I think I’ll disagree with you on that point.
A business generally has two targets, namely growth and profit. Schools should be about delivering a service above all else i.e. educating pupils to the highest possible standard and to some degree that should be independent of cost. Some pupils require different levels of assistance etc.
Sadly it isn’t looked at that way.
I think I’m using the word business differently to you. I see a charity as a business for example. A school absolutely is a business. It provides a required level of service to customers. Not everybody sees it like that. Fair enough.
Yes, definitely different perspectives.
To me pupils are not customers. They don’t buy an education (Eton etc. Excluded).
I think in the business analogy the government are meant to be the customer, buying an education to the children in their care.
No, the parents are. they’re paying.
I don’t have any evidence of that, but you’d be surprised at how much disconnect there is. I suspect your point of view is coming from your personal experience as a business owner. It’s certainly not reflected in middle management from my own anecdotal personal experience.
And I’m talking about experience with both private and public sector organisations. The waste I’ve seen in both…
In a state school they aren’t directly but they do get to make a choice in where they’re children go so that analogy does work to a point.
Whether that actually leads to a desirable outcome is another matter. Parents want their children to go to the “best” school and “best” usually means highest exam results. That tends to mean that the parents with the most money are able to move themselves into the catchment area for those schools. However, as socioeconomic background is one of the biggest deciding factors in a child’s exam performance the “best” school turns out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
From a societal point of view you want all children to be educated to the best of their ability. That will often mean that the most money needs to be spent on the struggling 20% at the bottom rather than the top 20% who will do alright for themselves regardless.
Schools have to be run on a business basis in terms of balancing books, auditing, purchasing and so on but they don’t really produce desirable results when run on a free-market principle.
I’m lucky to have worked in a range of businesses. From profit driven hard nosed owner prioritising work turn-over to absolute quality to University and governmental research labs who could take all week over setting up a test that would have been completed by 1pm in the former’s lab. Same (former) true for big multi-nationals. Results results results is certainly not a mantra you hear in government run facilities. Granted in my experience but then I do have that experience.
Erm tax? Not absolutely directly but my council tax (and business rates) pay for local schools.
Not to disagree with either of you but the most “waste” I’ve seen is from public sector recruiting the private sector. Extremely expensive to select a contractor and then they get ripped off.
This is down to the businesses that are recruited but there’s massive weaknesses in the method of procurement and contract types used.
My experience of it anyway.
It’s government that determine where the tax is spent. You may get a different governance on how that tax is spent but you have no direct say (other than deciding on a school) as to how that is spent.
“one has no direct say”. I really should read my previous posts.
It depends on what they are set up for. Chances are government labs are set up for mass work rather than fast turnaround. The difference is in cost - it’s a bit like the difference between standard and expedited delivery. Sometimes you are going to need the latter but you will use the former if it will do.
Which is true but it’s the government wasting the money, not the private sector profiting from it. If I can charge X for product Y and the government contact me and ask me to quote for Y and tell me the budget is 3X, what am I going to do? Find the person who’s awarding it, take them out for a wild night and get everybody else’s quotes before the deadline. Obviously.
… and watch them sacked for gross misconduct afterwards. Or are we talking about the current government?
Does it involve caning? 
I don’t disagree, but those are, like you said, due to the procurement rules.
Now I’m not sufficiently familiar with the rules to make an in-depth comment, but I would suspect that in there is a mix of the desire for accountability/universal standards of value-for-money and/or lobbying by politicians resulting in rules/processes that don’t work very well.
I think there’s work to be done there, but my point was simply that wastage is no more inherent to public organisations as they are to private.
They even made a Scouse version of '‘Silence of the Lambs’.
‘Shurrup yous’
I’ll see myself out. 
Bollocks
Setting up management tasks that allow numerous staff to book to a project while actually delivering nothing.
Done it, seen it all too often.
And the strikes keep on coming…you’d almost think something’s wrong with this country