The following letter in today's Independent is an
ever-present reminder of the waste that goes on in civil services. Those
who would seek to downplay it might say: "Ah but that's what used to
go on; it doesn't now", or: "But that was in the British Civil
Service; not in ours." The truth is, it goes on everywhere, and in
private industry, too. When I ran a department at Massey-Ferguson in
Coventry 25 years ago I delegated everything so completely I had nothing
to do (and most of my staff only had half-a-day's work anyway) and
spent most of my time reading. At, say, half-a-dozen books a week over
the years, I must have read thousands. For three years, I also edited an
environmental magazine from the same M-F office. However, the big
difference between the bureaucracy at Massey-Ferguson and the
over-staffing in the civil service is that when things obviously became
too bad at M-F (declining profits), they carried out a straight 10%
redundancy -- with no messing about. A year later, they had another 10%
redundancy; a year later another 10%. It was at about that time I left
(voluntarily!). Massey-Ferguson continued to have at least another three
10% redundancies in the following years. Heck, if I'd remained, they
might even have sacked me!
The problem is that, once the majority of politicians have had little or
no experience in business either as employer or employee -- as is the
case in this country at least -- then civil service chiefs (being more
intelligent, usually) are easily able to bamboozle their ministers with
bbb ("bullshit baffles brains"). From then onwards, then
there's no known way of restraining a bureaucracy until the whole edifice
collapses through sheer grossness and ineptitude, like the Ottoman Empire
or the USSR. When Lord Heseltine in this country was Minister for
Industry 20 years ago, he asked his Permanent Secretary (that is, the
chief civil service boss of his Department) what one sub-department of
17,000 civil servants were doing. The latter didn't know and said he
would find out. Heseltine never did discover what they did. In the last
six years, the present government have added 600,000 civil servants,
60,000 to the Home Office alone. I have little doubt that at least half
of them are engaged in shuffling paper between them, and half of the rest
are either on promotion-interview committees or are appearing in
front of them, and that there are scarcely more than a couple of hundred
worthwhile jobs all told.
Besides evolutionary economics, I sometimes think we need another new
branch of economics that will forget about GDP (whatever its arbitrary
statistics may mean, these days) and concern itself with the annual rate
of growth of government bureaucracies (where you can count real
numbers -- people) because it is this, at the end of the day, that
determines the economic health of any region or nation-state. After the
USSR in recent times, France and Germany, slowing down very badly now,
will probably be the next to go, followed by a few more European
countries I can think of. It won't be long afterwards before this
country stalls, too. Probably the only country that will survive in
reasonable heart will be Italy (Northern Italy anyway). Italians have
never really taken to the idea of the nation-state with the same
enthusiasm as others, so it's still largely governed at regional and city
level and, besides, half of its daily business is in the grey economy and
uncontrolled by the state. It's the only spark of vitality left in
Europe. At least, that's what I think now. I might differently when I
return next week from a holiday in Venice.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
THE PRESENTEE CULTURE THAT TRAINS OUR PUBLIC SERVICES
Sir: The problem with our public services is that neither ministers nor
senior civil servants know how, in reality, their departments function.
Middle grade civil servants can see where the problems lie. Unfortunately
they are never consulted.
When I was put in charge of a section in the Department of Overseas
Development some years ago, my first act was to sit with each member of
my staff and get them to explain what they did. There was one clerical
officer whose sole function was to compile statistics each month and send
them on to another section. On enquiry I discovered that the other
section just put the statistics on file. When asked why they needed the
figures they said they had no idea but that they had always received
them. The establishment officer was asked to find the clerical officer
another job.
Within a week I had in theory dispensed with 30 per cent of my staff. The
establishment officer refused to remove the redundant staff as he said he
could not find them alternative work. So I instituted a rota system so
the staff could, unofficially, take one morning or afternoon off a week.
The women welcomed the idea but the male staff did not. They had nothing
to do with the free time and would prefer to be in the office twiddling
their thumbs.
The result of my seeking to run an efficient section was that I myself
had little to occupy myself. I asked for a transfer and began the same
process in another section. I was called to see the establishment
officer, who said, "Look here Lewis, things cannot go on like this.
I have no more vacancies, so just stop this nonsense.".
Market Thatcher had the brilliant idea that she could reduce the size of
the civil service by hiving-off departments by creating agencies. The
result is that more staff are employed who are scattered around the
country. The only way to deal with this problem is to institute a 30 per
cent across-the-board cut in staff, including non-medical staff in
hospitals and non-teaching staff in education.
DAVID LEWIS
Colsterworth, Lincolnshire
>>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England,
<www.evolutionary-economics.org>,
<www.handlo.com>,
<www.property-portraits.co.uk>
