Thursday, March 17, 2005
Money in my pocket but I can't get no love
No. It wasn't a "Vote Now, pay later" budget. It wasn't even "credit card" budget. It was just ever-so-slightly lame.The £200 payment to pensioners is not a brilliantly devious government courting of the grey vote in the run up to the election. It’s a feeble proffering of cashback on the council tax that fails to recognise the benefits progressive taxation. A lot of pensioners are in dire need of council tax relief, though some others should be fleeced for money; especially the ones holding onto a good deal of capital in the form of whimsical Victorian porcelain statuettes.
And here's the thing. It's a one off, financed by the windfall tax on oil profits. The Tories on Bristol Council tried to do an analogous thing a year or so ago. Massive problems presented themselves over the Council accounts. Tories chop up to the debating table, publicised by the local press and claim they can solve the overspend crisis and put the council in the black. There was much rejoicing. Closer analysis showed that their sophisticated financial solution was just to end the Bristol tram project. Not stall, hold up or delay. End it: no returns. Great idea lads. It is just that a one off saving that can't be repeated in any other year isn't exactly sustainable planning is it?
See also student fees. If it is going to cost you near on £20,000 to get a degree - and cue 'Universities turn out to be keen on getting money' headline shocker - then getting around £150 from the government on your child's birth can only be celebrated so much. I mean, it’s a nice gesture. One that speaks nice things about communitarianism, about the general attitude we have towards those in society dependent on others, but doesn't really do much, does it?
The heart's there, the talent is there, but the hunger is absent. There is no shortage of skill up front; Gordon's still doing the stability/prudence-ting, the economy is still just about on an even keel and smite me down with a Stop-the-War banner, but Tony's still got it. However, when you campaign for Government action and you get broad agreement a lot of nodding but only 'further consultation' you do get slightly disheartened.
After all, look at Jamie's School Dinners. The key issue is not usually money; just a bit of cash up front and hefty wedge of commitment and some sodding risk-taking from public servants. (This is the place for a 'raise your game' style phrase. Hmm. Maybe, 'realise and witness', would be a bit more '2005'.)
Of course, one can get too critical. There have been important cautionary tales from the world of pop recently; your tempted by the Faders, but you lose Busted and you are left with the Noise Next door.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Tell Me What you’ve done yourself I would like to know/ Write on a rock and then tell me where to go.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,(1886), the doctor, terrified by what Hyde might be capable of, stayed off the salts for a few weeks. The next time he takes them he finds that Hyde had been “caged too long, and came out screaming”. Now that I have left sufficient gap to alienate my four regular readers. I feel it is time to return to blogging.
Finger on the pulse as ever, I went to the Compass/Cataylst seminar on Choice and Public Services back in February. Their write-up is feeble so I thought I’d have a bash.
Barry Schwartz put forward his well-rehearsed argument about the paradox of choice. The more options, the less we are likely to be happy. Even when objectively better we feel worse because of search costs, opportunity cost and the rising expectations created by the proliferation of choice. One of the reasons relationships and networks of friends are so great is because personal ties and responsibilities for others limit our choices and restrict our fields of activity. All you really need to do is watch me being paralysed by Sainsburys’ biscuit aisle every Saturday morning.
A guy from NLGN, annoyed me by mixing up choice and voice in public services. Decent choice involved some excess capacity in the services that allow options of different types of service you could receive. When you bring forward examples like Park Trusts, you are in fact talking about service-users valuing participation and involvement in the way their services are delivered and the quality of that ongoing relationship.
Again, take me as an example. If I want to go to a resteraunt it is really nice to have a waiter who explains how, why and with what the chef is going to do to your food. You don’t need internal markets and competing waiters for this. Though, thinking about it, that might be quite amusing, especially when the competition gets physical between the bow-tied, underemployed actors. I also don’t need to have all restaurants to be like those Sumo Wok/Mongolian Wok places so popular in University towns in the late 1990s. You know. The ones where you choose some protein, some veg, noodles, sauce and spices and get some punter to fry it for you. That’s boiling down to ultimate choice. Did I enjoy the meals there? Of course not. I didn’t know nearly enough about appropriate flavour combinations or quantity of seasoning.
Do you work in Policy and feel prone to geekiness, obsessive-compulsive-disorder and an interest in what you do unsoiled by cynicism? You too maybe temporarily taken by Policy Hub. Consume, subsume and resume.
