Organization implications Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Organization implications - Essay Example The merit pay systems emphasizes on the fact that teachers are to be paid for their achievement in the classroom as opposed to their seniority or the number of ed-school credits that they have collected. This paper will discuss the merit pay system and teacher performance in public schools The Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 put the merit system principles into law, specifically section 2301 of title 5 of the U.S. Code. It was set as a national policy intended â€Å"to provide the people of the United States with a competent, honest, and productive workforce...and to improve the quality of public service, Federal personnel management should be implemented consistent with merit system principles† (Pfiffner & Brook, 2000). Since then, the merit system and its principles have been implemented both in the public sector and in private sector in the country. The merit system can be defined as a personnel system applied in the process of hiring and promoting government employees based on merit to obtain the highest efficiency in public personnel functions. The application of the merit system in the public education sector has brought about unending controversies especially with the merit pay issue. The merit pay systems emphasizes on the fact that teachers are to be paid for their achievement in the classroom as opposed to their seniority or the number of ed-school credits that they have collected as it has been done from the 1920s period. Reformers in the education system including the government have emphasized that the merit pay will encourage high performing teachers to do well and drive the lazy ones away, thereby improving the performance of public schools. However, teachers’ unions have continually opposed the move stating that there is no objective way of measuring the classroom performance of a teacher. In addition to this, opposing views have pointed to the fact that the merit pay system has a high chance of failing

How have public sector spending cuts affected Government outsourcing Essay

How have public sector spending cuts affected Government outsourcing - Essay Example The private sector is currently creating new jobs while the public sector is slashing the workforce. The UK budget deficit is still high despite councils implementing budget cuts in highways maintenance, property service and refuse collection. Most of the government departments are considering outsourcing as a viable method of attaining value-added benefits to the services enjoyed by the citizens (Flynn, 2012). Currently, the UK government outsources more than 80 billion pounds of public sector services and the figure is estimated to reach 140 billion pounds by the year 2015 if the current trend continues. The information technology department is one of the public sector departments that have experienced massive spending cuts. The UK government has axed 95 million UK pounds on IT spending thus leading to high job losses (Flynn, 2012). The UK government has reduced spending on advertising and new contracts with management consultants. The spending cuts are spread in construction, professional services, facilities management department and information and communication technology. The Efficiency and Reform Group is keen on cutting spending cutting the spending on advertising to only the essential advertisements (Flynn, 2012). The media companies such as Trinity Mirror have reported a decline in the value of the shares after the government froze new civil service recruitments. The department of Work and Pensions has made more than 70 million pounds in savings after reducing the spending on IT consultancy and marketing services. The government is also negotiating for cost reductions in the approved IT projects in order to reduce the overall costs of the projects (Flynn, 2012). However, critics of public spending cuts have warned that the current slash on spending will slow down the economic recovery. For instance, Morgan Sindall construction Group warns that reducing the budget on school construction will negatively affect the