CONSIDERING the last time I wrote a column it was on the differences between superheroes and politicians (sort of), I figured I should try to write about something a little more serious this time.

Recently, while talking to the leader of a major publicly-funded organisation in North Yorkshire, the topic of job losses arose as, sadly, it seems to with increasing frequency these days.

While discussing positive action for the organisation this year, we spoke about investment worth millions of pounds to improve the service for its users. I asked what this meant for retaining workforce numbers.

His response, to paraphrase, was that if the investment in new technology meant more work can be done more efficiently by fewer staff, then why would anyone keep the numbers at their current levels?

There was nothing cold-hearted about the question or his response, and it was clear he felt strongly about keeping numbers up where he could, but saw the investment as the continuation of the industrial revolution.

Although the organisation in question is public facing and publicly funded, the principles of business must apply. Just as they did following the introduction of production lines in factories all those years ago which, while causing unrest among workers, paved the way for cheaper and more easily manufactured goods, and benefits for customers.

The problem is, the cuts still do affect people – actual living, breathing people, with lives, families and bills to pay, who aren't just figures on a balance sheet to be sliced off and shuffled around to improve efficiency and profit margins.

That's the side of things which easily gets lost in big business, as it does in Whitehall, with cuts made seemingly without consideration for Joe Public – the men and women whose money the Government or company relies on, but who has just been told in George Osborne's Autumn Budget Statement they need to 'tighten their belts' along with the State itself.

How exactly will not spending money or borrowing more money than last year help to improve our economy? That's for people much smarter than me to debate, but I simply can't see how that works.

The Office for Budget Responsibility said this week – the week of Chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement – that spending on public services is approaching the lowest rate since the 1930s.

Meanwhile, the deficit has been cut by half. That's great news, but let's not forget the Coalition pledged to get rid of the whole thing in its first term – which is increasingly looking like its last.

Welfare spending is also due to be £1 billion less than was previously announced, which looks great in certain headlines ('Crackdown on benefit Britain' or something more alliterative, smug and borderline offensive), but which actually means families who are already struggling will have to redouble their efforts as the price of everything goes up, but the amount they're given to help pay bills and provide for their families remains the same or less.

It wasn't all bad news in the Autumn Statement. There has been a couple of billion allocated for much-needed flood defences, and there will be an extra £2 billion every year until 2020 for the NHS.

It's hard to take that latter figure without a pinch of salt, however, knowing as we do that, despite celebrating the history of public healthcare to the world at every available opportunity, Cameron et al seem to be doing their very best to shrink it on a regional level until they're able to create a report showing there's no viable way to keep it running as a public concern. At which point services will go out to tender, and we're shaking hands with privatised healthcare.

Now I'm not the most business-minded person, and I'll apologise if I've made one or two of these points before.

As for a moral of the story? I'm not sure there is one. Demand stays the same or gets higher, budgets get lowered and cuts have to be made, because the business environment, the economy and needs of service users and customers ebb and flow at an unpredictable rate.

However, I think it's important to remember that while we live for easily digestible information – ideally in bite-sized statistics or lists – it is impossible for a couple of numbers to accurately represent the businesses, organisations, or hundreds and thousands of people behind them.