Ministerial resignations are actually unhelpful. And Ministers meddling in operational issues is also unhelpful. Politicians seem incapable of standing back from the journalist and saying “Ask him. I have laid out the policy – he is delivering it (or not) “. Is it that they want to appear all powerful (Narcissism ?) . Or is it that they are untrained to be Ministers ? They should set down the policy, set down the outcomes they expect and let the public servants deliver it. As soon as they meddle they let the public servants off the hook. Never tell a professional how to do his job. Just tell him the outcome you want-and when you want it at what cost. .
So the bonfire of the QANGOs became a 110 billion quid spend on organisations that even the powerful don’t know about or can use. I have also seen the same hands on approach you describe. It seems to happen too often, elsewhere too. I do wonder if a Minister for Roads would propose a new ring road and then roll up her sleeves and then start digging it herself. Now consider how often the probably intelligent person at the call center, declines (without saying it ), to assist you or to even pass you to someone who can. Their bosses want to control and make all the decisions but cannot do it all. And so, too often I find, such interaction unsatisfactory. It’s as if ‘ you’re not paid to think. ‘ Has become. ‘ you’re not paid to act. ‘
William Cameron
3 years ago
Home working adds more time in the day to do more work at no extra cost. It reduces office costs . It reduces overheads. It saves the commuter money and enables the employer to hire more easily. It avoids have huge commuting capital infrastructure which is only used twice a day to capacity. The only real problem comes at the point changing from the old ways to the new ways. In the mean time we also need to think about pandemic job losses . Last year we imported 700,000 new immigrants (ONS data to March) was this helpful ? should we reduce it in future ?
Aron L
3 years ago
Good article with very valid points (even if it is unwittingly London centric!). I think the key difference to a planned levelling up exercise is the speed of change currently occuring. When you put whole city centres out of business in the space of a few months that has a drastic impact on people’s lives & small businesses and their ability to manage that change.
William Cameron
3 years ago
A Classic example is Priti Patel and illegal channel immigrants. She should have said to the Permanent secretary -“this must be stopped. That is govt policy . Please get it done . If you need laws passing tell me and the govt will do that . But I want stopped within three months.” But she had to go and stand in front of the cameras making undeliverable promises – and the problem has not been addressed and she now looks very silly . She clearly does not understand how to delegate . Nor does she distinguish between policy setting and operational delivery.
Mark Stahly
3 years ago
It always made me smile when reading or seeing some Vampire epic with all the people madly running away from the “evil” demon trying to turn them into superhuman, immortal vampires when in fact most of us would line up for the pleasure.
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago
I look forward to how your input shapes how the UK can be better governed. I certainly agree with your proposals in this article. More accountable technocrats and quangos especially. Also I also find it quite extraordinary that Ministers are rarely qualified to manage the departments they are selected to lead. This I think is a deeper problem with the election of MPs who are rarely qualified in anything other than law, journalism or critical theory.
watsongd
3 years ago
The author is writing from her experience of London but have other big cities also been affected to some extent? I am sure once he gets round to thinking about it Mr Johnson will be pleased that London has made a contribution to levelling up. Not sure about his party donors though.
Hugh Jarse
3 years ago
An interesting and informative read. While the instances quoted may be anecdotal, they are examples of what is fast becoming a major scientific endeavour. A glance across the pond will confirm that. Ageing is now considered by an increasing number of scientists as a disease, and diseases as we know are very attractive to the pharmaceuticals. Unravel the biology of ageing and, so long as it can be demonstrated that extending one’s lifespan is not just dependent on lifestyle changes ie there are medications involved, then you can see why pharma sees this as blockbuster territory. This is going to run and run….
titan0
3 years ago
‘They mostly looked carefully past the bottom line, which is that London has enjoyed its pre-eminent position by concentrating the lion’s share of Britain’s ambition and intelligence in its penumbra.’
When one considers that back in the day, it was reckoned that it took 13 people to support 1 frontline combatant during war, I take issue that the vast majority of London workers are as described. Nor that they can as easily afford 10 grand to get there so that they can support those very much fewer but considerably better paid, great and good as mentioned.
I’m no commie but there does need a better understanding that a well trained surgeon is about as much use as the proverbial chocolate tea pot, if there is not an equally well trained scalpel maker. Who is worth more only becomes apparent when one or other is needed in an emergency. The patient will suffer from the lack of either, won’t they?
I think you are a commie. The level of skill involved in being a surgeon is much higher than the level of skill involve in manufacturing a scalpel. Still in doubt? Then reflect on this. We have mechanised the manufacture of scalpels; we have not done the same for performing an operation. Only a commie would equate being a trained surgeon and holding a scalpel.
Christopher Barclay
3 years ago
Despite being past 50, Boris Johnson doesn’t understand that having sex without contraception may lead to pregnancy. Don’t expect him then to have foreseen that encouraging homeworking would lead to a collapse of commercial property prices. Nor that the internet means that white collar jobs can be exported to Asia in the same way that factory jobs were.
Trishia A
3 years ago
Returning to the office, for people with significant commute times, is a major drop in hourly salary (of course working from home equalled a raise, for which no one complained).
But worse than the lesser hours involved in this activity we call work, ALL the people I know who are “working from home” assure me they are NOT their 7.5 hours a day, most tell me they’re working around 60% of that and taking plenty of holiday time.
This situation is EXTREMELY discriminatory to those of use without the social status to “work from home”. And the fact that our unions have encouraged this laziness has really lowered by respect for my union. My union cares about the at home people, it cares almost nothing for the at work people, outside of telling us to refuse to work if the boss didn’t “make it safe”, which is entirely ridiculous.
I’ve been a union advocate my entire life, but lockdowns and fear mongering might turn me around.
Ministerial resignations are actually unhelpful. And Ministers meddling in operational issues is also unhelpful. Politicians seem incapable of standing back from the journalist and saying “Ask him. I have laid out the policy – he is delivering it (or not) “.
Is it that they want to appear all powerful (Narcissism ?) .
Or is it that they are untrained to be Ministers ? They should set down the policy, set down the outcomes they expect and let the public servants deliver it. As soon as they meddle they let the public servants off the hook. Never tell a professional how to do his job. Just tell him the outcome you want-and when you want it at what cost. .
So the bonfire of the QANGOs became a 110 billion quid spend on organisations that even the powerful don’t know about or can use.
I have also seen the same hands on approach you describe. It seems to happen too often, elsewhere too.
I do wonder if a Minister for Roads would propose a new ring road and then roll up her sleeves and then start digging it herself.
Now consider how often the probably intelligent person at the call center, declines (without saying it ), to assist you or to even pass you to someone who can. Their bosses want to control and make all the decisions but cannot do it all. And so, too often I find, such interaction unsatisfactory.
It’s as if ‘ you’re not paid to think. ‘ Has become. ‘ you’re not paid to act. ‘
Home working adds more time in the day to do more work at no extra cost. It reduces office costs . It reduces overheads. It saves the commuter money and enables the employer to hire more easily.
It avoids have huge commuting capital infrastructure which is only used twice a day to capacity.
The only real problem comes at the point changing from the old ways to the new ways.
In the mean time we also need to think about pandemic job losses .
Last year we imported 700,000 new immigrants (ONS data to March) was this helpful ? should we reduce it in future ?
Good article with very valid points (even if it is unwittingly London centric!). I think the key difference to a planned levelling up exercise is the speed of change currently occuring. When you put whole city centres out of business in the space of a few months that has a drastic impact on people’s lives & small businesses and their ability to manage that change.
A Classic example is Priti Patel and illegal channel immigrants.
She should have said to the Permanent secretary -“this must be stopped. That is govt policy . Please get it done . If you need laws passing tell me and the govt will do that . But I want stopped within three months.”
But she had to go and stand in front of the cameras making undeliverable promises – and the problem has not been addressed and she now looks very silly . She clearly does not understand how to delegate . Nor does she distinguish between policy setting and operational delivery.
It always made me smile when reading or seeing some Vampire epic with all the people madly running away from the “evil” demon trying to turn them into superhuman, immortal vampires when in fact most of us would line up for the pleasure.
I look forward to how your input shapes how the UK can be better governed. I certainly agree with your proposals in this article. More accountable technocrats and quangos especially. Also I also find it quite extraordinary that Ministers are rarely qualified to manage the departments they are selected to lead. This I think is a deeper problem with the election of MPs who are rarely qualified in anything other than law, journalism or critical theory.
The author is writing from her experience of London but have other big cities also been affected to some extent?
I am sure once he gets round to thinking about it Mr Johnson will be pleased that London has made a contribution to levelling up.
Not sure about his party donors though.
An interesting and informative read. While the instances quoted may be anecdotal, they are examples of what is fast becoming a major scientific endeavour. A glance across the pond will confirm that. Ageing is now considered by an increasing number of scientists as a disease, and diseases as we know are very attractive to the pharmaceuticals. Unravel the biology of ageing and, so long as it can be demonstrated that extending one’s lifespan is not just dependent on lifestyle changes ie there are medications involved, then you can see why pharma sees this as blockbuster territory.
This is going to run and run….
‘They mostly looked carefully past the bottom line, which is that London has enjoyed its pre-eminent position by concentrating the lion’s share of Britain’s ambition and intelligence in its penumbra.’
When one considers that back in the day, it was reckoned that it took 13 people to support 1 frontline combatant during war, I take issue that the vast majority of London workers are as described. Nor that they can as easily afford 10 grand to get there so that they can support those very much fewer but considerably better paid, great and good as mentioned.
I’m no commie but there does need a better understanding that a well trained surgeon is about as much use as the proverbial chocolate tea pot, if there is not an equally well trained scalpel maker. Who is worth more only becomes apparent when one or other is needed in an emergency.
The patient will suffer from the lack of either, won’t they?
I think you are a commie. The level of skill involved in being a surgeon is much higher than the level of skill involve in manufacturing a scalpel. Still in doubt? Then reflect on this. We have mechanised the manufacture of scalpels; we have not done the same for performing an operation. Only a commie would equate being a trained surgeon and holding a scalpel.
Despite being past 50, Boris Johnson doesn’t understand that having sex without contraception may lead to pregnancy. Don’t expect him then to have foreseen that encouraging homeworking would lead to a collapse of commercial property prices. Nor that the internet means that white collar jobs can be exported to Asia in the same way that factory jobs were.
Returning to the office, for people with significant commute times, is a major drop in hourly salary (of course working from home equalled a raise, for which no one complained).
But worse than the lesser hours involved in this activity we call work, ALL the people I know who are “working from home” assure me they are NOT their 7.5 hours a day, most tell me they’re working around 60% of that and taking plenty of holiday time.
This situation is EXTREMELY discriminatory to those of use without the social status to “work from home”. And the fact that our unions have encouraged this laziness has really lowered by respect for my union. My union cares about the at home people, it cares almost nothing for the at work people, outside of telling us to refuse to work if the boss didn’t “make it safe”, which is entirely ridiculous.
I’ve been a union advocate my entire life, but lockdowns and fear mongering might turn me around.