12 December 2005
Paperweight planners just waste everyone's time
Exclusive: I can reveal precisely what is wrong with the NHS, the social services and education. And we do this without a fee, or even a weekend conference in a smart hotel.
It is paperwork. And not just paperwork, but silly paperwork, devised by people whose only role in life is to waste other people’s time. If I were to go into hospital shortly, how happy should I be to know that this year the NHS introduced 24 core standards and 10 developmental standards covering seven key areas?
I will tell you. Not very, because I know how much time is likely to be taken up by people “proving” through endless paperwork that these targets have been met. Even if they haven’t.
If improvements are made to an old person’s flat, how pleased should we be that the hard-pressed people who did it have to fill in forms predicting whether this improvement has avoided the necessity of admitting the old person to hospital at some later stage? Not at all, because there is no way of doing this other than guessing.
But then the impossibility of knowing something never stops these paperweight planners. Head teachers, for instance, are not only required to predict what standards their pupils will reach in two years’ time; they are asked to predict the percentage of absences in 2008. Yes, 2008. Really.
It must be very tempting for schools (advised by local authorities) to tailor these guesses to fit government targets. You can hardly blame them, but what’s the point of it all?
The answer is simple: to give the Government statistics that it can distort to justify its actions. Then it can do something really useful, like introducing a breakthrough system of teaching children to read that, I am reliably informed, is already in use in just about all of Norfolk’s primary schools.
If all the paperwork required by the Government were used by children to draw pictures on, we would be a lot better off.
High cost of living down Memory Lane
A North Norfolk estate agent has called on the district council to change local roads and streets into lanes, following reports that people will pay up to £50,000 more to live in a lane.
Spokesman Len “Kissme” Hardy told our reporter: “We are already encouraged by the number of Quiet Lanes around here, although it must be confusing for mailpersons.
“And it’s not a very fun name. We would be looking for something a little more funky, like Dylan Lane or Counting Crows Lane – or Penny Lane. Memory Lane would probably go down well. Even Nelson Lane, seeing as I believe Nelson was local.”
Mr Hardy said he was sure homeowners would be keen on a change of address, if only to avoid receiving so much junk mail, but a council officer was more cautious. “We think this is a really silly idea,” she said.
Norfolk to get its own offshore call centre
Following the huge success of call centres in India, local legend Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago last night opened the first offshore call centre in Norfolk – at Happisburgh.
“It’s not exactly offshore yet,” he said. “But it will be soon. And I’ve got the ideal people to man it – sorry, impersonate it.
“All of them have lived in Norfolk all their lives, so they know exactly what’s going on in London, where our mother ship – sorry, parent company – operates.”
Asked whether they would be qualified to answer the calls they got, Mr Houseago said they were all highly qualified, as far as he could make out. “Sometimes it’s hard to understand what they’re saying, because Norfolk is a really pure dialect. But they can understand each other.”
He was sure the venture would be a huge success. It is backed by Mrs Hicks, the mayor of Little London, near Corpusty; and by a Taverham woman.
No surprise: public consultation ignored again
The most laughably predictable decision this year duly happened last Friday, when Suffolk County Council agreed to continue the snail-like speed limits on the A140 through its little kingdom, despite massive opposition to it in its public consultation.
The excuse for this decision is the alleged decrease in serious accidents during the period of the temporary limits. We all know how easy it is to manipulate such figures by moving the goalposts through space and time, but I would suggest that even if they have some basis in fact, it may be because so many people are sick of driving on the A140 that they have shifted on to country roads instead. If that is what the county council wants, fine, because it is likely to continue.
I myself live in Norfolk and rarely use the A140, so I shall not lose any sleep over it. You may say it is none of my business. But if I lived in Suffolk I would want to know why the council used my money to finance the public consultation, if it never intended to take the slightest notice of it.
Usual targets could cast their net wider
The campaign by the usual suspects to rid Norwich of 4x4 vehicles comes as no real surprise, because the usual suspects (disguised on this occasion as the Norwich Alliance Against Urban 4x4s) have no expertise in this area. For one thing, almost any car can be obtained in a 4x4 version: they really mean the large-wheeled off-road specialist vehicles which I have to admit I am not too fond of either. But we can’t simply demand the removal of things we’re not too fond of, or not many of us would be left.
If they wish to exclude from the city vehicles which pollute and obstruct, they should perhaps start with buses and lorries. And, as taxi driver Peter Hammond astutely puts it, “if the Alliance wants machines that are not designed for urban use off our streets, there go the mountain bikes!”
He also points out somewhat mischievously but quite accurately that off-road vehicles are “ideally suited to our poorly maintained urban roads. They cope well with the raised and sunken manhole covers, the badly mended potholes and the pothills that we call speed humps”.