Here’s an idea
The coalition is promising an array of legislative changes "designed to turn government on its head". John Emms makes an impassioned plea for the public sector to be given enough time to make it work.
I had a revolutionary thought the other day. You see, there’s something I’ve noticed about governments. Any sort of government, left, right or, like this one, confused, and whether new or tediously familiar. They will keep legislating. All the time. Whether things are working or not, everything has to be reversed, overturned, changed, adjusted, improved or otherwise monkeyed about with. We in the public sector are well used to the phenomenon, having so frequently been the target of it.
I realise this is not a revelation. Governments must appear to be doing something. They may wish to satisfy a political ideology, prove their macho credentials, distract attention from embarrassments elsewhere or even, occasionally, introduce a measure which detailed, rational, balanced research, consideration and consultation has shown will really improve people’s lives. The motive matters not. It was Margaret Thatcher who first really stepped on the gas with the public sector – and she had more macho credentials than the average PM – but it hasn’t eased since.
I suppose a new government is bound to legislate at first when they’re still running around mindlessly, before the civil servants get hold of them and make them sit down. But even after that, it never ceases. They introduce a major revolution but then don’t know how to stop so we can try to operate it. They just keep ceaselessly faffing about and dumping on us the continual need to concentrate on working out what the latest fad is about, what it requires and how to do it, and then restructuring, retraining, laying some people off, recruiting or redeploying others, interpreting confusing legislation and wasting time and skill on finding ways round the unforeseen problems, instead of just getting on with the job. How many hours, months, years have been diverted in this way over the last few decades?
Current reforms, the Department for Communities and Local Government’s Structural Reform Plan claims, are “designed to turn government on its head”. So what’s new about that? Much legislation in the past appears to have been designed by people standing on their heads. Usually buried up to the neck in sand. The reforms will “put citizens and councils in charge of their communities”. OK – but which will be in charge of what? They can’t both be in charge of everything; it leads to confusion – though that would at least feel familiar.
“People want more for less,” they say. The government have already achieved the ‘less’ bit. Now the citizens and councils have to achieve more with it, I suppose. But it’s ironic that this government proclaims its commitment to leaving local people and organisations to get on with the job, but then creates mountains of statutes, regulations and guidance telling them how to do it. Worse still, I suspect they really meant that commitment and now think they are achieving it. But forgetting that, apparently, they’re still determined to impose mayors on cities, despite years of proof that by and large citizens and councils don’t want them and anyway, they’re scarcely a panacea, are they? Oh, all right, yes, I know Doncaster wasn’t all his fault.
Anyway, that’s only the start. Elsewhere in the public sector, the NHS is to undergo yet another burst of government-directed upheaval. And in a form which wasn’t even included in anyone’s manifesto, so it can only have had some pretty cursory prior thought – over lunch, I imagine; though it was probably quite a long lunch. Still, we’re good at dealing with ill-conceived legislation. We’ve had enough practice. But why do I say “we”? This is the NHS, isn’t it? Nothing to do with local government. Well, we have to consider combining our management teams, don’t we? Remember One Place? Or was it Total Place? Or All Over the Place? I forget.
So we have another round of the constant changes to local government structures, powers and funding; restructuring of education, on top of the years of the almost weekly issue of new regulations and statutes; and, of course, re-allocation of the powers of abolished quangos, such as the Standards Board, the RDAs and the Food Standards Agency. Government are now even abandoning things which, though more or less fully planned, haven’t been implemented at all. I need only mention Building Schools for the Future.
Anyway – back to getting more for less. How do you do it? You use voluntary organisations, of course. That is, you sack the workers and get others to do it for nothing. The Big Society will do everything. Actually, that’s one voluntary organisation I haven’t heard of. I know the Children’s Society, the Alzheimers Society, the Church Mission Society, but what does the Big Society do? Something to do with obesity, I imagine.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing Oxfam taking over the school meals service, Terry Wogan running safeguarding arrangements on behalf of Children in Need, and Shelter recruiting hordes of volunteer brickies to build new estates all over the country. I understand also that the NHS is to be picked up by Médecins Sans Frontières, assisted by MacMillan nurses. (At any rate, they’ll do the patient-oriented stuff. They’ll still need a management team to do the form-filling and reporting. I’m sorry, but I simply don’t believe there won’t still be form-filling and reporting.) Oh, and Bob Geldof is already preparing a spectacular money-raising event: “Make public service history! Never mind your f*****g academies; there are children starving in state comprehensives NOW!”
Naturally I intend to play my part. In fact the wife and I, with a few mates, are already bidding to take over the village school. So much easier than trying to do it through the council. You don’t have to persuade people to vote for you, for a start.
But back to my revolutionary thought. I challenge this government to be the first, after its initial burst of legislative enthusiasm, to have the courage to stop legislating and allow the public sector a few years to implement this latest set of changes and get them working as efficiently as possible. It’s an idea, isn’t it? Surely, if they think what they’re doing is right, there’ll be no need to lash it all up again next year. So David, Nick, please, for heaven’s sake, do what you have to, if you must, but then stop! Won’t you welcome the chance to spend more time with your families?
John Emms was Solicitor to Kirklees Metropolitan Council between 1994 and 2007.
