<body><iframe src="http://www.blogger.com/navbar.g?targetBlogID=14058325&amp;blogName=The+Croydonian&amp;publishMode=PUBLISH_MODE_BLOGSPOT&amp;navbarType=BLUE&amp;layoutType=CLASSIC&amp;homepageUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fcroydonian.blogspot.com%2F&amp;searchRoot=http%3A%2F%2Fcroydonian.blogspot.com%2Fsearch" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" height="30px" width="100%" id="navbar-iframe" title="Blogger Navigation and Search"></iframe> <div id="space-for-ie"></div>

It's the return of the Doomsday Book - only for ferns and liverworts this time...

Tuesday, July 22, 2008
The Son of the Bennotollah is kicking it off. Perhaps he 'had deep speech with his counsellors and [will send] men all over England to each shire ... to find out ... what or how much each landholder [has] in land and livestock, and what it [is] worth".

"A wide-ranging audit of England's natural resources - its wildlife, habitats and ecosystems - was today launched by Environment Secretary Hilary Benn.

The two year project will result in the most comprehensive picture ever of our natural environment, the benefits it provides to society, and how it is changing".

I feel sorry for the poor devil who will be going through Epping Forest clicking every time he / she sees a fern, but sorrier for whoever has to peer at fungal spores on the rocks in the Peak District.

Facetiousness to one side, note this: 'The results will be used by Government to prioritise work so that the natural environment is enhanced'. Erm, the natural environment is what we would have if it was left untouched, so anything the state does, from the Forestry Commission (or whatever it is called this week - 'Treesational!' maybe?) to Canute efforts via nerds with laptops kicking leaves around to moss auditors sneezing in areas of outstanding natural beauty is rendering it unnatural.

I think that I will never see, a Benn Plan lovely as a tree....

Labels: , ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

The devil in the detail

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Pravda central has put out a release telling us just how great the Dept of Work & Pensions is, including:


"Whitehall's largest government department is in good shape and delivering a better service to its customers".

and:

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, James Purnell, said:"This report shows that we have a really well run Department delivering its services increasingly effectively to the millions of people it serves every day. The report is a great tribute to the leadership and staff of the DWP - and I want to congratulate everyone's hard work and commitment to ensure that we are delivering results."


What Purnell did not see fit to announce in his puff piece are the following:

"DWP...needs to clarify its direction of travel to staff, and to articulate its core purpose and the end result it wants to achieve. The Department needs to consider how best to ensure understanding of its aims and achieve buy-in, and embed this throughout the organisation. (Apologies for the managementese, I'm just copying this stuff. C)

* Staff engagement scores are below the central government benchmark but are consistent with a large-scale delivery department undergoing massive change. The Department must work hard to improve engagement with its staff.

* Although plans are in development, the Department has not yet articulated clearly what it needs in terms of its people and skills mix and ways of working to ensure future delivery effectiveness. There are concerns amongst staff about the performance management system and the consistency with which it is implemented. These include concerns over differentiating performance, incentivising good performance, tackling poor performance and identifying and meeting development needs.

The Department could push further to encourage more strategic innovation.

* Whilst stakeholders think that the Department is working more innovatively and proactively, and is good at adapting as it delivers, they think that it could do more to encourage a step change rather than incremental change.

* The Department could do more to encourage a consistent culture of appropriate challenge and innovation from staff and stakeholders. DWP needs to give better feedback to external stakeholders and to explain its response to their advice and suggestions.
* Much is riding on Lean (an initiative to streamline processes) to create the space for future investment. The Department will need to ensure that this initiative is having the desired impact.


Further, leadership direction setting and capability building and planning, resourcing and prioritising of delivery - that latter bit being what these people are supposed to be doing all day - are euphemistically termed 'a development area'.


Not quite so rosy, is it?

Labels: ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

The government that makes ours look honest. And competent

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Say hello to Timor Leste, or East Timor, as she is better known in these parts. While rooting around for detail on a tale of car sharing between ET's MPs, I found something far more arresting:


Yup, right there on the front page of timor-leste.gov.tl it is claiming to have a population of 900 million, which would make it a good third behind China and India, and around three times as populous as the US. Jakarta might be worried that Dili has designs on West Timor too. The CIA factbook reckons 1.1 million, but what's an error of a factor of 818 between friends?

Labels: ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

The Scandinavians and their traffic lights

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
The Danes have decided to follow the Swedish example and mess about with traffic light iconography. Whereas the Swedes have brought in female stick people at pedestrian crossings because it is sexist etc etc to only have men (they could be flat chested women in trousers, couldn't they?). I am NOT making this up.

Anyway, despite the Danish equality quango "'calling the plan 'strange' and 'a waste of money'", Copenhagen's council is pressing ahead regardless, as this business "was not about equality for the sexes but more about creating debate and a bit of a stir". Doubtless Copenhagen has no crime, education, health etc problems, and its councillors are thus free to ruminate on more abstract issues.

While it would be tempting to fulminate in best 'Disgusted of Croydon' fashion, that would be a tad predictable, so rather I will focus on other Danish traffic light oddities and ponder on British possibilities:

In Odense the lights depict Hans-Christian Anderson and in Fredericia local statue 'the brave country soldier'. And here they are. I imagine readers will work out which is which



First things first, how can either of those images be stripped down to one colour and still be instantly recognisable as who they are and to suggest walking / not walking? Any field reports showing Odense or Fredericia traffic lights will be gratefully received. Always supposing the Danes have cracked the challenge I posed, I am looking forward to having my town's traffic lights depicting David Lean.


Labels: , , , ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

The country that won the lottery - so to speak - and blew it

Wednesday, May 07, 2008
Cat calls and jeers for the leaders of Indonesia:

"Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said yesterday that Indonesia was considering quitting OPEC because it is no longer a net oil exporter....The country is Southeast Asia’s only OPEC member. But it has to import oil because of decades of declining investment in exploration and extraction because of corruption and a weak legal system that makes oil companies wary of doing business there". Source

Meanwhile, "Oil set a new record high of $122 a barrel on Tuesday, the latest spurt in an advance that has seen prices double over the past 12 months". Source

Labels: , , ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Vox populi.....

Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Alarming findings from the other side of the Pond:

"Eighty-one percent say when making "an important decision" government leaders "should pay attention to public opinion polls because this will help them get a sense of the public's views".

That the rabble 'running' the show in these parts is a bit keen on focus groups is a matter of record, but - as far as I know - event-related policy is not defined by whichever part of the public squawks the loudest.

Labels:

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Robbing Peter to pay Peter

Thursday, February 28, 2008
Or one bit of the state takes money from another bit of the state, shakes it up a bit and puts out a press release.

Because the Office of the Rail Regulator is deeply proud of itself for having fined Network Rail some £14m - a fair scratch, it must be said: "It is right that we should also impose a fine to mark the seriousness of this breach of Network Rail’s licence and to send a clear message to the company’s Board and senior management that it needs to address the weaknesses we have identified as a matter of urgency. Given the scale of the investment programme on the rail network, improved project planning and management will bring real benefits to Network Rail’s customers in terms of improved capacity, performance and value for money".

However, Network Rail is "a “not for dividend” company and all...profits go straight back into improving the railway".

It is by no means clear from the ORR website or its annual report what it does with the fines it pockets. My guess would be that it pockets them, thus giving a self-financing and doubtless self-perpetuating quango. If it does not, and passes the money straight on to the Treasury via the Consolidated Fund we have taxation via the back door. However one looks at, rail users are actually going to end up carrying the cost of this operation, and this is supposed to be good news?

Similar things happen in the water sector.

Labels: , ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Cleaning up November's party

Monday, February 25, 2008
There are countless odd ways that the state spends our money, and doubtless there is something to offend everyone. I have found something quite remarkable, which the DTI' Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform' is doing on our behalf: it is paying, along with our Norwegian friends, to clear up someone else's mess. In this case an outmoded November-class submarine (hence the headline) once employed by the Krasny Flot:

"The UK and Norway will share the £3.9 million cost to dismantle the decommissioned November Class submarine No291, which will be de-fuelled and then towed to Nerpa Shipyard for dismantling. Once dismantled to a single compartment unit (containing the de-fuelled reactor) the submarine will be transferred to Saida Bay for land-based interim storage. Project management and technical advice for the UK Government will be provided by NUKEM Ltd (yes, it is called that. But one word, not two)".

And this is not the first time - "Through the Global Threat Reduction Programme, the UK has successfully dismantled three nuclear powered submarines: two Oscars (Zvezdochka Shipyard) and a Victor (Nerpa Shipyward) including documentation and infrastructure work at both shipyards. This is the fourth submarine dismantling project the UK has undertaken".

Isn't that kind of us? While the Russian Federation does not rejoice in a Swiss-level of income per head at present, and it might well be little more than Burkina Faso with gas, there is an awful lot of gas over yonder. Presumably Putin has decided that he does not like the polluter pays principle, and has been making menacing noises about scuttling the nuclear powered submarine somewhere between Arkhangelsk and the Shetlands, and therefore has convinced Muggins and Møggins that we should pony up for the privilege of that not happening. Sounds like blackmail to me.

The Russians having established this way of doing business, the scope for shaking down the more gullible governments is endless.

Labels: , , , ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Rent seeking, Danish style

Wednesday, February 13, 2008
As a career cynic, I view many of the fines levied for parking offences and the like as having little or nothing to do with traffic flow, and everything to do with rent seeking and keeping a small army of sociopaths in gainful employment.

Anyway, a Danish civil servant has not merely opted to reveal the cloven hoof, but has adorned the hoof with bright red nail polish and given the hoof a damned good waggle:

"Helping patrons remember to return their books would put us in an untenable situation in which we lost an important source of income". Source

Rolf Happel of the Århus (in the middle of our street?) library system 'fessed up as Danish libraries will no longer remind patrons by text or e-mail that books are due back, as said libraries make so much money from the fines.

Labels: ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Petition o' the day

Wednesday, February 06, 2008
If only it was this easy:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Stop widespread waste of finances at all levels of government from HM Government down to local councils forthwith".

Sigh.

Labels: ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Something the Government will *not* be bragging about

Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Miracle of miracles, Eurobarometer has a survey in data protection not far from hitting the presses. Thus far, only the preliminary pan-European results have been released.

See if it is possible to restrain a hollow laugh at this:

"Interestingly, more than 50% of respondents said they trusted medical services and doctors, insurance companies, banks and financial institutions, employers, police, social security, tax authorities and local authorities when handling data. On the other hand, less than 50% of respondents said they trusted market and opinion research companies, non-profit organisations, mail order companies, credit reference agencies, credit card agencies and travel companies".

More detail when it is published.

Labels: , , ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

Good news for poker players - you cannot lose

Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Or at least not in Finland, where a university professor of law and economics has come up with a thoroughly well thought-out proposal which the kaiser blade-sharp brains in government want to put into practice: "Ministry of Social Affairs and Health is planning to introduce an amendment to the law on gambling that would enable Internet gamblers to claim back their losses. The payer would be either the firm providing the online poker services, a credit card company, or the winning player in the game".

I'm going to offer Helsinki my plan for extracting moonbeams from cucumbers.

Labels: ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian

The Year Zero approach to the Government's inability to preserve data....

Tuesday, December 18, 2007
"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to remove all computers from government department thereby stopping information from being lost". Source.

He has a point. As I have been known to wail when faced with the Blue Screen of Death, 'Can't we go back to the abacus, please?'

Labels: ,

links to this post posted by Croydonian