Crap: A Guide to Politics - The Blog

THE PUBLIC SECTOR CANNOT BE EFFICIENT

In the Daily Telegraph of 17th March, Philip Johnston lays into Government waste, referring at length to a forthcoming book by John Seddon “Systems Thinking in the Public Sector” which apparently argues that the massive waste is not deliberate; it arises “because it has failed to listen to people who know how to run services on behalf of the customer rather than the producer”.

Thus:

“public services have requirements placed upon them by a whole series of bodies that are all based on opinion rather than knowledge”.

Mr Seddon is not enamoured of “local engagement” or “citizens juries” (Three cheers!).  He argues that:

“what people want from public services is for them to work properly…… waste  can be eradicate if the systems are properly designed against demand rather than  phoney outcomes”.

Mr Seddon is an occupational psychologist and “management thinker”.  Good luck to you and your book, Mr Seddon, but quite frankly this all seems very much beside the point.  In fact it seems very similar to the proposals of Michael Barber, a partner in the management consultants McKinsey & Co., and a former head of Tony Blair’s “delivery unit” – see Chapter 12 (Prolific Crap) of my book.

These people have to earn a living, but I am surprised that Philip Johnston doesn’t ask two simple questions:  How does one design against “demand” if you don’t know what the  demand is?  And how does one decide on what aspects of life and civilisation should be in The Public Sector?  After all, there is no problem with “demand” in markets; satisfy it or go bust.

How, for example, would one “design against demand” in assessing the merits of single-sex hospital wards referred to in my previous entry (February 27th).  Outside the public sector – private hospitals for example – it’s easy – suck it and see.

What kind of “knowledge” is it that censors the most wonderful information system available to humanity – the signals given by market prices?

What other “knowledge” tells NICE how to assess the value of expensive drugs – or to say “yes” in Scotland but “no” in England?  Or to advise Ed Balls on class sizes?  Or on the acceptable number of children who don’t get into their first choice school?  What are the acceptable losses in a rural school or post-office?  What is a sensible cost for roads – or flood defences?  It looks awfully like “back to the producers” to me.

Come on Philip.  Wait, my apologies!  I’ve just thought of something.  No doubt this is the first of a two part article, with the obvious questions to come next time round?  Isn’t it?

Crap Art

One of the (very positive) reviewers of my book pointed out that the Crap categories can sometimes overlap.  This entry shows that all too clearly – where Misleading Crap and One Rule for Them Crap vie for the top position.

My selected issue is the row over funding for the Arts.  Before the storm broke in January Dame Helen Mirren had called for tax breaks for the film industry.

“Tax breaks are absolutely what is needed to keep London alive as a film capital  because we are facing competition not just from California but the Eastern European countries as well” (reported in The Evening Standard 30th Non 2007)

So is the wine-growing industry, Dame, and no doubt 101 other industries as well. (And how about little financial gesture from the film stars?)

The storm came early in January when The Times reported that The Arts Council faced an unprecedented vote of no confidence from hundreds of angry actors and directors opposing its decision to terminate the funding of nearly 200 of the nation’s companies:

“Kevin Spacey, the Oscar-winning star, gave warning of a revolution and Sir Ian  McKellan, one of Britain’s finest actors, called the cuts destructive”.

They’d certainly help to destroy a little of the enormous welfare-state-in-reverse enjoyed by our elitists, starting with the BBC.

And how about the Tate Gallery, (with the ubiquitous City toff Paul Myners a director) secretly buying works of art from its own trustees (reported alongside other insider-dealing practices which would put the City to shame, by David Lee in the Sunday Telegraph of 13th January)?

Back in the main business of funding, the Arts Council’s approach was described as “bollocks” by the National Theatre’s director, Nicholas Hytner:

“They [the powerful and influential at The Arts Council] don’t just believe the  bollocks, they live the bollocks.... I think there is a very simple proposition here.  Good theatre – and for “theatre”  read the performing arts in general – deserves public investment”.

Why the cuts, affecting some 200 cultural bodies?  According to The Times (2nd February) the Arts Council argues that they are necessary to fund 81 new organisations and projects, and that overall the Art Council’s spending has “risen by 9 per cent, spreading £1.3 billion between 888 organisations over three years”.

So there is an overall increase! You can imagine the corruption going on here.  The description applied to the United Nations by Stefan Halper “a miasma of corruption” – see Chapter 9 (One-Rule-for-Them) of my book, seems to fit very well to the Arts Council and all its works.

One could go on.  I was reminded of all this by the recent lynching of Margaret Hodge for daring to suggest that The Proms had “failed to attract a diverse audience and unite different sections of society”, upon which Gordon Brown’s spokesman (great things, spokesmen) praised the concerts as “a wonderful, democratic and quintessentially British Institution”.

Democratic?  Come on.

The last word (nearly) can go to extracts from two letters to The Times of 6th March.  Valerie Thompson of East Horsley, Surrey tells us that:

“The Government seems to be trying very hard to destroy the last remnants of our  artistic life by taking cash away from arts organisations”.

Taking away from, Valerie?  Taking away from?

Susan Seely from Worsley, Manchester, points out that the Proms are hardly zenophobic, with the international composers on show this year including Mozart, Beethoven, Grieg, Debussy, Gershwin, Chopin, and Verdi.

Now there’s a wonderful list. Plenty of artistic life in those days; I wonder how many of that little lot were funded by “public investment”.