Originally Posted by
PAXboy
In my adult life, the Brits have continually voted for more public services at less cost to them. Well, they now have the result ....
However, the costs have not really lessened. What progressively happens is that an ever greater percentage of the costs, and the man-hours available, is squandered on things which do not provide service. here are plenty of examples of front line staff numbers being halved while the back office stays at former strength. Aviation passengers go up, revenue from APD seems to rise exponentially, and yet there's a complete disconnect with the resources required to handle it.
Part of the issue is the current fad for "Targets". I see that the passport management at Heathrow have set themselves a target that "90% of passengers must be processed in 45 minutes". That is a ludicrous target in the first place, the real target should be about 5 minutes, but it leads to the ludicrous complacency that as long as you can keep your wait times just under 45 minutes you have somehow "done your job".
Incidentally, the officers will process passengers at the same rate per hour regardless of whether the queue for them is 5 or 45 minutes.