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It. Gets. Everywhere.
July 12th, 2010
It. Gets. Everywhere.
Ive got a weed in my back garden. “Big deal,” I hear you cry, “Haven’t we all?” Yes, we have, but please bear with me. I can feel an analogy coming on. Now please note - I am not green-fingered and I don’t have much experience with plants in general so I may make some mistakes when elaborating botanically.
The weed which is the cause of my woes is called Ground Elder. It’s deceptive stuff because it doesn’t immediately look like a weed if you aren’t born with shears in your hand and wellies on your feet. It’s not all ragged and nasty like bindweed, nor does it have the telltale sting of nettles. Its not poisonous and it doesn’t even look that horrible as long as you don’t mind very bland green leaves filling every square inch of your shrubbery. Mine grows upwards and outwards making it look a little like a bush. Or even, in one section of the garden, like a tree. But let me assure you, however it may initially look, the monstous stuff is definitely a weed. It. Gets. Everywhere.
Here’s what a gardening website has to say about Ground Elder:
Perennial, spreading mainly by creeping underground stems, sometimes by seed. Although they have been found down to 30 feet or more in cave systems, the roots usually form a network just below the surface, so they are quite easily dug up. However every last trace must be removed because any small fragments will regenerate. This is why this weed is very difficult to eliminate as it is usually growing among other plants. It is premature to declare victory in the battle with Ground-elder without allowing a few years to pass. Vigilance is required for at least this amount of time for some re-emergance, particularily if it has been allowed to grow unchallenged for some time. The roots will have been widespread and it will have cast some seed which may germinate as new plants.
In much the same way (here’s that analogy I promised you) our democracy is infected with a weed which has come to be known as the quangocracy. Like Ground Elder, this stuff doesn’t immediately look like a weed either. It snakes its way into every corner of government, its roots taking underground paths so that you can’t see quite how intrusive it is. You might not even know its there until it pops up and takes over an area of government that had previously appeared to be weed free. It can undermine the legitimate parts of government in subtle and effective ways (as Michael Gove is currently discovering to his chagrin.)
Like Ground Elder, the quangocracy is very difficult to eliminate as it is growing among productive sections of the government, winding its way through them so that a liberal dose of weed-killer will be counter-productive, damaging important areas too. The quangocracy knows this – indeed, it counts on it.
Like Ground Elder, the only way to be sure an individual quango is gone is to quite literally eradicate every trace of it. But instead the “bonfire of the quangos” seems to be quietly turning into the renaming of the quangos, or the relocating of the quangos, or just surrendering to the quangos. This is done for honest and decent reasons I’m sure, but there’s the rub – if you leave these unelected, undemocratic edifices a foothold they will just grow right back where they were before. Bigger. And again – the quangocracy knows this – it counts on it.
And just like the Ground Elder, if you are trying to close down a quango it is premature to declare victory in the battle without allowing a few years to pass. Vigilance is required for at least this amount or back it will come – perhaps with a new name, perhaps with a new face at the helm or a new perfectly-plausible reason for why it is a “vital, necessary and important resource.” It will try to scare you with that importance by threatening the loss of services you rely upon. It is easy to scare people who feel vulnerable. The quangocracy knows this – indeed, it counts on it.
One power that the quangocracy has that is greater even than the dreaded Ground Elder is the ability to assimilate people into it. By the clever use of love-bombing opponents by ‘bringing them on board’, by granting “special responsibilities” complete with sweeteners, by offering a convenient untouchable scapegoat for the mistakes of others, by threatening dire consequences for non-compliance with the quangocracy, or sometimes just by relentless sweet persuasion it becomes a terrible weed indeed. Imagine if the Ground Elder in my garden didn’t just strangle and overrun the other plants but could actually turn them into Ground Elder too? No more radiant roses, no more beautiful yellow swathes of Narcissus, no more luscious lillies. Just acres and acres of conformist, colourless, bland green leaves. That’s not the sort of garden anyone would want.
There is a simple rule-of-thumb which fits in well with the current localist agenda. If a Quango is necssary and does important work then it should still be necessary and able to do important work with an elected person at its helm or as a privatised body. Because somebody needs to be directly responsible for the spending of taxpayer-funds and that somebody must be removeable by the taxpayer. Or the body itself must be controlled by the power of the markets. Any Big State enthusiast (or indeed any small-state Conservative who has ‘gone native’ and bought into the whole quangocracy agenda) should still be able to see the merits of that. If they are indeed necessary – then lets make sure they are also properly accountable. But if (and this surely goes for many of them) they are not necessary? Let’s stack the firewood and get on with the much-promised bonfire.
There is such a lot of ground elder in my garden that it would be easy to just throw my hands up and say: “To hell with it.” I could just give up on my aspiration for a nice garden which I would enjoy sitting in and in which my son and I could shoot a few hoops or lounge in comfy garden chairs to Bat Out Of Hell, or Justin Bieber (depending on whether my son or I were choosing the music). It would be much easier to do so. Of course, every day I say that and do nothing, the weed grows larger and heavier and harder to shift. The Quangocracy is just as deeply embedded. A monumental task requires a herculean effort to tackle.
But how? That’s the question. How to get rid of these multi-layered bureaucratic monoliths in such a way as to make sure they don’t return? I can only speculate based on how I plan to deal with the Ground Elder in my backgarden. There’s no master plan, or clever scheme. I’m not bringing in any specialists or advisors. I will not be setting up a committee. I have no intention of spending huge sums on a skewed consultation. I’m just going to cut it down. Even if that means damaging some of my other plants. Even if my garden looks horrible for a while. I’m going to dig up the roots. I’m going to make liberal use of weedkiller. And i’m going to keep doing that month after month and year after year until it is gone and is not coming back. It’s that – or give the weeds free run of the garden forever.
10 Responses to “It. Gets. Everywhere.”
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I agree
Moderator (Steve Tierney)’s Response:
(Falls off chair)
Bravo Steve but I suspect your Ground Elder will be just as resistant as the Quangocracy to which you refer even after the sort of treatment you intend to indulge in. Best to move house I would suggest!
Even today’s paper gives a hint of the survival rate for the dreaded quango……I thought our coalition government was ready to dig up Primary Care Trusts and consign them to the rubbish heap but Oh no, they’re going to continue in existence despite £80bn of funding being transferred to GPs who no doubt, will also bring in redundant specialists from the Primary Care Trusts juust to keep the roundabout going!
Moderaror (Steve Tierney)’s Response:
The “family GP as advisor” idea is really interesting though. There have been many suggestions at how to apply market forces to the NHS without actually dismantling the NHS and without making it subject to the darker side of the markets (profit for profit’s sake – at any cost.) The best one I’ve seen involved complex use of “customer websites” after visiting a doctor and, though clever, left a lot to be desired. This idea of putting the market power into your local doctor’s hands is new and worth considering. It could work, if handled correctly, and fits nicely with the community / localism ideas.
But yes, Primary Care Trusts could have certainly gone. They are closing the regional development agencie – but sadly there is a replacement. Now the replacement MAY turn out to be properly democratic and accountable – or it may not. We’ll have to wait and see the full detail.
I actually have no problem with Quangos that do a real job – but they should be directly answerable to MPs. Every quango should have to make its case for staying open each year to a committee of back bench MPs and if the case is strong that committee should assign new heads of any functional quango each year and approve its budget. In this way, we know who is to blame if money is wasted. And they know we know. Meanwhile, Quangocrats can be removed if they aren’t doing a good job or their quango can be closed down if its run its course and is no longer necessary. In many cases Quangos could be closed immediately with no harm done to anything significant – or they could be privatised or the work outsourced to private companies or charitable organisations.
Just a p.s. on this which when penned was based on information from today’s Times. Tonight’s TV news however puts a different slant on it by saying 150 PCTs will be dismantled but which are they i wonder? I would have thought ours would be a certainty after the Dr Urbani scandal.
Presumably the Strategic Health Authorities, which have been in existence since before PCTs were brought in as an extra layer, will survive this bloodletting but I have no idea what they do and to whom they are accountable.
Here’s a thought, lets see if the GP-led solution works through a series of pilot projects around the country. It might work, let’s see. It does look like the holy grails of giving decision making back to the medical profession and eliminating or severely reducing a layer of bureaucracy at the same time. In that case there’s not (on the face of it) much to complain about other than future failures in implementation.
Got some weed in your garden !
Dry it out, invite some friends around, and put it in your pipe and smoke it !
Like Dave didn’t.
Something has to be done to get rid of the numerous stratas of management in the NHS and this is probably a step in the right direction. All that bothers me about passing the responsibility for PCT acrivity on to GPs is that according to my GP, they don’t have enough time to do their ‘proper’ job as it is. Our surgery here in March has 10,000 registered patients and God knows how many doctors and ancillary staff – you can’t ring up and make an appointment because the lines are always busy so one has to go to the surgery personally to get an appointment whatever ones state of health.
To my mind, big isn’t better in our case and i would prefer smaller units. If our surgery takes on the PCT budget I suspect it will import a number of people from the PCT to do the work and expand their premises. Rather a pointless exercise I would have thought.
Incidentally tried to access Times Online today as is my usual early morning habit in order to read the Opinion pages and readers letters only to find I can only do that by paying a subscription from now on. The Murdoch group are obviously the trailblazers in this. No doubt the other nationals will follow suit in due course and then maybe the local weeklies.
I have no intention of paying a subscription for online access – I can read any number of papers free at the Library. Unfortunately the coffee shop I visit only has the dreaded Daily Mail and Sun two blatantly right wing journals but they sell about 10 million copies between them (God help us). The Sun think tits are more important than politics anyway!
Moderator (Steve Tierney)’s Response:
The Times’ move to subscription pricing has been much-discussed and extremely controversial. I think you’re wrong about the other papers following suit. I think the Times is making a big mistake – but its certainly an interesting experiment. What the media (and by this I mean ALL the media) doesn’t understand is that something strange and wonderful is happening in the world. There has been a dramatic change akin to when Steam engines were outmoded.
Anything that anybody tries right now is going to be quickly rendered irrelevent by the swift advances which are going on. I wont get too much into this subject because – of all the views I hold – my views in this area are the most radical of all. But my view is that everything we know and understand about traditional media will have changed a decade from now and completely new structures will haev evolved.
There are going to be lots of casualties – just like there were in every other social or technological leap forwards. Those who will emerge successful at the other end will be the most intuitive, imaginative thinkers who can see the way the wind is blowing. I wont speculate on which way that is except to say that I don’t believe paid firewalls for newspapers are part of it. At least not the way the Times have done it.
Intriguing Steve. Can’t you let us into the secret?
I can imagine a scenario in about ten years in which everybody is so fed up with social networking sites and all this twittering, facebooking and blogging et al that they’ll fall back on applying their minds to work and traditional methods of communicating (quill pens etc).
I’m old enough to remember the biro being something of a revolution and the photocopier being a huge step forward from the old Gestetner Duplicator, with wax stencils, which, when I was in the RAF was the only way of reproducing documents even if it was a 40 page technical review required to go to about 30 locations. As for Tippex for ordinary letters – that was unheard of. You either got it right or started again with fresh paper – no wonder the waste paper baskets were always full!
Up to when I retired some 15 years ago, contact when one was away from the office, was either by a message relayed to a customer, asking one to phone in or by using a public phone (yes, they were around in those days). It was such bliss to get away from all the hurly burly and have a day in which one could concentrate on creative thinking without a mobile phone going off every few minutes. (I used to have some of my most productive thoughts while cruising down the motorway)
When do modern managers have time to THINK?
Moderator (Steve Tierney)’s Response:
I enjoyed your stroll down memory lane, but I suspect that social networking is here to stay. The existing sites may change a lot, new sites will probably overtake them and many new features and connections will take place, but this is probably not just a fad.
In the same way, when fax machines first appeared they quickly killed off telegrams and the like. Now fax machines are quietly fading away as everything goes via email. Some people still use typewriters, but mostly they’ve been killed off by computers with printers attached. Some people still use the quill pen and have beautiful handwriting, but its become a hobby rather than a necessity. If you are arguing that all “progress” is not necessarily good than I’d respond “doh!” But its not my party that claims that all ‘progress’ is good. Some of it is, though, inevitable.
Computers and the internet have utterly and completely changed the world though. And I suspect this is just the beginning of how much they will eventually change the world. Just a drop in the ocean.
The Labour party is claiming today that DC’s Big Society is going back to Victorian values and just replacing paid employees with volunteers – they have a point I suppose. Is that why it’s going to start in Liverpool?
Social networking sites are OK but when does anyone have anytime to do any work? John Elworthy seems to spend most of his time twittering – perhaps that’s why he doesn’t print my letters and other stuff I send FOC!
What does one have to do to ask a Freedom of Information question of the local authority? According to today’s Times, civil servants and local authority employees who take voluntary redundancy and have served more than 25 years, get 6 times their annual salary.
I reckon that if our friend Mr Pilsbury went on that basis he will have pocketed not far short of a £million as a pay off. Surely not?
Not entirely relevant to the subject of the blog but some fascinating news in the Independent today which says that AV would actually help the Conservatives win more seats than FPTP in a general election. Will that bring about a change of mind where the referendum is concerned?
Also YouGov research indicates that the Lib Dems popularity with their voters is dropping like a stone. nick Clegg’s performance in the commons probably won’t help.
Lovely letter in the Citizen today referring to me and two other habitual letter writers as soothsayers. At least the writer refers to us as Uncles rather than Grumpy Old Men!
I was at Peckover House today doing my Garden Tour bit and the Mayor was there along with FDC councillors and officers having lunch with the judges from Anglia in Bloom. If Wisbech beat March I’m going to complain that the judges were nobbled!