Thread: To make sure it never happens again Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by shamwari (# 15556) on
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When will we ever hear the end of this mantra?
The latest occasion is the BBC admitting it overpaid severance pay to managers.
The Health service; the Social services; the politicians; every Dept of Govt and Public service. All caught up in on-going scandals. And, every time the mantra, we will make sure it never happens again. It does. With unfailing regularity.
What can be done? I for one am at my wits end with exasperation and anger. And I am equally angry that the Church is part and parcel of all this.
Help!
Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
When will we ever hear the end of this mantra?
The latest occasion is the BBC admitting it overpaid severance pay to managers.
The Health service; the Social services; the politicians; every Dept of Govt and Public service. All caught up in on-going scandals. And, every time the mantra, we will make sure it never happens again. It does. With unfailing regularity.
How about doing things the way we Americans do it? Well, no, that wouldn't work. Routine public stonings of government officials and employees, maybe?
quote:
What can be done? I for one am at my wits end with exasperation and anger.
Explore the power of positive drinking.
Posted by DouglasTheOtter (# 17681) on
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Any organisation with humans in is fallible.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
When will we ever hear the end of this mantra?
The latest occasion is the BBC admitting it overpaid severance pay to managers.
The Health service; the Social services; the politicians; every Dept of Govt and Public service. All caught up in on-going scandals. And, every time the mantra, we will make sure it never happens again. It does. With unfailing regularity.
What can be done? I for one am at my wits end with exasperation and anger. And I am equally angry that the Church is part and parcel of all this.
Help!
When will it stop? When people stop being people. You think the private sector is better? The banks? The management consultants? The factories? The privatised corporations?
I've heard it said and suspect it to be true that the largest possible non-corrupt organisation is around 150. One person of exceptional integrity and drive can manage about a dozen people at the outside and make sure they all share the same vision and ideals. Each of them can manage about a dozen at most and make sure they are all competent and honest. Three levels is too many, and more than a dozen per person is too many. And this is a best case scenario.
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on
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In any organization the top dogs find ways to get extra bennies to favorite people, usually in "exchange" for past or future bennies from those people.
I.e. it will never end.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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Transparency.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
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Turn the public finances over to the bankers, national security to G4S, the health system to those that ran Southern Cross, put the roads to the rail franchises as well and trust that the education system is safe in the hands of privatised exam boards.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Shamwari, I suspect you will not approve of this, but there comes a time in the life of all of us, that we have to accept that even those who in many ways are worthy, and not just those who are not, also have feet of clay. Even our heroes do not live up to all the virtue we would like to attribute to them. However, that does not necessarily mean they are bad people, or that they have let us down, just imperfect. They are not that different from us. The main difference is merely that they are prominent and we are not. Nor is it all some vast conspiracy.
So it is now. So it always was, except that they might not have been found out, or they were able to sit on the laurels of complacency in ways one cannot get away with now. So, alas, it always will be.
So do not be at your 'wits end with exasperation and anger'. It only consumes energy. Concentrate on ensuring that the one part of the human universe over which you do have some control, i.e. you, acts with integrity.
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on
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If it flies, this thread is bound to be a rant. So over to Hell you go for unbridledness.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Transparency.
Don't make me fucking choke.
The CRAP party was elected in Canada with a big blaring promise of transparency in government and since then has managed to sail past former governments and, indeed, the Kremlin in hiding and and backroom deals.
Transparency. It is to laugh. And I laugh at you in all your naivete.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:
Transparency.
We have "transparency" in UK central and local government too, but it's through a lens that refracts (ie, bends, obscures and deflects) and sometimes reflects.
There's still a separation between the governing and the governed, just as there is between the decision makers in business and the common herd.
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
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Sensible as Enoch's post is, I'm glad this was transferred to Hell.
'Lessons will be learned!' ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Translated it means: 'Wait a fortnight and they'll forget.'
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
'Lessons will be learned!'
Translated it means: 'Wait a fortnight and they'll forget.'
And here was me thinking it meant "we'll learn how to stop you finding out next time"...
Posted by TomOfTarsus (# 3053) on
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Raptor, Marvin:
C.) Both of the above.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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Good point, well made.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
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IT just happened again! The contracted out NHS 111 urgent care telephone service has just started falling over
Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on
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My objection to it is actually the opposite. It seems to me to treat the public like children, because to me the adult position is that everyone makes mistakes. The point is to learn and make incremental improvements, not build a structure of which paranoid fear of further error is the foundation, because this makes everything grind to a halt and, as an added extra, makes further failure inevitable. "We'll do better in future" seems to me to be a far more healthy and realistic attitude. I don't want people making promises they can't keep and then being held in the grip of the paranoia thereby created.
Posted by Darllenwr (# 14520) on
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quote:
Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
... "We'll do better in future" seems to me to be a far more healthy and realistic attitude. I don't want people making promises they can't keep and then being held in the grip of the paranoia thereby created.
My cynicism abounds here - whilst we might hear those words, the meaning is likely to be closer to, "We'll do our best to ensure that you think we'll do better in future ..."
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Darllenwr:
quote:
Originally posted by FooloftheShip:
... "We'll do better in future" seems to me to be a far more healthy and realistic attitude. I don't want people making promises they can't keep and then being held in the grip of the paranoia thereby created.
My cynicism abounds here - whilst we might hear those words, the meaning is likely to be closer to, "We'll do our best to ensure that you think we'll do better in future ..."
My cynicism is even deeper-rooted. I'm sure many of those who say "We'll do better in future" feel that by saying so all is now well. Actually putting serious changes in place that ensure the mistakes cannot be repeated is such a counter-cultural concept that it rarely happens.
Posted by malik3000 (# 11437) on
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quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
The CRAP party
Good one, PeteC
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on
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quote:
Originally posted by malik3000:
quote:
Originally posted by PeteC:
The CRAP party
Good one, PeteC
The Alliance was called that briefly back in 2000 or so, approved by convention no less - Conservative-Reform Alliance Party. Then the media abbreviated it and boy,howdy, did they ever change their mind* fast.
*Only one mind. Vide Ender's Shadow
Posted by deano (# 12063) on
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What makes you think that any public body can be made incorruptable or even infallible.
They are stocked by people who have no personal investement in making them work.
They are stocked by people spending other peoples money on other people with no benefit to themselves so why should they give a shit?
They only thing you can do it beat them with a stick if they fail. If they get it right they get no reward because people like you lot don't like people getting rewards for doing good, only beating them up if they do badly.
Of course they don't give a toss about doing well, and yes they're going to try to hide it. Welcome to the left-wing public services. Enjoy it, it's what you wanted.
[ 07. July 2013, 18:56: Message edited by: deano ]
Posted by DouglasTheOtter (# 17681) on
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What does being left-wing have to do with it?
Posted by the giant cheeseburger (# 10942) on
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I think deano would like to be a right-wind dictator who could only be removed from office by a violent coup or a war. Such a situation would obviously lead to a wonderful golden age, since the consequence of failing would be the mob at the gates.
Posted by The Midge (# 2398) on
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I hope that the next doctor or nurse that treats Deano for a life threatening condition forgets their public service ethos for a moment. May they make him suffer or euthanize his pointless existence.
To treat the little shit with compassion and professionalism would be against the greater public good. Either way it disproves his sad little dogma.
Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on
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PeteC darling, that isn't a failure of transparency, that is a failure to be transparent.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
What makes you think that any public body can be made incorruptable or even infallible.
They are stocked by people who have no personal investement in making them work.
They are stocked by people spending other peoples money on other people with no benefit to themselves so why should they give a shit?
They only thing you can do it beat them with a stick if they fail. If they get it right they get no reward because people like you lot don't like people getting rewards for doing good, only beating them up if they do badly.
Of course they don't give a toss about doing well, and yes they're going to try to hide it. Welcome to the left-wing public services. Enjoy it, it's what you wanted.
You are a sad little turd, aren't you? YOU might only be able to be motivated by money and fear of the "big stick", but some of us in the public sector believe that what we do matters and that it's important it's done well - as in, for example, the next time you need your head surgically removing from your arse. Although I'd suggest in this case that recurrence is prevented by also removing it from your neck. There'd clearly be very little in the way of moral fibre to saw through.
And really, bleating about "our lot" not liking "rewarding people" - who's the first to complain if anyone in the civil service gets a bonus? - Oh yes, that well known bastion of neo-communist values, the Daily Heil
Tit.
[ 16. July 2013, 08:11: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by deano:
They are stocked by people who have no personal investement in making them work.
They are stocked by people spending other peoples money on other people with no benefit to themselves so why should they give a shit?
... and that's different from private-sector employees how?
Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on
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Listening to some of the reports on the BBC overpayments, the apologias made it sound a little like an accidental oversight from a management who didn't know what was going on, or how these regrettable things were happening:
'Oh dear! I appear to have inadvertently written a cheque for nearly £400,000, to someone who's leaving the Corporation, basically for muffing things up. And now somebody's complaining about it! Well, that's me told! I mustn't do that again. [pause] What? Someone moving on from the BBC? How much would you like? £375,000 be enough....? Doh, did it again!'
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
They are stocked by people who have no personal investement in making them work.
They are stocked by people spending other peoples money on other people with no benefit to themselves so why should they give a shit?
... and that's different from private-sector employees how?
That in the private sector (or more accurately the large scale private sector) the above is considered a feature, not a bug?
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by deano:
They are stocked by people who have no personal investement in making them work.
They are stocked by people spending other peoples money on other people with no benefit to themselves so why should they give a shit?
... and that's different from private-sector employees how?
That in the private sector (or more accurately the large scale private sector) the above is considered a feature, not a bug?
More than that, if you work in the private sector and you make money for yourself then you will be held up as an example of a successful trader, entrepreneur or consultant. If you do the same in the public sector, you'll end up in prison, ministers may have to resign and the Daily Mail and its friends will have a field day frothing over corrupt government.
I kid you not - there is a definite "What will the Daily Mail say?" strand to every initiative proposed within the public sector.
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
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There must be a difference in attitude and culture between the private sector who are out to make money and the public sector who are spending other people's money, doesn't there?
Although both are supposed to be providing the best service possible, as efficiently as possible economically (while ensuring the welfare of employees), in the end the bottom line is important for both in different ways.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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That's why I specifically said private sector employees.
If you're an employee, then you have no or minimal stake in the company (in terms of equity), and, if you've got budget responsibilities, then you're spending shareholders' money, not your own.
This is true all the way to the top in anything other than an owner-managed concern. AIUI, one of the major causes of the financial crisis was that mechanisms in banks that were supposed to align managers' and traders' interests to shareholders' interests didn't work.
Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
There must be a difference in attitude and culture between the private sector who are out to make money and the public sector who are spending other people's money, doesn't there? ...
I sort of work in the public sector, and with rare exceptions, everyone I've worked with and for is very much aware we are spending public money. That is why we a) try to get the most bang for our buck*, b) stick to our core mission, and c) have an audit trail for every penny. And remember, people who steal from their employer get fired; people who steal from the government get in the news. I do believe this contributes to a perception that there is more waste or malfeasance in the public sector. Since our work is for the public, our screw-ups have to be public too.
*Don't mention the $900 toilet seat, or I'll have to bore you all with how our purchasing department sources stuff and saves us money and time, which is also money.
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on
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Employees below 'management level' tend to get a raw deal in both sectors, in the public sector to keep the costs down for the public, in the private sector as they're given a 'going rate' set by those with vested interests.
As we're in hell, I can vent my anger at the expression 'pay peanuts and get monkeys' In my experience, the opposite is the case: those on low pay are left there as they're too useful where they are and their managers take the credit for their hard work. Those on low pay are rarely given allowances for expenses, and must jump through hoops to receive legitimate out of pocket expenses.
It's those on higher pay who are meant to lead by example, to create the right ethos in the workplace whether public or private, to ensure that the service quality is exceptional, to see that remuneration is fair and never excessive, and that systems are in place to prevent anyone from taking undue advantage of a position of power and trust. That's why they're paid a higher salary. There should be no bonus if they succeed, no flat rate expenses, no golden handshakes. These have infiltrated the public sector from the private sector, along with the 'pay peanuts and get monkeys' line
I remain unconvinced as to their wisdom or validity in either sector. In theory, they affect ordinary people less in the private sector unless they're shareholders. But then, we remember the bankers......
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I kid you not - there is a definite "What will the Daily Mail say?" strand to every initiative proposed within the public sector.
Not every initiative within the entire public sector. But certainly within the civil service at policy level. Zoom in too far (e.g. on a single hospital department) and people don't worry so much about it.
Posted by Plique-à-jour (# 17717) on
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A lot of Mail readers seem to think that if they get in enough of a pout, they'll be let off paying taxes. No, you'll carry on paying, and a certain percentage of people within the public sector will continue to cart off as much money as they think they can get away with, because they're human and humans want to benefit themselves, not disadvantage themselves. What is there that anyone old enough to be paying taxes fails to comprehend about the situation? It's like getting angry about geography.
quote:
Originally posted by The Midge:
Turn the public finances over to the bankers, national security to G4S, the health system to those that ran Southern Cross, put the roads to the rail franchises as well and trust that the education system is safe in the hands of privatised exam boards.
This is where the media's discourse of pretend outrage is intended to lead us, of course.
[ 15. August 2013, 06:13: Message edited by: Plique-à-jour ]
Posted by PeteC (# 10422) on
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Of course, as soror magna well knows, this does not apply to the members of the Canadian Houses of Parliament.
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