Wednesday 1 July 2009

Honesty, Honestly II


Taking a look at Nick Robinson's latest blog today, entitled "Honesty - the New Battleground", takes me back to a post I wrote last month ("Honesty, Honestly") which referred to the Seven Principles of Public Life and the clear failure of Politicians to apply them ... well, this is clearly coming to the fore now (with a little bit of nudging perhaps), and the net is also widening to the Civil Service (e.g. the Cabinet Secretary) too. 

It's should start getting very interesting now.  The Cabinet Secretary, who earns over £280,000 per year, has not responded about his reasoning behind delaying and declining the opposition request for Government financial data, but has been very quick (and the first) to publish his last three months of expenses today (which includes a £19,408 car bill)!  He can obviously see what's coming ... and there are many more questions that need to be asked too (e.g. "The Targets era is over" from last months blog) ...

Take a look at my post (and others) added to Nick Robinson's blog below too:


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Leanomist (281)


Trust, Honor, Responsibility, Respect - Don't hold your breath waiting for any politician to show us any of these. They have all been 'tested, measured and found wanting'.  


The net is also (quite rightly) being cast out wider now - e.g. to the Cabinet Secretary (head of the Civil Service) ... a man who has knowingly allowed 20th century management practices (e.g. command and control, target driven cultures set up by Government) to be used to systematically generate wasteful/inefficient practice, consume massive amounts of our money and create massive public debts. e.g. take a look at http://poweromics.blogspot.com/2009/06/targets-era-is-over.html for instance


The cabinet secretary also made it clear that he was fully aware and understood the lack of 21st century leadership and management practices in the Civil Service (and the Government), but failed to do anything about it ... so I think we are probably safe to assume that these kind of values will be difficult to find at the top of the Civil Service too!  Perhaps we need a bigger broom to sweep the decks ...


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