A quick follow-up to my post Paperwork gone mad at the Ministry of Justice, which highlighted the hugely bureaucratic approach taken by the MoJ to safe driving at work (in contrast to the approach of other government departments) and which was widely picked up in the media (see here, here and here).
The Ministry of Justice now tells me,
In common with all MoJ Health and Safety policies, the MoJ’s Safe Driving policy will be reviewed annually or where there is a significant change affecting it … This is a relatively new policy and we are planning a first review in January / February 2011.
Good.
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3 Comments
Well, don’t hold your breath. Staff policies are always “under review”. They may decide to save a few quid on publications, but risk management processes are here to stay – as is the employer’s duty of care.
I’m intrigued as to why you have such a bee in your bonnet about this.
Surely the Department of Administrative Affairs should be overseeing this reduction in bureaucracy?!
Mark is quite right to have a bee in his bonnet about this.
This sort of nonsense is like a virus which infects the bureaucracy, hijacking its cellular machinery (the staff) for its own ends. Because it is what the boss requires as far as the ordinary Joe knows he/she has to comply even though the chances are that the boss himself thinks it’ completely mad.
The result is that compliance eats up energy and money and, even worse, keeps the staff so busy in pursuit of internal goals that the proper objective of the organisation is soon lost.
Which is how the Home Office got to be famously ‘not fit for purpose’ – as I could testiy from my own contacts with them in the past.