In many of my recent posts, I have repeatedly questioned the accountability and worth of my local council. Not the locally elected councillors but rather the employees charged with running it. As with many other councils in the UK, my local council has undoubtedly been subjected to the same cuts as the rest of us as the Coalition seeks to balance the books which they inherited in 2010. The way in which they have approached this challenge has been cynical and underhand which does them little credit.
Just yesterday, new information came to my attention. Under normal circumstances, I would have been flabbergasted but there is now little they could do to surprise me. Following a link on a social media site, I learned of a Freedom of Information request which eventually revealed details of the "Gagging orders" paid out by my local council over the last four years. It's fair to say that this information has been released not because they wanted the public to know but because they have been legally forced to do so.
In 2009/10, 3 gagging orders were paid out by my local council at a cost of £131,962.12. In 2010/11, 2 orders were paid at a cost of £37,500. In 2011/12, 4 were paid out at a cost of £91,963.92 and in 2012/13, 8 were paid out at a total cost of £182,032.24. This means that my local council has paid out a whopping £443,188.28 in the last four years (obviously not including the current financial year!). During the last year, that same council has closed down Rhyl Sun Centre, Prestatyn Nova Centre, the North Wales Bowls Centre and Llanbedr primary school to name but a few. They also tried their very best to close St. Brigid's faith school in Denbigh and have stated their intention to do so by 2018.
A gagging order is issued when the council wants to terminate the employment of an employee and shut them up. To do so, they have to pay a price such that both parties are happy. Thus, rather than go through normal employment tribunals and grievance procedures, they can simply pay off any employee whose face doesn't fit. This is 2014 and this is our council. If this was 1934 in Stalinist Russia, it would be difficult to tell the difference. Put simply, the power has got out of control. It will continue to do so until such time as they are held to account. The £443,188.28 so profligately spent in the last four years was done at a time when Clwyd Leisure (the not-for-profit company charged with running Rhyl Sun Centre) were having their annual budget slashed by £50,000 per annum. You don't need to be a mathematician to see that Rhyl Sun Centre, the Nova Centre and the North Wales Bowls Centre should all still be open. Meanwhile, the current Chief Executive continues to earn more than the Prime Minister!
I feel genuine sympathy for the ordinary council employees who are just trying to do their jobs to the best of their ability with the resources they have. I do take issue though with the spending decisions being made by the more senior personnel. Any outsider looking in at Denbighshire would surely question this track record? It does not reflect well on the people making these poor decisions and it insults the thousands of council tax payers in the county who frankly deserve a lot better. If you pay for a service in your life, you normally expect to get what you pay for. For the people of Denbighshire, such an expectation has for too long been an aspiration instead of a reality. Shame!
In his 1864 novella Notes from Underground, Dostoyevsky referred to the "farce in Schleswig-Holstein". The Schleswig-Holstein question concerned the relationships of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein with the Danish crown and the German confederation. It was not an easy concept to try and understand and few people did. Famously, the British Statesman Lord Palmerston admitted that "only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business - the Prince Consort who is dead - a German Professor who has gone mad - and I who have forgotten all about it".
In Notes from Underground, Dostoyevsky rejects the concept of Utopian Socialism which would ironically come to dominate Russian life throughout much of the twentieth century. The novella portrays humans as they are which caused great upset among his contemporaries. He portrays humans as irrational, uncooperative and uncontrollable. It is perhaps easy to see why such assertions would cause discomfort. He also claims that human needs can never be satisfied. Many critics consider this novella to be the first example of existentialism in literature and no less a judge than Nietzsche called Dostoyevsky "the only philosopher from whom I had anything to learn".
But just how accurate were the assertions of Dostoyevsky? Are we irrational? Are we uncooperative? Are we uncontrollable? I've not yet met anyone who doesn't tick all three boxes. So why did he cause so much upset? Is it because we would rather not face the realities of our shortcomings or do we genuinely believe these claims don't apply to us?
Lord Browne resigned as Chief Executive of BP in 2007. Since his peerage, he has become active in Government and today highlights a culture which exemplifies the observations made in Notes from Underground. Referring to the civil servants in Whitehall, he expresses his exasperation at their culture. His background in the Private Sector meant that any mistake made was identified and dealt with such that chances of its repetition were negligible. I have worked in such a culture and can concur with him. Things get done. This is the culture of progress. Lord Browne highlights a culture in which mistakes are never admitted and where accountability is non-existent. It must be intensely frustrating for him to be faced with such a culture when he has spent his whole life in a proactive environment. He points to a prevailing culture of blame and denial which renders progress nigh on impossible. Several cases have emerged whereby ministers have recently found themselves having to micro manage a project for fear it won't get done if left to the Civil Servants. If this is true, it begs the worth of bureaucracy. This surely confirms what many have suspected for a long time. Bureaucracy stifles people and stifles progress. While it is intended to promote the most efficient way of completing a task, it all too often acts as a barrier. In short, they are complex, inefficient and inflexible - all the things against which Dostoyevsky warned. Trying to find out who is responsible is like trying to understand the Schleswig-Holstein question. Even Lord Palmerston struggled with that one!
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