Had one of those ''sentencing deprivation' days when you feel as a Youth Offending worker that there are just too many pieces to be picked up from a society whose main way of dealing with child poverty (in all its forms - financial, emotional, social) is to punish, censure and blame those who are mired in its state. Interesting, whilst we all gorged ourselves on Thatcher's carcass , that the UNICEF report on Child Wellbeing flew in under the radar - UK worst at Further Education opportunities; UK highest number of Young People not in Education Employment or Training(NEET - or maybe not so neat)... recent gains on child poverty reversed under the Coalition...government cuts related to low well-being among teenagers...C'mon Labour...C'mon Millipeed minor forget Sideshow Mags get back into the trenches and do something about child poverty.

A bright sunny morning as befits " Scrounger 500 day"; the day, on which welfare benefits are capped at £500 per week. Wheeze for the day appears to be for 'selected' London Boroughs - notably Bountiful Borough of Bromley - to move families out to Lincolnshire and other suitably distant points of the UK. It makes perfect sense to move those families on Welfare away from their support and kinship systems and plonk them down in areas of high unemployment (N.E Lincs - 8.7%; Youth Unemployment Lincs-wide increased by 447% over last 4 years..." Young People Losing Hope" ), where they presumably will have virtually no chance of moving off the claimant register. I gather that the only group amongst the good Burghers of Bromley, who are a bit put out by this brilliant piece of social engineering are local landlords, who may find it difficult to get anyone other than Housing Departments to pay exorbitant rents for run-down, sub-standard accommodation... now we enjoy such good relations with Kazakhstan maybe we could move 'the 500 club' there?

March 22nd

Looking out on a bleak First-day-of Spring morning with Seal’s  ‘I can’t stand the rain’ playing in the headphones, I am reflecting on how lucky I am – as one of Cameron’s ‘ Under-Employed Strivers’ , and not working on Fridays, I have been spared attendance at the New Integrated Youth Service’s Unity Conference; as with many events, which seek to capture the imagination of the workforce, attendance is mandatory – a move, which is certain to ensure staff ‘buy in’  and enhance the sense of personal responsibility, which the new regime seeks to promote in the workforce. The Conference has been an eagerly awaited event amongst my colleagues as witnessed by discussions, as I left the office last night, as to whether conference pens will be of the soft-tip-easy-flow variety or the new-austerity-special – bics  – the best thing you get from a conference is always the free pen .

The focus of the Conference is  on Shared Competencies; that is to say that reluctant Youth Workers (YW) and reluctant Youth Offending Workers (YOW) are going to be helped to understand how (despite their doubts) they all have the same knowledge skills and understanding so that they can all do each others’  jobs. Thus, with one bound two disparate Services will be integrated.

The circle that the new leadership is trying to square is how to deliver a service with less resource at reduced cost – it is the public sector’s Holy Grail. IYS leaders have cunningly devised a double pincer movement, which in a Pythonesque (Monty Pythonesque) way will secure the Grail. In essence, they screw the problem from both ends by firstly ‘dumbing down’ service provision so that ‘anyone’ can do it; and then secondly by employing lower skilled people to carry out ‘dumbed down’ tasks for lower wages. There may be a rocky few years, while they  re-align their workforce plan and get rid of ‘residue’ by shedding over-skilled, over qualified (and overly costly) members of the workforce but in the end IYS will be ‘fit for purpose’. Though for what purpose it will be fit, we all shudder to think.

So this IYS Conference is an important milestone on our heroic path to Public Sector Nirvana.

The ‘Anyone Can Do Anything’ (ACDA) approach seems to have the Public Services completely in its thrall (although in the private sector companies like SERCO & G4S have been practising it for years). Ironically, it is competence frameworks developed by Sector Skills to protect standards (and promote competence!) which, have provided the mechanism for undermining and de-skilling different public sector workforces.

This is how it works; you take 2 people doing different jobs - say, A Youth Worker and a Youth Offending Worker - you run an audit of competences necessary to do each job and discover that several of these are held in common; you conclude that the 2 jobs are more or less the same and, therefore, can be carried out by the lower-skilled, lower-paid worker; you make financial savings.  Of course, the reasoning is complete bollocks; it’s like saying that mice and men have many DNA in common and so men are mice. The point is that, in configuring the workforce, it is not the competences, which are held in common by YWs and YOWs, which matter so much as those, which are not shared.

Once you make the leap of imagination, however, anything is possible:; a senior Kent  County Council manager sees Librarians registering Births, Marriages and Deaths –

“ I can see you’re upset at the death of your dear mother..may I offer my sympathy....but what are you going to do about these overdue library books?...”

Eric Pickles sees the same librarian running a cafe –

“ That’s  5 books, 2 DVDs and a skinny Latte, sir; I’ll just pop round the back for my Barista apron...”

But where will it all lead ? Will the NHS seek  SERCO’s assistance to coalescence  the roles of  Brain Surgeon and Bin Man? –

“ Well nurse, this one’s a gonna I’m afraid; just keep an eye on him while I slip into my waste disposal over-all and get him down to the morgue....”

But this could never happen in real life, could it? To return to the Integrated Youth Service - through the rain outside my window, I think I can see the adrenalin-fuelled form of the IYS Director powering  out of the starting blocks,  as the starting pistol, austerity , unleashes an unholy  public sector race to the bottom. I’m better off at home behind my window.

I started this BLOG about 10 months ago as a result of the crass changes made in my own public sector organization in the name of  'AUSTERITY'. As my Tyke friends (yes I do have one or two) are wont to say 'Cometh the hour; cometh the man' and here in Kent we certainly found a man, who would slash and burn with the alacrity and mindlessness expected of a self-seeking neo-barbarian, in search of a 6 figure salary.

As  the organizational crassness grew exponentially during the Autumn 2012, I was consumed by the hell hound 'Apathy' and  abandoned my BLOG  before it had even established itself. However, the repeated, persistent attacks by this government on the poor have once again got me reaching for the 6 gun, which is my keyboard. It is time for those, who still understand the meaning of ' the dignity and essence of public service' to re-connect. There is still (just about) such a thing as 'Society' and '(Wo)man shall not live by market forces alone.'

To warm up I re-post my opening blog of Summer of' '012'. Be warned there will undoubtedly be more to follow:

Saturday, 23 June 2012

I have been thinking about a couple of things tonight; one inspired by an excellent article by Ann James ( when she was at the King's Fund), in which she talks about the segmented way managers think; the other inspired (?) by the revelation that Michael Gove wishes to immortalize himself by bringing back 'o' levels. They are connected thoughts:

The Youth Offending Service in Kent has recently transmogrified into 'The Integrated Youth Service' (a bit of a laugh in itself, as the overwhelming majority of Young People, who come through the YOS portals are 'excluded youth' who have never been integrated into anything). Anyway, The IYS has a new leader, whose revolutionary plan is to reverse the re-structure of 2 years ago - this took the county down from 4 to 3 areas - and replace it with a 'new' 4 area structure; thus taking it from 3 to 4 areas. Of course, this is not a 'U' turn but merely a sacrificial offering to the god 'Co-terminosity'. 4 areas went to 3 in order to be co-terminus with Children' Services'; now 3 areas must go to 4 in order to be co-terminus with police areas. The benefits from co-terminosity must indeed be great, although strangely unmeasurable. (Luckily we now have a government, which is de-bunking New Labour's obsession with measurability. As we all know, we now operate in the Nike style of management 'Just do it'. So IYS is just doing it.

So what has this to do with Michael Gove?Well the Head of IYS shares at least two things in common with the estimable Mr G. Both are capable only of simple, linear thought; both appear to have an over-inflated opinion about their importance. Essentially what  both Gove and Baker (Head of IYS not the Education Secretary in the 80s) crave is to leave a legacy and both see the way of doing this is by going 'back to the future'.
So what has this to do with the admirable Ms. James? Ms James was saying ( I hope I do her justice) that senior managers when there is trouble reach for simple solutions: they go for 'the financial solution' - lets cut; let's make efficiency savings; or they go for the structural solution - let's re-organize; let's down-size; or the HR solution - let's get rid of this bunch of staff; let's up-skill; down-skill or sideways-skill. Mangers want 'simplicity'; they want a 'quick win'. They do not want to see complexity; historically, they have shown little capacity to think holistically; so they end up dealing with part of the problem in a partial way, which invariably creates  more problems rather than resolves them.
Having lived through more re-organizations than I have had hot breakfasts, I can say what they invariably achieve is decreased productivity; increased dissatisfaction amongst staff, increased turn-over of staff, loss of skills and experience and distancing/ mistrust between management and workforce. Do they ever save money? Somehow they have an uncanny knack of costing more.

I have been thinking about a couple of things tonight; one inspired by an excellent article by Ann James ( when she was at the King's Fund), in which she talks about the segmented way managers think; the other inspired (?) by the revelation that Michael Gove wishes to immortalize himself by bringing back 'o' levels. They are connected thoughts:

The Youth Offending Service in Kent has recently transmogrified into 'The Integrated Youth Service' (a bit of a laugh in itself, as the overwhelming majority of Young People, who come through the YOS portals are 'excluded youth' who have never been integrated into anything). Anyway, The IYS has a new leader, whose revolutionary plan is to reverse the re-structure of 2 years ago - this took the county down from 4 to 3 areas - and replace it with a 'new' 4 area structure; thus taking it from 3 to 4 areas. Of course, this is not a 'U' turn but merely a sacrificial offering to the god 'Co-terminosity'. 4 areas went to 3 in order to be co-terminus with Children' Services'; now 3 areas must go to 4 in order to be co-terminus with police areas. The benefits from co-terminosity must indeed be great, although strangely unmeasurable. (Luckily we now have a government, which is de-bunking New Labour's obsession with measurability. As we all know, we now operate in the Nike style of management 'Just do it'. So IYS is just doing it.

So what has this to do with Michael Gove?Well the Head of IYS shares at least two things in common with the estimable Mr G. Both are capable only of simple, linear thought; both appear to have an over-inflated opinion about their importance. Essentially what  both Gove and Baker (Head of IYS not the Education Secretary in the 80s) crave is to leave a legacy and both see the way of doing this is by going 'back to the future'.
So what has this to do with the admirable Ms. James? Ms James was saying ( I hope I do her justice) that senior managers when there is trouble reach for simple solutions: they go for 'the financial solution' - lets cut; let's make efficiency savings; or they go for the structural solution - let's re-organize; let's down-size; or the HR solution - let's get rid of this bunch of staff; let's up-skill; down-skill or sideways-skill. Mangers want 'simplicity'; they want a 'quick win'. They do not want to see complexity; historically, they have shown little capacity to think holistically; so they end up dealing with part of the problem in a partial way, which invariably creates  more problems rather than resolves them.
Having lived through more re-organizations than I have had hot breakfasts, I can say what they invariably achieve is decreased productivity; increased dissatisfaction amongst staff, increased turn-over of staff, loss of skills and experience and distancing/ mistrust between management and workforce. Do they ever save money? Somehow they have an uncanny knack of costing more.

Welcome to the Essential Irritant.

EI seeks to challenge hypocrisy and to root out poor and inadequate management in the public sector.

Watch this space for further updates on our battle against mediocre management!