Those who can do, those who can't restructure
Really nasty for you DG - it's a really pap situation to be in - but ultimately they have to do stuff, and as long as you are a do-er rather than a restructurer then you are who matters. Not necessarily in the short-run, but you've got something to offer...

The big problem is the lack of apparent delivery in the public sector, and senior politicians feeling that 'something must be done' The back story is that a huge management bureaucracy has been imposed on the public sector, because there was a worry if you gave people more money for public services, it would cause salary rises not better service delivery. So you give them more money, and hire managers to make sure they hit the targets.

Naturally not spending on services, and spending on managers, hasn't improved services as much as it has cost because it is easier to 'manage' people than deliver services. And managers love to create management posts and new opportunities for their own promotion justified as being necessary for 'strategic purposes'.

So people are really panicking, all this money has been spent, and nothing really achieved, and the costs have gone up. And all they have got for it is a management tier, not a delivery function. Which is a real bugger if you are supposed to be delivering some particular service.

So what they do is restructure, not just themselves, but the whole organisation. And the further you are from management, and the closer to service delivery, the more disruptive and the less useful it is to you, you spend time having to fight your turf, against the managers, rather than doing things that help society and make people happy.

So the restructuring makes things worse, naturally, but the only control function managers have is restructuring - because you have downgraded the professional autonomy of your service workers - so you have to try and solve the problem with another restructuring. The organisation becomes locked into a downwards spiral of restructuring and falling service standards.

One large public sector organisation has spent the last five years in restructuring and has achieved precisely bog all towards being either fit for purpose, or actually doing something with that fitness. And stands on the verge of being abolished.

Location: handcart. Destination: looking ominous.

Length: about 14 years (south of the border...)
(cheesehead, Fri 23 May 2008, 12:50, Reply)