‘Good News’ people cry, like the tricoteuses of revolutionary France, when another quango head rolls into the basket. Such was the whoop (at least from aficionados) when the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council was given its P45. It seemed an obvious move and one that I had advocated myself.
I still support it: but, as I have pointed out before, there are potentially unintended consequences.
The libraries improvement regime can be taken over easily by the LGA. But what about museums? It seems that ‘responsibility’, whatever that may mean, for museums will pass to the Arts Council. So in fact we have here a quango reshuffle rather than a true abolition: and the track record of the Arts Council in dealing with local councils and local organisations is not particularly encouraging.
Likewise, the abolition of the Audit Commission potentially hands over power to the National Audit Office and to the private sector – rather than to the people.
The cuts in the Ministry of Defence look very sound (‘nearly as many civil servants as the army personnel’) but may overlook the fact that defence capability has been damaged by the ineffectiveness of the bureaucratic processes supposed to be managing procurement: are we sure that major cuts will actually make this better?
And in all cases one key unintended consequence is major job losses – a problem obviously to those thrown onto the dole but also to the rest of us in terms of service delivery and the loss of aggregate demand (ie purchasing power).
Such is the nature of this revolution. Nothing is sacred and these are tough times for public sector workers.
This makes it all the more important that announcements are handled sensitively. Reading on Twitter about the abolition of the organisation for which you have worked in good faith for many years – and which puts food on your table – is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.
But hurried announcements are not just scaring the workforce. Ordinary people are becoming frightened too. A colleague recently reported:
Last week [my wife] met a woman in a council house who was moved to tears by the thought that when her youngest son is 18, she and any of her children still living in the house would be evicted and would have to leave the village they had lived in all their lives for private rented accommodation in Aylesbury, or Hemel or Watford.
That is the consequence (if enacted) of what Cameron said 2 weeks ago (as helpfully interpreted for her by the tabloid press).
The public currently understand that Labour looted the economy and that we need emergency measures to rescue the country from financial collapse.
But heartless talk costs votes.
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5 Comments
I’d agree that there is a need to be perhaps a little more sensitive in communication of decisions, but would observe that actually disseminating that communication then lies with a media industry who will communicate the message in a way that suits their own political positioning. What we read and hear sometimes bears little resemblance to what’s said in the first place.
What government, and the parties, are bad at doing is communicating any subtlety and nuance behind the decisions, as well a being somewhat creative about describing the rationale. I would observe that this article does that as well. Comparing the number of Civil Serpents in the MoD with the headcount in the Army discounts about 40% of military personnel. Again opening up what those civilians do, and the impact of removing them isn’t considered. It suits a party political agenda to represent them as sitting in the London madhouse, when in practice the vast majority are clerks, guards, storekeepers, caterers. All work that would still need doing by a uniformed individual, at significantly more cost, if the civilian was taken away.
These decisions are challenging, there are no easy answers. The communication with the electorate is simplistic, and we as a party have been as complicit in that as our counterparts in Red and Blue.
the other message that is being lost in all the rhetoric about closures is the one that you outline, ”government” isn’t losing the responsibility to deliver these things, so the cost of delivery is quite frequently remaining. there is a lot of deckchair shuffling going on at the moment.
Re: ‘ . . And in all cases one key unintended consequence is major job losses . . ‘ – ! intended consequence, surely? How else can public spending be cut if not by cutting the wage bill?
“Reading on Twitter about the abolition of the organisation for which you have worked in good faith for many years – and which puts food on your table – is not something I would wish on my worst enemy.”
I agree , but the trouble is that if staff in the affected organisations are told first, as happened in the Audit Commission then it gets instantly leaked to the press
Good points, and there’s an even more basic problem than that. I remember reading a blog post about the closure of MLAC, which quite honestly and without irony equated its activities with “front line services”. The distinction might be clear to newspaper-reading obsessives like us, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to keep soberly pointing out the difference to people rather than whooping.
“MLA was given its P45”.
Sorry councillor, the MLA is not being given its P45. Real people are. Real people with homes, families, careers that they might have had some ambitions for, people with aspirations to serve the public.
We’re the people who are getting P45s, real people not some organisation. Not that Clegg, Cameron, Alexander or Osborne give two hoots.