Sunday 11 July 2010

The Ghost of Jeremy Beadle Haunts NCC...

This is just one of those classic local news stories. The plot could easily be (and for all I know may have been) the plot of an Ealing Comedy or, perhaps more likely, the basis of the late Mr Beadle's jolly japes.

Essentially, for no good reason that anybody can see, NCC popped down to Clifton and erected a couple of concrete bollards smack in the middle of a resident's drive. They then of course had to sheepishly return and take them away again.

I laughed out loud when I read it but, as the resident points out, money has been wasted here and you really have to wonder at what sort of jobsworth can put up a concrete bollard in the middle of somebody's drive without stopping and thinking "...hang about..." halfway through.

The sad thing about this though is that, because it's a nice, simple, funny story everybody will remember it and it will be the talk of Clifton for many years to come. Someone might even lose their job over it and, if so, I doubt they'd see a lot of sympathy.

Yet a senior manager making decisions that could potentially cost the council £4m plus, when there were clearly identifiable reasons why those decisions were reckless at best, I wonder what might happen to them? Would anybody remember that one? Or care?

So, if there are any readers who are in a position to find out, please do let me know if Lisa Black does face any action over her decision to ignore longstanding accuracy issues in Housing Benefit processing, including the abandoning of quality control in order to train workers in 1970s era manufacturing philosophies.

I would be happy to publicise what happens. With appropriate discretion for the bean spiller of course.

3 comments:

Ceekay said...

I suppose the same goes for Barbara Morgan of the Resources Department who the Health and Safety Executive now want to question in relation to the serious lift accident at the Victoria Centre flats and what her reasons were for closing down completely the lift section 10 months beforehand and not replacing them with anything. They have now given a consultant a 12 month contract to oversee the lifts which is costing more than it was costing to finance the lift section in the first place. Again, money squandered by senior managers to save their own neck but this always seems to go unnoticed by the people who can do something about it.

Andy said...

Indeed.

Happy to publicise that too. In time we should have a nice big HSE report to blow the shooting match on that one.

Eventually...

Nick B. said...

NCC seem to be having a purge on folk driving over the greens here in NG11, bollards and barriers are appearing all over the place. Looking at Prize Close there is one with a DIY ramp up the kerb and a run over a green before you get to the (rear) driveway. Jobsworth obviously planted the bollard where they were told, no common sense required!