Today I spoke at the Conservative Party and the Centre for Policy Studies seminar on the role of the State in the post-bureaucratic age. The primary aim of this seminar was for the Conservative Party to set the foundation for bringing Britian into a post bureaucratic age; an age where people are empowered from a bottom-up approach. This is in contrast to the top-down approach relentlessly pursued by Labour.
One of the main obstacles is the target culture. Targets are one of the most pernicious manifestations of a system obsessed with process, not outcomes.
Targets, especially those tied to finance, end up measuring only the measurable rather than what really matters and attaining the easily attainable irrespective of whether or not it has really made a difference.
For example, under the target culture that Labour has instilled into our public services over the past ten years, hospitals have dealt with the biggest numbers of easier cases first so that waiting times go down even at the expense of more serious cases waiting longer.
A good example that illustrates this is the incident in 2003 at the Bristol Eye Centre. Twenty-five people went blind or lost some of their vision as the Bristol Eye Centre focused on Government imposed targets for new patients to see a consultant. This was done at the expense of follow-up appointments. Consequently, patients lost their sight for no reason other than cynical and unethical target setting. The same happens to some degree or other in education, the police, and other public services.
A future Conservative Government must see the target culture as one of the main State bureaucratic institutions to be removed.
Recent Comments