Breaking Britain’s Bureaucratic Dictatorship – Key Issue Series
We go behind the published policy summaries to explain in some detail how UKpopdem goals and policies work together on one of today’s major issues.
5. Breaking Britain’s Bureaucratic Dictatorship
Past union power
In Britain in the 1970s, conditions were dire and this country was heading towards becoming a banana republic, a third world nation. What was the cause of this nightmare? It was due primarily to the unions but fuelled by poor government. Long beforehand, these organisations (unions) were set up with the best intentions of protecting workers from bad employers who abused them in terms of low pay, long hours, unsafe working conditions, minimal breaks and bullying, overbearing attitudes. Unions were very successful, but in the 50s and 60s something happened: government mismanagement led to higher inflation and as a result union bosses started to make outrageous demands. They began to flex their muscles and abuse their own position of power with regard to ordinary people. Instead of fair pay for fair work they wanted more pay for less work. It was a sort of revolutionary coup attempt where unions had the means to stop up the system; and they did it. Eventually, the Labour government of the time was brought down and Thatcher won by a landslide. Ordinary people were suffering. They wanted the problem fixed and they knew Labour couldn’t hack it.
The beginnings of bureaucratic power
Everyone knows that Thatcher broke the unions. But she did it in a way that, ever since, created a divide in Britain. Instead of targeting union big bosses and their organisation she used the police to crack the heads of strikers; the foot soldiers of the unions. That was like punishing drug addicts while letting the big dealers go unmolested. But break the unions she did. What is not so well known is that Thatcher sowed the seeds for the bureaucratic situation Britain is in today. She instigated the process of introducing big business into government and growing a bureaucracy to control and monitor the delivery of public services. New Labour continued this bureaucratic growth, adding layers and layers of processing, controls and targets and deeper and yet deeper insertion of profit making enterprises. You won’t find this in government statistics but UKpopdems estimate that for every real public sector delivery person, like a nurse, porter, teacher, home help, prison warder, there are as many as two bureaucrats: that is, perhaps two million real front-line deliverers and up to four million bureaucrats and managers to control them. Taking private sector resources into the equation the situation could be much worse than this. It is indeed dire.
A bureaucratic dictatorship – really?
Ok, you might say, things are not so good: but a bureaucratic dictatorship? Yes. First let’s look at reality and define bureaucracy. Bureaucrats in this context are not suave people with bowler hats; they are ordinary people who mistakenly have been put into positions to create and administer processes and rules to stop things happening or slow them down. It’s not deliberate, just wrong-headed. Collins dictionary defines ‘bureaucrat’ as: ‘an official who follows rules rigidly, so creating delays and difficulties’; and ‘bureaucracy’ is likewise defined as: ‘any system of administration in which matters are complicated by minor rules and take longer than they need to’. In the old days of British Public Service, bureaucrats existed as vocational career specialists but there were far fewer of them, many less than the everyday workers who delivered services to people who needed them. In those days delivery resources such as police, health workers, road sweepers, even, were expected to do the right things, to the best of their ability for the individuals, families and communities they served, working mostly on their own initiative to complete the job. Now centralised bureaucracies have grown to such levels that no public servant can deliver what ordinary people need without a maze of rules, checks, processes and targets. Everyone knows that the public sector is costing more and seemingly delivering less. As bureaucracy grows, new super bureaucracies make rules and processes for lesser bureaucrats and they in turn need yet greater bureaucracies to monitor and control them in turn. The system is stopped up just as in the days of union power; now it is bureaucratic power that is abusing its position.
Visioning bloated bureaucracy
The result is dire because not only do people who need help fail to get the support they want, but increasing billions of pounds are wasted on bureaucrats that could be spent better on front-line delivery. Much worse, hundreds, maybe thousands of companies and individuals supplying resources, systems and consultancy to support the bureaucracy business are getting rich on tax-payers’ money. This means, bizarrely, that ordinary citizens like you and me are handing over more of our hard-earned money to get a worsening service; the money being sucked up by increasing numbers of bureaucrats whose job is to stop the things we want from happening in the first place! The business is now so big and so complex and so controlling, that government itself seems powerless in its grasp. The picture comes to mind of a huge, obscenely bloated body, so burdened by its own weight it is unable to move except for one hand which, seemingly of its own volition, shovels cash into its gaping maw from a pile of money continuously replenished by the turned-out pockets and purses of ordinary working families. The government brain may want movement but is powerless. The picture is made worse because it is the private sector which is supplying the scaffolding to prop up the body; providing the mechanics to assist the arm in moving to grab the cash, and contracting the earth mover to push the money-pile into the hand’s path!
Fixing the problem
Britain, truly, is in the grip of a bureaucratic dictatorship and it needs to be broken: not in the Thatcher way by cracking the heads of front-line deliverers but by turning the public sector upside down in the UKpopdems way. Instead of service delivery heading up through layers of bureaucracy ultimately to the controlling and unelected elite of senior Whitehall mandarins, UKpopdems will make sure public services operate under the democratic control of the individuals, families and communities who pay for them and need the services. The job of government is then to enable rather than control and make sure public services look outwards to the people they serve rather than inwards to their controllers. Achieving this is not a five minute job but a defining, systematic process that demands focussed effort over the long-term to completely eradicate the bureaucratic blight. Then Britain once again can be proud of a public sector that focuses on doing the right things in the right way as measured by individuals and communities; not remote central departments or government. How can it be done and what is the UKpopdems way?
Moving resources to the front-line
First we must remember that bureaucrats are people, too. It is not their fault. Private industry consultants and suppliers employ people as well and it is not their fault either. UKpopdems, when in government, has promised to put the people first. We are guaranteeing this by turning over the pyramid of power so that ordinary people are at the top and government at the bottom looking up, which is how it should be. What we are confident of is that back-office workers do not really want to be bureaucrats who control, target and process peoples’ needs remotely. High back-office staff turnover demonstrates the truth of it. What they want is what every public servant wants and that is to do the right thing in the right way to directly and rapidly serve the needs of the people – and be appreciated for doing it. We’ll make sure that no bureaucrat or back-office worker is forced out of a job. What we will do is to gradually move centralised staff to the front-line by prioritising public-facing roles, and reduce bureaucracy by natural turnover. Our ultimate aim is to increase numbers of front-line delivery specialists working directly in communities by 500,000 or even 1,000,000. We’ll do whatever it takes to deliver the right services in the right way to the right people; there is no place in the delivery system for bureaucrats who stop or slow down progress. We also need to ensure numbers of administrators and managers are not excessive as a proportion of front-line deliverers either; and we’ll set this ratio at no more than 30% of the total of front-line delivery resources. It can be done and people will not be forced out of their jobs.
Creating new real jobs
You can see by looking at UKpopdems big policy initiatives that we are creating millions of additional jobs elsewhere in the public and private sector so no-one need be in fear of losing employment. Look at UKpopdems ‘Right to Work’ initiative; or ‘Very High Earners Discretionary Contribution’; or our plan to eliminate corporation tax etc. and you can see we are planning millions of real new jobs. In addition, we’ll be offering front-line resources considerable wage increases when they agree to the new working conditions necessary to meet the high expectations of their local communities. In a document such as this it is not possible to explain fully how UKpopdems new front-line working procedures will operate in every circumstance but the general is explained here in a way that will give a clear route to the particular. In our published goals we have promised the people that when they really need help it will be given simply and thoughtfully. That promise is the backbone of our front-line service delivery policy.
Services working directly for you
Apart from teachers in schools and health workers in hospitals, clinics etc, we expect most front-line services will be delivered right there in the community that needs them. When UKpopdems define community, we are talking about small communities; Parish and Community Councils. And there will be many more resources – at least an extra 500,000 and up to 1,000,000 more than there are today. 250,000 of these will be additional policemen and women and they will have a dual role: 1. to reduce crime, especially violent and other serious crime, and to work with the justice system to remove violent and serious offenders from the society they are harming: 2. To play a social role in the community, to get to know the people in the community and ensure that anyone who needs help of whatever nature can get it. This means that there will always be someone easily accessible to turn to in your community when you or someone else needs help. Public services will be delivered by people who come to your door or reside in a small office or house nearby. They will work in small teams that can get to know individuals and the requirements of the community and determine needs quickly, simply and thoughtfully. Sometimes, additional expertise from outside will be necessary, but those specialists will still come to you rather than you going to them, unless you prefer to do that. Effectively, all these resources work for the community through the Parish and Community Councillors you elect; so in a real sense they operate for you and therefore will have your best interests in mind when they are addressing your business.
An end to central targets, controls and processes
There will be no need for bureaucratic processing, controls or systems beyond what the delivery resources themselves need to do their jobs. Of course there is a very real role for civil service departments, but it is not one of control, delay or veto. The central role will include two things: 1. setting the national and regional standards by which front-line resources operate: and 2. Collecting and managing information that needs to be reported, such as costs etc. None of these will force extra reporting or control criteria on front-line resources, but be collected naturally from the events of the work or from community administration. Schools and hospitals will work differently because of their locational needs, but will put the patient or pupil at the centre of their service in the same way. In the health service clear roles will mean that doctors and surgeons are responsible for treatment and nurses responsible for care, with all ancillary resources brought back in-house under the appropriate control of nurses or doctors/surgeons. In schools the basis of teaching will revolve around the best learning needs of the pupil so that his or her maximum potential can be realised. These are both very complex services and separate UKpopdem policies have already been published for each of them. But you can imagine that a public service like NICE for example, so much in the news recently, would be changed to promote and enable rather than control, delay and stop the right things from happening.
A return to public service vocation
Our goal is to all but eliminate bureaucracy over ten years and to do this in a way that does not disrupt services, but improves them to the satisfaction of every man, woman and child in Britain; for it is you who should be the measure of success in delivery. Public service is not about ultimate efficiency and the complete eradication of all waste. But it is about quality and vocation and that’s what we and we know most people want to return to; doing the right things for the right people in the right way.
5. Breaking Britain’s Bureaucratic Dictatorship
Past union power
In Britain in the 1970s, conditions were dire and this country was heading towards becoming a banana republic, a third world nation. What was the cause of this nightmare? It was due primarily to the unions but fuelled by poor government. Long beforehand, these organisations (unions) were set up with the best intentions of protecting workers from bad employers who abused them in terms of low pay, long hours, unsafe working conditions, minimal breaks and bullying, overbearing attitudes. Unions were very successful, but in the 50s and 60s something happened: government mismanagement led to higher inflation and as a result union bosses started to make outrageous demands. They began to flex their muscles and abuse their own position of power with regard to ordinary people. Instead of fair pay for fair work they wanted more pay for less work. It was a sort of revolutionary coup attempt where unions had the means to stop up the system; and they did it. Eventually, the Labour government of the time was brought down and Thatcher won by a landslide. Ordinary people were suffering. They wanted the problem fixed and they knew Labour couldn’t hack it.
The beginnings of bureaucratic power
Everyone knows that Thatcher broke the unions. But she did it in a way that, ever since, created a divide in Britain. Instead of targeting union big bosses and their organisation she used the police to crack the heads of strikers; the foot soldiers of the unions. That was like punishing drug addicts while letting the big dealers go unmolested. But break the unions she did. What is not so well known is that Thatcher sowed the seeds for the bureaucratic situation Britain is in today. She instigated the process of introducing big business into government and growing a bureaucracy to control and monitor the delivery of public services. New Labour continued this bureaucratic growth, adding layers and layers of processing, controls and targets and deeper and yet deeper insertion of profit making enterprises. You won’t find this in government statistics but UKpopdems estimate that for every real public sector delivery person, like a nurse, porter, teacher, home help, prison warder, there are as many as two bureaucrats: that is, perhaps two million real front-line deliverers and up to four million bureaucrats and managers to control them. Taking private sector resources into the equation the situation could be much worse than this. It is indeed dire.
A bureaucratic dictatorship – really?
Ok, you might say, things are not so good: but a bureaucratic dictatorship? Yes. First let’s look at reality and define bureaucracy. Bureaucrats in this context are not suave people with bowler hats; they are ordinary people who mistakenly have been put into positions to create and administer processes and rules to stop things happening or slow them down. It’s not deliberate, just wrong-headed. Collins dictionary defines ‘bureaucrat’ as: ‘an official who follows rules rigidly, so creating delays and difficulties’; and ‘bureaucracy’ is likewise defined as: ‘any system of administration in which matters are complicated by minor rules and take longer than they need to’. In the old days of British Public Service, bureaucrats existed as vocational career specialists but there were far fewer of them, many less than the everyday workers who delivered services to people who needed them. In those days delivery resources such as police, health workers, road sweepers, even, were expected to do the right things, to the best of their ability for the individuals, families and communities they served, working mostly on their own initiative to complete the job. Now centralised bureaucracies have grown to such levels that no public servant can deliver what ordinary people need without a maze of rules, checks, processes and targets. Everyone knows that the public sector is costing more and seemingly delivering less. As bureaucracy grows, new super bureaucracies make rules and processes for lesser bureaucrats and they in turn need yet greater bureaucracies to monitor and control them in turn. The system is stopped up just as in the days of union power; now it is bureaucratic power that is abusing its position.
Visioning bloated bureaucracy
The result is dire because not only do people who need help fail to get the support they want, but increasing billions of pounds are wasted on bureaucrats that could be spent better on front-line delivery. Much worse, hundreds, maybe thousands of companies and individuals supplying resources, systems and consultancy to support the bureaucracy business are getting rich on tax-payers’ money. This means, bizarrely, that ordinary citizens like you and me are handing over more of our hard-earned money to get a worsening service; the money being sucked up by increasing numbers of bureaucrats whose job is to stop the things we want from happening in the first place! The business is now so big and so complex and so controlling, that government itself seems powerless in its grasp. The picture comes to mind of a huge, obscenely bloated body, so burdened by its own weight it is unable to move except for one hand which, seemingly of its own volition, shovels cash into its gaping maw from a pile of money continuously replenished by the turned-out pockets and purses of ordinary working families. The government brain may want movement but is powerless. The picture is made worse because it is the private sector which is supplying the scaffolding to prop up the body; providing the mechanics to assist the arm in moving to grab the cash, and contracting the earth mover to push the money-pile into the hand’s path!
Fixing the problem
Britain, truly, is in the grip of a bureaucratic dictatorship and it needs to be broken: not in the Thatcher way by cracking the heads of front-line deliverers but by turning the public sector upside down in the UKpopdems way. Instead of service delivery heading up through layers of bureaucracy ultimately to the controlling and unelected elite of senior Whitehall mandarins, UKpopdems will make sure public services operate under the democratic control of the individuals, families and communities who pay for them and need the services. The job of government is then to enable rather than control and make sure public services look outwards to the people they serve rather than inwards to their controllers. Achieving this is not a five minute job but a defining, systematic process that demands focussed effort over the long-term to completely eradicate the bureaucratic blight. Then Britain once again can be proud of a public sector that focuses on doing the right things in the right way as measured by individuals and communities; not remote central departments or government. How can it be done and what is the UKpopdems way?
Moving resources to the front-line
First we must remember that bureaucrats are people, too. It is not their fault. Private industry consultants and suppliers employ people as well and it is not their fault either. UKpopdems, when in government, has promised to put the people first. We are guaranteeing this by turning over the pyramid of power so that ordinary people are at the top and government at the bottom looking up, which is how it should be. What we are confident of is that back-office workers do not really want to be bureaucrats who control, target and process peoples’ needs remotely. High back-office staff turnover demonstrates the truth of it. What they want is what every public servant wants and that is to do the right thing in the right way to directly and rapidly serve the needs of the people – and be appreciated for doing it. We’ll make sure that no bureaucrat or back-office worker is forced out of a job. What we will do is to gradually move centralised staff to the front-line by prioritising public-facing roles, and reduce bureaucracy by natural turnover. Our ultimate aim is to increase numbers of front-line delivery specialists working directly in communities by 500,000 or even 1,000,000. We’ll do whatever it takes to deliver the right services in the right way to the right people; there is no place in the delivery system for bureaucrats who stop or slow down progress. We also need to ensure numbers of administrators and managers are not excessive as a proportion of front-line deliverers either; and we’ll set this ratio at no more than 30% of the total of front-line delivery resources. It can be done and people will not be forced out of their jobs.
Creating new real jobs
You can see by looking at UKpopdems big policy initiatives that we are creating millions of additional jobs elsewhere in the public and private sector so no-one need be in fear of losing employment. Look at UKpopdems ‘Right to Work’ initiative; or ‘Very High Earners Discretionary Contribution’; or our plan to eliminate corporation tax etc. and you can see we are planning millions of real new jobs. In addition, we’ll be offering front-line resources considerable wage increases when they agree to the new working conditions necessary to meet the high expectations of their local communities. In a document such as this it is not possible to explain fully how UKpopdems new front-line working procedures will operate in every circumstance but the general is explained here in a way that will give a clear route to the particular. In our published goals we have promised the people that when they really need help it will be given simply and thoughtfully. That promise is the backbone of our front-line service delivery policy.
Services working directly for you
Apart from teachers in schools and health workers in hospitals, clinics etc, we expect most front-line services will be delivered right there in the community that needs them. When UKpopdems define community, we are talking about small communities; Parish and Community Councils. And there will be many more resources – at least an extra 500,000 and up to 1,000,000 more than there are today. 250,000 of these will be additional policemen and women and they will have a dual role: 1. to reduce crime, especially violent and other serious crime, and to work with the justice system to remove violent and serious offenders from the society they are harming: 2. To play a social role in the community, to get to know the people in the community and ensure that anyone who needs help of whatever nature can get it. This means that there will always be someone easily accessible to turn to in your community when you or someone else needs help. Public services will be delivered by people who come to your door or reside in a small office or house nearby. They will work in small teams that can get to know individuals and the requirements of the community and determine needs quickly, simply and thoughtfully. Sometimes, additional expertise from outside will be necessary, but those specialists will still come to you rather than you going to them, unless you prefer to do that. Effectively, all these resources work for the community through the Parish and Community Councillors you elect; so in a real sense they operate for you and therefore will have your best interests in mind when they are addressing your business.
An end to central targets, controls and processes
There will be no need for bureaucratic processing, controls or systems beyond what the delivery resources themselves need to do their jobs. Of course there is a very real role for civil service departments, but it is not one of control, delay or veto. The central role will include two things: 1. setting the national and regional standards by which front-line resources operate: and 2. Collecting and managing information that needs to be reported, such as costs etc. None of these will force extra reporting or control criteria on front-line resources, but be collected naturally from the events of the work or from community administration. Schools and hospitals will work differently because of their locational needs, but will put the patient or pupil at the centre of their service in the same way. In the health service clear roles will mean that doctors and surgeons are responsible for treatment and nurses responsible for care, with all ancillary resources brought back in-house under the appropriate control of nurses or doctors/surgeons. In schools the basis of teaching will revolve around the best learning needs of the pupil so that his or her maximum potential can be realised. These are both very complex services and separate UKpopdem policies have already been published for each of them. But you can imagine that a public service like NICE for example, so much in the news recently, would be changed to promote and enable rather than control, delay and stop the right things from happening.
A return to public service vocation
Our goal is to all but eliminate bureaucracy over ten years and to do this in a way that does not disrupt services, but improves them to the satisfaction of every man, woman and child in Britain; for it is you who should be the measure of success in delivery. Public service is not about ultimate efficiency and the complete eradication of all waste. But it is about quality and vocation and that’s what we and we know most people want to return to; doing the right things for the right people in the right way.
posted by United Kingdom Popular Democratic Party at 3:09 pm
