Bureaucracy Top Problem For Public Sector Leavers

The health service’s continuing addiction to paperwork has been revealed as a major deciding factor for staff who quit.

Bureaucracy, paperwork and targets were the top problems identified by public sector leavers, including many from the NHS, interviewed in a survey by the Audit Commission, Recruitment and Retention: a public service workforce for the 21st century.

Nearly 80% of leavers interviewed by the commission said bureaucracy was an important or very important factor in their decision to leave. Lack of resources was the second most common factor mentioned and pay came third in their list.

Many expressed a sense of being overwhelmed by paperwork and targets. “Employees reported increasing amounts of their time are spent completing paperwork. While some of this is seen as being important to the job, much was felt to be unnecessary and time consuming,” says the report.

Relentless target setting was also viewed negatively. “Our study suggests that many public sector staff do not see how performance measurement relates to their own primary goal to make a difference in people’s lives.”

The report profiles many positive case studies around the country, including several NHS trusts. They show problems that tend to drive people out of public service or put them off joining being tackled creatively, though none of those profiled specifically addressed paperwork and bureaucracy.

The report sees the answer to recruitment and retention problems in lots of small initiatives rather than one big answer. In successful organisations it also detects a shift away from a primary focus on recruitment to an increased focus on retention, the “whole work experience” and using staff creatively to deliver service outcomes.