Diluting responsibility

I suggest the thrust of the piece is widely understood by almost any taxpayer who cares to think about it.

Can we, the public, ever be content when, at times, we seem to be paying two to three times (not forgetting deputies' salaries) over to get the same job done?

Until quite recently, I was a civil servant. Before I had even begun (year 2000), open season on civil servants was well under way and it continues ceaselessly on these pages.

Throughout my 10-year term of service, I never forgot that, firstly and foremost, I was a taxpayer. Despite only being a grunt on the shop floor (so to speak), I was nevertheless interested to get the opportunity to observe from the inside if the service was really as bad as is so often claimed. I take a firm view now that too much of the habitual criticism stems from self-interest and often lacks any real degree of insight.

Even so, from the inside, I could not help but notice that my department could at times seem like the dullest basketball team. Defensive as civil servants are worldwide, my department rarely dropped the ball, well, for fear of playing it. They played largely on the back foot, because recent tactics dictate it's far more important not to give the opponent any sight of the basket than it is to go forward. In fairness, recent years have seen the team missing three top players in common sense, experience and logic, who are perpetually sin binned by order of health and safety. Presently, 'the litigious plus agents team' have largely grasped control over the court that represents the States workplace and, to an extent, workplaces generally. During my time in service, I became amazed just how few meaningful decisions seem to be made in-house.

Why is it that so much of local government business has to be cleared off-island? It's an important and key question as regards the effectiveness of local government. The civil service, certainly in my time, had a fixed mantra, underscored by frequent training and courses. The mantra exists as follows: If things go wrong at the sharp end, as long as the individuals and the department have followed the latest off-island guidance, then nothing that sticks can come back on to the individual or, more importantly, the department in question. Departments across the States do hate to be seen in the light of any type of controversy.

It can be argued that consultants and their ilk give value for money by providing essential expertise. But it can also be argued that consultants dilute responsibility from management, stripping a degree of authority at the same time as providing a form of bottom-line insurance that protects management and staff from redress.

It certainly is ironic that currently every fourth person in the workplace seems to be a manager. But at the same time, ever-less 'real management' seems to be practised.

I'm hardly being controversial. The outsourcing of decision-making, in the name of centralisation and standards, has been going on Europe-wide since perhaps the birth of the common market. Neither is it news that Europe-wide, from Catalunya to Switzerland, the Scottish referendum held a great deal of interest.

Scotland wished to have greater control over its own affairs and it seems guaranteed that it will, to a lesser or greater extent, be successful.

The fascination for me is, could it become the straw that breaks the camel's back? Will the 'Scottish thing' become the tipping point whereby there becomes a clamour in the countries of Europe for the return of greater control at a more local level? (Expect France and Germany to stay in love or risk fighting again.)

Maybe I am just being naïve about the modern world?

Or maybe it is just that I cannot help think centralisation without further thinking of Communism.

ANDREW LE PAGE,

Apartment D,

Alma House,

St Peter Port,

GY1 2BJ.