Letter: UK's low productivity problem has no easy answers

The first is the Peter Principle: people are promoted beyond their level of competence to a job they are not very good at.

Excellent engineers often become useless managers. There is also the problem of failing organisations losing their best staff because the prospects are poor.

Those that are left behind are then overworked and demoralised.

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That cycle can continue till the outfit fails. Sometimes these failures are tragic, as in the health service. This can be exacerbated by incompetent or insecure managers being very worried about appointing really competent people because they find them threatening.

There is also the problem of institutional senescence: new ideas are rejected, new technologies are not embraced, the staff get older but never leave.

In a fast moving world it is easy for any organisation to get left behind. Far better that they are killed off before they fail.

In business the market will ensure that but in the public sector they can hang on for years.

Privatisation is not the answer.  Look at the water companies. They have paid out massive bonuses and dividends to shareholders and some have been burdened with huge debts.

As monopoly suppliers they have treated the public abominably. Sewage discharges to rivers are a disgrace.

Covid hasn’t helped. There are people with long Covid who are really ill but for some ‘working at home’ has become an easy option.

No problem about doing the washing or cooking or putting the dog out.

Rattus thought working at home was brilliant: no long commute, no signing of birthday cards, no discussions about football, few pointless meetings.

It was far easier to concentrate without distractions and really productive. Not everybody loves their job.

There is now a shortage of labour but huge numbers not actually working. Our productivity as a nation is very low. Rattus doesn’t know the answer but he suspects it will not be easy to solve.
Rattus rattus