Hi Ed, At 10:39 07/07/01 -0400, you wrote: >Hello Keith. I'm still here. I've had to leave the list for awhile and get >onto other things. Even now I don't have much time to rejoin the debate we >were having. However, I would like to comment briefly. You said: (KH) >> Yes, I can see where you're coming from, Ed, but I think you're wrong. I >> think it a counsel of despair to suggest that there's any prospect of >> internal reform of civil service bureaucracies. To quote the Bible, you >> can't pour new wine into old wineskins. There's nothing really objective >> for civil service "efficiency" to be measured against. That's why they're >> coming apart at the seams. And the quicker they do so, the better, in my >> view, because this produces gaps into which new initiatives can be seeded >> and hopefully flourish. (EW) >Here I disagree. There are methods of reforming bureaucracies. These range >from the inteligent to the stupid, with the latter tending to dominate >because the politicians who lead the reforms often don't really know what >they're doing. Their reforms tend to ideologically based on notions such as >the private sector being able to do all things better and "getting >government out of the way". The private sector is not instrinsically able to do things better. I don't think it has cleverer people than the Civil service (though the latter doesn't attract the best graduates of Oxbridge any longer) it's just that there are cast-iron disciplines out there in the market. If firms don't adjust quickly to changing circumstances they fold up. The Civil Service simply goes on forever -- even with expanding numbers -- even Mrs Thatcher couldn't stop that. >A point I made earlier applies: For any bureaucratic agency, two things are >needed. One is a clear and transparent understanding of the agency's >mandate; the other is a method of measuring the degree to which that mandate >is being fulfilled. Recent innovations such as strategic planning and >results based management provide some pretty effective tools, though how >well they are applied is questionable. I really haven't seen any inkling of substantial change or reform of the Civil service in England. And I read two heavyweight newspapers every day and clap my eye on a couple more. We either have some Departments, such as Defence, and Trade & Industry quietly consuming larger and larger amounts of money every year to almost no visible effect, or we have Departments such as Taxation and Social Services not able to cope with the Byzantine complexities of the legislation of their own devising, or we have Departments like the Home Office, Health, Education, Transport gradually falling apart because they have little idea of how to tackle looming problems. When so much is patently failing, then that's the sign of an era coming to an end rather than something that can be reformed. Why do we so readily assume that what we have, what we've got used to, what seems so natural and necessary will somehow go on forever? (EW) >Whether or not an organization is efficient in its operations probably >depends more on its size and the complexity of the issues it has to deal >with than on whether it operates in the private of public sectors. It also >depends a lot on whether it has to be efficient - i.e., on the volume of >resources it can access. Many public agencies in Canada simply have to make >do. Governments are strapped for funding, and therefore have to "do more >with less" as the rather silly slogan goes. In the early 1980s I worked for >a large oil company in western Canada for a few years. When I first joined >the company, money seemed to be pouring in through every window. Anything >was possible. When in the Arctic, instead of waiting for tomorrow morning's >scheduled flight to travel back to Calgary for the weekend, you ordered a >Learjet to come and get you that evening. Company officials had a highly >inflated sense of the value of their time and their importance, so of course >they couldn't travel by "sched". Efficiency, doing things in the least-cost >way, was not a consideration, or at least not an one that bothered anybody. >During my final few months with the company, things had changed radically. >Due to a variety of events, the company was very close to bankruptcy, and >senior management no longer felt that it could afford to make free cookies >available in coffee rooms. And certainly, no more Learjets! Yes, that's a good example of what I was saying previously. The Civil Service never wastes money ostentatiously because it will have the Press to anwer to, but it does so all the same -- and public spending as % of GDP steadily rises. > >So, in my opinion, whether something should be in the public or private >sectors is not a matter of where it might be done most efficiently. >Ultimately, its a matter of what one believes. I believe in public >education, public medicare and public social services not on any grounds >that are convincingly rational, but, most probably, because I was born in >Saskatchewan during the Great Depression and remember a time when only kids >from well-to-do families could expect to go to high school, when kids died >because proper medical care was too expensive (even though some doctors >accepted chickens as payment), and when ever so many men, my father >included, had to travel long distances on freight trains to try to find >jobs. I would not like to see that again. M'mm . . . some similarities with my parents' life. My father was a skilled tool-room man but was out of work for nine years. In the end he had to move 100 miles away to get a job. Keith H ___________________________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
