The bottom line is running a country is a complex business and you cannot do it on the cheap but when our governments waste billions on welfare and Net Zero policies its always the admin functions and of course defence that get cut.
Our incompetent and ignorant politicians would struggle to run a whelk stall.
I do wonder why it is all so complicated at the MoD when we have bugger all defence capability. We had none of these IT systems when half the country was fighting the Nazis and yet we somehow managed. I think IT, like HR, takes on a life of its own and complicated systems become Ghormenghastian labyrinths serving themselves in some endless Escher tangle.
I think you make very important points but yeah, maybe you do love bureaucracy.....
"but I can also see the flip side - especially in farming, when you need a level of industry surveillance for things like biosecurity, animal disease prevention etc"
problem is, Pete, is not up to you to decide which is the "right" level of industry surveillance.
and the "right" level always ends up being excessive, disproportionate, wasteful, and ultimately achieving the exact opposite of what you would expect.
food production becomes a detail, and the only really important thing ends up being the headcount of the bureaucracy in charge of the "surveillance", and the unquestioning compliance even in the face of absurdities.
you dont like farmers dredging streams, but then it rains and fields get flooded.
you dont really need "industry surveillance". you only need to apply basic property laws, and of course abolish any "public" property".
no farmer would pollute a river, if the farmer downstream could sue the polluter's ass to the orbit of pluto.
All true but the bit that’s missing is the civil service decision that managers don’t need to know the job anymore.
Their role is to manage staff not the task they undertake.
I know of a clerk recently dismissed because of unsatisfactory work - for the last 3 years!
That is the amount of time he’d spent in the service.
Nobody had told him previously his work was not up to scratch but he was sacked anyway.
The point being that he had spent years producing shoddy work and he had not been pulled up!
This is the state of the civil service. The expertise is all but gone. Thankfully AI can rejuvenate the service provided the right people are put in charge and they aren’t civil servants.
'At the end of the day, government budgets are finite, you have to draw the line somewhere and expect your people to do the best they can with what they’ve got.' Yes, and at the end of the day, you can have fields of sustained wildlife but not be able to feed your population. Life should have taught us all by now (we're not children) that in this current day and age we can't have it all. So do you want lots of wildlife (ooh lovely) or do you want to feed your population?
I am concerned, Pete, that while you clearly know what you're talking about organisationally, your focus may be completely wasted: we are up against one of the biggest battles of all time for the soul of this nation and you bang on about civil servants and bureaucracy. Your points will be irrelevant if the Green Party triumph in May's elections followed by the next GE.
It’s great to get savings across all parts of government as Cummings says however you have to focus on where the money is. That’s welfare and pensions as a starter. That’s where the tough decisions have to be made. I would add however that anecdotal evidence suggests that civil servants are very inefficient and are at times discouraged from working hard and creating efficiencies.
I suspect that one of the problems of an expanding bureaucracy is that they justify their existence by producing more rules and procedures which smother front line staff, greatly reducing efficiency at their core tasks. I think your father touched on this in a recent post on health inspectors. The b's need to be on tap but not on top, as the saying goes. I expect it's a problem as old as civilization itself.
We should start by looking at what needs to be done/monitored/enforced “as of now”, in today’s world and build the bureaucracy from there. I do agree that a skilled and efficient bureaucracy is essential but so much today seem to be legacy quangos or vanity projects that have grown over the years.
I would love to see a debate between you and Cummings on this topic Pete. In fact I would pay good money to see it. I think it would be very instructive. I think you’re slightly simplifying his approach, but you bring a wealth of detail that I think he would take on board. I don’t think he wants a bonfire of management: he wants to figure out how to promote and sustain excellence in management, which he acknowledges is far from trivial to attain.
Its almost as if you come across as a defender of the status quo, PN.........
I'm not though. I'm saying you have to start the process of reform from a different mindset. Deckchair shuffling is not how it's done.
Yes you can’t just burn it all down. And certainly not from a perspective of blithe ignorance. Chesterton’s Fence and all that.
The bottom line is running a country is a complex business and you cannot do it on the cheap but when our governments waste billions on welfare and Net Zero policies its always the admin functions and of course defence that get cut.
Our incompetent and ignorant politicians would struggle to run a whelk stall.
I do wonder why it is all so complicated at the MoD when we have bugger all defence capability. We had none of these IT systems when half the country was fighting the Nazis and yet we somehow managed. I think IT, like HR, takes on a life of its own and complicated systems become Ghormenghastian labyrinths serving themselves in some endless Escher tangle.
I think you make very important points but yeah, maybe you do love bureaucracy.....
"but I can also see the flip side - especially in farming, when you need a level of industry surveillance for things like biosecurity, animal disease prevention etc"
problem is, Pete, is not up to you to decide which is the "right" level of industry surveillance.
and the "right" level always ends up being excessive, disproportionate, wasteful, and ultimately achieving the exact opposite of what you would expect.
food production becomes a detail, and the only really important thing ends up being the headcount of the bureaucracy in charge of the "surveillance", and the unquestioning compliance even in the face of absurdities.
you dont like farmers dredging streams, but then it rains and fields get flooded.
you dont really need "industry surveillance". you only need to apply basic property laws, and of course abolish any "public" property".
no farmer would pollute a river, if the farmer downstream could sue the polluter's ass to the orbit of pluto.
central states cannot be reformed.
All true but the bit that’s missing is the civil service decision that managers don’t need to know the job anymore.
Their role is to manage staff not the task they undertake.
I know of a clerk recently dismissed because of unsatisfactory work - for the last 3 years!
That is the amount of time he’d spent in the service.
Nobody had told him previously his work was not up to scratch but he was sacked anyway.
The point being that he had spent years producing shoddy work and he had not been pulled up!
This is the state of the civil service. The expertise is all but gone. Thankfully AI can rejuvenate the service provided the right people are put in charge and they aren’t civil servants.
'At the end of the day, government budgets are finite, you have to draw the line somewhere and expect your people to do the best they can with what they’ve got.' Yes, and at the end of the day, you can have fields of sustained wildlife but not be able to feed your population. Life should have taught us all by now (we're not children) that in this current day and age we can't have it all. So do you want lots of wildlife (ooh lovely) or do you want to feed your population?
I am concerned, Pete, that while you clearly know what you're talking about organisationally, your focus may be completely wasted: we are up against one of the biggest battles of all time for the soul of this nation and you bang on about civil servants and bureaucracy. Your points will be irrelevant if the Green Party triumph in May's elections followed by the next GE.
It’s great to get savings across all parts of government as Cummings says however you have to focus on where the money is. That’s welfare and pensions as a starter. That’s where the tough decisions have to be made. I would add however that anecdotal evidence suggests that civil servants are very inefficient and are at times discouraged from working hard and creating efficiencies.
I suspect that one of the problems of an expanding bureaucracy is that they justify their existence by producing more rules and procedures which smother front line staff, greatly reducing efficiency at their core tasks. I think your father touched on this in a recent post on health inspectors. The b's need to be on tap but not on top, as the saying goes. I expect it's a problem as old as civilization itself.
"... the iron rules of bureaucracy..."
From now on I shall always think of "the jelly rules of bureaucracy ..."
We should start by looking at what needs to be done/monitored/enforced “as of now”, in today’s world and build the bureaucracy from there. I do agree that a skilled and efficient bureaucracy is essential but so much today seem to be legacy quangos or vanity projects that have grown over the years.
I would love to see a debate between you and Cummings on this topic Pete. In fact I would pay good money to see it. I think it would be very instructive. I think you’re slightly simplifying his approach, but you bring a wealth of detail that I think he would take on board. I don’t think he wants a bonfire of management: he wants to figure out how to promote and sustain excellence in management, which he acknowledges is far from trivial to attain.