Wednesday 24 March 2010

What have the farmers done to deserve this?

From the Department of Communities & Local Government's Budget write-up:

The Total Place pilots have shown how, through bold local leadership [and] breaking down silos in favour of better collaborative working, it is possible to deliver services which meet people's needs, improve outcomes, end duplication and generate savings.

Dude, WTF?

Other highlight:

The Budget commits the government to delivering radical freedoms and flexibilities for local agencies. All local councils in England will benefit from the removal of at least 10 per cent of the current National Indicator set.

Yup, they have actually set a target for the reduction of targets.

8 comments:

Steven_L said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Steven_L said...

Silos? You've never heard of them? Silos came in about 2004/5 from what I remember.

In local government we all work in silos, and we need lots of managers to break down the silos because the silos make us more inefficient.

Say for instance here in trading standards we are a silo, and so is environmental health. It's really no good us being in different silos.

This is why we need lots of managers, working groups, action groups, initiatives and big glossy policy brochures - to break down the silos and make us more efficient as a council.

They used to just call them 'departments' or 'teams' or even 'services', but now they are all 'silos'.

Steven_L said...

You missed the important bit off the second one too, it went on:

"...and a reduction in ringfencing and the number of funding streams."

Ringfencing is when say the government give a council money to do something in particular - let's say DEFRA fund animal health enforcement - and the council aren't allowed to spend it on anything else.

Of course, all this money going into the silos as opposed to the being spent on breaking them down isn't an efficent way to run a council.

So you get rid of ringfencing, and although the council can still bid for the money from Whitehall to do things Whitehall thinks need doing, they can spend it on doing other things - like breaking down those nasty silos.

Mark Wadsworth said...

S_L, yes, I should have highlighted "de-ring fencing" as well.

Presumably, once they have demolished the poor farmer's silos, they then de-ringfence all his fields as well so his animals can run free.

bayard said...

He's upped the tax on cider too - what the hell, farmers never vote labour anyway.

John Pickworth said...

Silo's... isn't that what you keep your SS20 missiles in?

I presume then they're going to put them onto mobile launchers? And without the ring fencing to hold them back...

OMG!

Targeting. Delivery. Pilots.

The bastards are going to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the Home Counties aren't they? Knowing Brown he'll call it Operation Clunking Fist too.

Mark Wadsworth said...

JP, you have cracked the code! It's all so obvious to me now...

The scheme they refer to as "Total Place" actually means "Total the place" and Accelerated Development Zones must be referrin to launching areas.

Native English speaker said...

Can somebody please tell me where these people learn their English? Do we have a specialised ring fenced academy (silo?)of gobbledegook?