The Dominion Post which backs the National Party's policy of freezing staffing levels in the non-operational areas of the public service. The Dominion writes,

National Leader John Key is right to target waste in the public service, and right to draw attention to the blossoming in numbers and wages that has taken place under Labour. The spend-up on mandarins has been large, the pay packets bloated and much of the work produced of, at best, dubious value, The Dominion Post writes.

However, it is also right to draw attention to his double standards, and to caution that he should use a scalpel, not an axe, in seeking savings.

The statistics highlighted by Mr Key underscore what has been apparent for some time: The Government, flush with cash from taxes that have been too high for too long, has spent that money with the insouciance that comes from having full pockets and an insufficient regard as to whether it is getting value for the spending.

Mr Key has been at pains to say that National will not be going to cut what he calls front-line staff - teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers and so on. Instead those numbers on the front line will increase. But National will "pull hard on the handbrake" to stop any more growth in the bureaucracy.

That is a laudable goal, and one which deserves to gain public support.

But should it not be pointed out to the Dominion and John Key that we could reduce the bureaucracy, save money and get a better service out of "front-line staff" by turning their operations over to the private sector. As Andrei Shleifer has written,

The benefits of private delivery-regulated or not-of many goods and services are only beginning to be realized. Health, education, some incarceration, some military and police activities, and some of what now is presumed to be "social" insurance like Social Security, can probably be provided more cheaply and attractively by private firms. It is plausible that 50 years from now, today's support for public provision of these services will appear as dirigiste as the 1940s arguments for state ownership of industry appear now. A good government that wants to further "social goals" would rarely own producers to meet its objectives.

Update: Not PC comments on Bureaucrats: Flip Flop Boy promises "more with the same".