Somewhere In France
Track of the day Never See Me Fall - Nerve Engine.
The British Government likes to measure performance by feeding statistics into computers and publishing figures to show what a good job they are doing.
You can find which schools are worth sending your children to and which ones aren't. You can find out which areas of UK towns and cities have the highest crime rates and which are safest. You can find out which hospitals and surgeons have the highest and lowest mortality rates.
It's all fascinating stuff, especially when some unfortunate local administrator pops up to say, "Yes the results are lousy but we've come up with an action plan and we're learning from our mistakes, it won't happen again," but of course it always does because the latest action plan is no more appropriate than the previous one and the targets are based on goverment priorities rather than local ones. The statistical whizz kids manipulate the figures and the government announce improvements in performance here there and everywhere but people still get attacked, people still die from poor treatment in hospitals and kids still fail exams. In my usual perverse way I derive great satisfaction from the recent Home Office cock-ups.
It's patently obvious that government departments are as incapable of meeting their own targets as the mere mortals in the public sector that they've been damning for the last nine years. In fact John Reid's department can't even come up with the figures to feed into the computers. Enjoy your holiday somewhere in France Dr Reid!
The British Government likes to measure performance by feeding statistics into computers and publishing figures to show what a good job they are doing.You can find which schools are worth sending your children to and which ones aren't. You can find out which areas of UK towns and cities have the highest crime rates and which are safest. You can find out which hospitals and surgeons have the highest and lowest mortality rates.
It's all fascinating stuff, especially when some unfortunate local administrator pops up to say, "Yes the results are lousy but we've come up with an action plan and we're learning from our mistakes, it won't happen again," but of course it always does because the latest action plan is no more appropriate than the previous one and the targets are based on goverment priorities rather than local ones. The statistical whizz kids manipulate the figures and the government announce improvements in performance here there and everywhere but people still get attacked, people still die from poor treatment in hospitals and kids still fail exams. In my usual perverse way I derive great satisfaction from the recent Home Office cock-ups.
It's patently obvious that government departments are as incapable of meeting their own targets as the mere mortals in the public sector that they've been damning for the last nine years. In fact John Reid's department can't even come up with the figures to feed into the computers. Enjoy your holiday somewhere in France Dr Reid!
Meanwhile Somewhere In England
John Prescott is reported to be fine tuning his skills with the croquet mallet on the lawns of his, it goes with the job, country mansion. Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister with no special responsibilities is supposedly looking after the welfare of the country while the PM is holidaying in Italy for a few days. It's good to unwind occasionally.
Posted by Milt at 8:33:00 pm
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