Keith said:
I'm sorry, but Commissions appointed by
governments (advised by civil
servants) can never be guaranteed to be independent. Some may turn out to
be, but many more (at least in our experience) are likely not to be because
there are too many potential honours and rewards available for those who
take part. At the very least, there should be no ex-politicians or retired
civil servants involved. A Commission is more likely to be independent if
its members come from a quite different career stream -- such as academia
or business.
servants) can never be guaranteed to be independent. Some may turn out to
be, but many more (at least in our experience) are likely not to be because
there are too many potential honours and rewards available for those who
take part. At the very least, there should be no ex-politicians or retired
civil servants involved. A Commission is more likely to be independent if
its members come from a quite different career stream -- such as academia
or business.
I agree with you about the issue of conflict of
interest here even if it is just psychological. But you must admit
that what you are advocating is a Know Nothing
Commission. Professionals or people with
experience will always have an investment in that experience.
We have the same issue here with this government which involves industries as
experts in judging programs that they literally have investments
in. The possibility of corruption is high. Now, do
you want to have the expertise or do you want to have the extra value of
ignorance?
Tough question. The
government constantly tries to do that with the National Endowment of the Arts
by bringing in outside administrators who aren't Arts professionals and who are
even hostile to the idea of a NEA. Even Charleton Heston was removed
quickly because he was being swayed by the integrity of the artistic
professionals working for the agency. The same thing happened to
every person brought in by the Republicans to "blow away" the
agency. Its still there and so are we because the Arts are
about quality control and intellectual honesty as a value in the product
itself. Every Artist is a quality control expert and
gatekeeper. Where the amateurs don't get this you can read
Leonard Garment the Lawyer and Amateur clarinet player in today's NYTimes where
he basically says that Artists who resist the government in the war are
"shooting themselbves in the foot." What he doesn't get is
that the criticism by the Artists is built into the definition of Art
itself. That's why there were so many dissodent
artists in the ol Soviet System.
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Hudson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, February 08, 2003 6:08
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Inevitable decline in
public spending
> (KH)
> > What you say can't be so because public services would have extinguished
> > private health services long ago. (Presumably, you still have private
> > health services in Canada?)
> (EW)
> <<<<
> It's a publicly operated system, though, as I understand it, the clinics
> that doctors and various technicians operate out of are usually privately
> owned. Transfers from the federal government to the provinces, mandatory
> services, fees chargeable, etc., are determined under the Canada Health
> Act, a federal statute. All provinces and territories provide a range of
> health services that go beyond the requirements of the Canada Health Act.
> These include programs such as pharmacare, home care, ambulance services,
> and aids to independent living. They are provided at provincial and
> territorial
> discretion, and on their own terms and conditions. Major hospitals are
> operated by the provinces.
>
> There is no privately operated, for profit, health system parrellel to the
> public system in Canada, though whether there should be one has been a
> matter of some debate. The Royal Commission on Health Services recommended
> against it.
> >>>>
>
> Interesting. It seems, though, that you have some sort of hybrid scheme
> whereby doctors and technicians can charge rents which satisfy them. Our
> National Health Serive is also a hybrid service whereby consultants are
> paid a good salary by the NHS for a small number of hours of work every
> week (20 or so, I think) but can also carry on private practice (thus
> earning a great deal more).
>
> Of course, the biggest evil in our public health service is that there's a
> restrictive practice in the training and supply of doctors by the British
> Medical Assosication. (I believe there is a similar problem in the US.)
> Since the beginning of the NHS this has meant that doctors and consultants
> have been able to hold the NHS to ransom every time there was some problem.
>
> (KH)
> > No, I'm afraid you can't prove the case with the occasional Commission.
> > They can be cooked-up to prove anything that the government or the civil
> > service wants to hear. What should be looked at are the general trends --
> > and across several countries. This is what MacRae was writing about.
> Public
> > services in several fields -- and health and education most noticeably --
> > are now deteriorating in almost all developed countries despite, as in
> > England, much greater expenditures.
>
> (EW)
> <<<<
> The Commission I refered to, the Royal Commission on Health Services, was
> totally independent of government and took several years to do its work.
> It was not just an "occasional Commission". I don't think it arrived at
> its conclusions lightly. It researched health services in other countries,
> including the US and probably the UK. However, I would admit that it may
> have had a bias toward public systems because its chair was a former
> Premier of Saskatchewan, the cradle of Canada's public health system.
> >>>>
>
> I'm sorry, but Commissions appointed by governments (advised by civil
> servants) can never be guaranteed to be independent. Some may turn out to
> be, but many more (at least in our experience) are likely not to be because
> there are too many potential honours and rewards available for those who
> take part. At the very least, there should be no ex-politicians or retired
> civil servants involved. A Commission is more likely to be independent if
> its members come from a quite different career stream -- such as academia
> or business.
>
> (EW)
> <<<<
> With regard to education, it's rather remarkable that the public system
> here in Ontario is still holding up quite well despite underfunding (one
> can only wish for the "much greater expenditures" you refer to!).
> Mainstream courses -- mathematics, sciences, the arts -- are still being
> taught at a high level of quality. However, services catering to kids with
> special needs have been cut back. At my daughter's high school, there have
> also been cuts in janitorial services, so the Principal has had student
> volunteers help keep the school tidy as part of their required 40 hours of
> community service.
> >>>>
>
> Well, I'm pleased for the sake of Canadian children that your educational
> service is holding together better than ours. I've often used dramatic
> language in describing ours (and our health service) as heading for
> disaster. I don't take this back -- both *are* heading for disaster -- but
> in our case it is not so much the public ownership that is the main problem
> but the bureaucratic distance between the customer and the highly
> centralised nature of the control established by London plus the protective
> practices exercised by the unions involved (the teacher unions, or the
> British Medical Assoication in the case of health). The result is that both
> teachers and general practitioners (in contrast to hospital consultants)
> are underpaid, overstressed and, as a result, we have a shortage of tens of
> thousands of both which is getting worse every year despite enormous
> recruitment of replacements (usually from developing countries which are
> thus deprived of their best people).
>
> Sooner or later, both our state education and health services will collapse
> or, more likely, will have to be broken up (on which the present Labour
> government is now making a start in both cases). Both services have had
> large sums of money thrown at them in recent years with scarcely any
> improvement. For example, the NHS has received 40% extra funding in the
> last six years but most of it has disappeared into a black hole with a
> smaller number of doctors and nurses than before. Even the Health
> Department has acknowledge that the number of patients dealt with has
> improved only by 1.5 %. Considering that public services in other European
> countries and also America, much more highly decentralised than England,
> are all suffering from very similar problems of demoralisation and
> deteriorating standards suggests that public services are on the decline in
> all developed countries. Maybe the highly dispersed nature of your
> population centres means that Canada's public services are able to remain
> focussed on customer needs rather than on distant diktat and, because of
> this is not deteriorating as fast as ours are, but I suggest that it's only
> a matter of time.
>
> Keith
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ------------
>
> Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
> 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
> Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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