November 2010 Archives

People in offices up and down the country love a good moan about IT departments, don't they?

People I know who work in IT know this and tend to respond by asking, tongue firmly in cheek often, whether 'you've turned it off and back on again.'

I'm not sure how IT people across the country will respond to the latest attack, though. It's from the prime minister in PMQs:

The right hon. and learned Lady asks about Greater Manchester, so let me answer specifically about Greater Manchester. First, the chief constable of Greater Manchester has said that his plans are putting "the maximum resources" on front-line policing, and I am not surprised he is able to say that, because here are the figures for the employment levels in the back-office functions: human resources, 187 people for that force; fleet vehicle maintenance, 106 people; finance, 106; IT- [Interruption.] Well, Opposition Members want to know the facts about Greater Manchester police, and these are the facts about Greater Manchester police. Guess how many people are involved in IT in Greater Manchester police: 225. This is the debate we ought to be having: how do we get resources from the back office on to the front line? How do we do it when right now only 11% of police officers are on the streets at any one time? That is the mess we have inherited; that is the mess we are going to clear up.

It was in response to a question about job cuts at Greater Manchester Police. Thousands of jobs are at risk, including some on the frontline.

You may remember that in the run-up to the general election, Cameron vowed to preserve frontline services. The way the Tories hoped for this to be interpreted was that the Tories would keep funding in place to protect frontline services. What he actually meant was that he expected frontline services to be maintained with less cash available.

Having worked as a political report and local government reporter, I've covered plenty of stories about wasteful spending in the public sector but there's a fine line between highlighting cases of poor spending and assuming all non-frontline services are cash rich and needless.

Rather like Labour, Cameron is trying to be clever with numbers. I suspect we're all supposed to be shocked by the fact GMP has 200 people in its IT department - but who are we to judge on whether that is realistic or not? I suspect if a computer system fails at GMP, then frontline policing is impacted instantly.

Those 106 people in the vehicle department. Is that unrealistic? How many vehicles do they look after? How many repairs do they do? Surely if the numbers were reduced and vehicles were off the road for longer, policing would be impacted as a result?

187 in HR? So what? If ever there was an organisation which will have a high HR need, it's a police force - even just dealing with the problems faced on the frontline. HR can be a very broad church in terms of roles, so what is Cameron saying? If an officer needs HR support after a traumatic incident, they should just buy self-help book?

The challenge facing Cameron is that he insists he is happy to devolve decisions to local areas, but then realises he has little, if any, control over the decisions made. Too often in the public sector, it's easier to slash on the frontline than it is to streamline.

Lancashire Police, for example, has given all its community support officers redundancy notices. They may not be full officers, but they are a frontline service. Whichever way you cut it, Cameron's frontline pledge pre-election proved hollow. Of course, he was a desperate man before the election, having thrown away a huge lead in the polls and fearful that he wouldn't win outright - which he didn't.

But turning now on the many people who work in back offices of authorities and creating the impression they are all a drain on taxpayers' cash is to forget that if they weren't there, the frontline staff would spend more time doing backoffice work.

Perhaps GMP can just scrap it's IT department and tell police officers to 'just switch it off and back on again.' Or maybe Cameron should stop stigmatising many thousands of hard-working people to score cheap political points. Context is key here, and Cameron, as in opposition, is having a struggle with context once again.

A rather odd statement from Prime Minister David Cameron when he came out of Number 10 to celebrate the engagement of the Prince William to Kate Middleton.

He said the announcement was greeted 'by a loud cheer and banging on the table.'

Really? Is that how the most powerful men and women in our country react to good news? They hit the table like a bunch of drunk rugby players on Mad Monday?

There was me thinking they were a grown up lot. Surely a round of applause would have been enough?

Good old Louise Ellman. Even when Labour were in power, she was a thorn in the side of the Government when it came to train policy. With a coalition government in place, she's now continuing the good fight for rail passengers.

Yesterday, in her role as chair of the transport select committee, Ellman called for health and safety legislation to be reviewed in light of increased overcrowding on trains.

The Rail Safety and Standards Board replied that such a move wasn't need as it was certain safety wasn't being compromised. But when you take into account the Board is run by the rail operating companies, it's no surprise that they'd say that, is it?

Amid the millions of words written and spoken about this week's student protests against increased tuition fees, one phrase sums it up for me.

When asked if she could hang around on Five Live to take more calls from listeners during a phone in, Clare Solomon, president of the University of London Union, replied:

"I can, but I need to get across to the Jeremy Vine show too."

Solomon is one of a number of students who are enjoying their 15 minutes in the spotlight following the demonstrations in London. She is one of the student leaders who hasn't got a problem with kicking in the huge windows at Tory HQ, staging a sit in protest, or lighting fires in the street. She does however, stop just short of condoning the throwing of a fire extinguisher off the roof of tall London building. So there's hope.

So now we know. Telling porkies in election leaflets can cost you the election, if you win. Phil Woolas has learnt that the hard way.

Simon Hughes, deputy leader of the Lib Dems and no stranger to offensive political leaflets, says the first-time-in-99-years election court puts down a new line in the sand when it comes to the rough and tumble of political campaigns.

I don't think so. The line was always there, it's just a case that over the last 100 years many candidates have taken a chance that they can get away with smears, assuming that there won't be any comeback.

ONE of the most difficult health battles the previous Labour government had was trying to justify the role of of the the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence when it came to 'rationing drugs.'

NICE, as it was ironically known, was tasked with deciding whether a drug provided enough of a positive impact on patients to justify being standard across the NHS. Yet that didn't mean the drug wasn't available, it meant a consultant could suggest that treatment, but that the local primary care trust would have to decide whether it could be prescribed - based on whether they were prepared to pay for it.

Everything appears to be grand in Planet Clegg at the moment. Tough decision after tough decision is being made, and in the minds of those at the top of the Lib Dems, the rewards for taking these decisions will be votes of gratitude at the next general election.

Meanwhile, back in the real world....

Clegg is very keen to be associated with the cuts George Osborne has pushed through Government - and, maybe to his misguided credit, is much more ready to offer his opinion on the impact of the cuts than many around him.

Take, for example, his response to the claims from the Local Government Association to the claims 100,000 jobs will go as a result of the spending cuts heading the way of Town Halls.