Local government

It seems to me that it would be much more sensible to organise government along service delivery lines rather than having local government responsible for lots of unrelated services. Hence there would be a national waste agency that is responsible for all rubbish collection, a national education agency responsible for all schools, etc.

Informed decision making

There are too many impacts of decisions to make truly informed decisions. It is not possible to have a perfectly informed decision without the decision making process taking too long, being too costly, and being too bureaucratic. In lieu of informed decisions:

• The decision should be accompanied by a document explaining what potential impacts were considered in making the decision. The decision can then be criticised if a particular type of impact was not considered, and that type of impact then considered in future decision making.
• There needs to be a set of principals to consider in decision making, including, but not limited to: transparency; etc.
• The decision should be costed, even if the costing is just a guess. Whilst the decision maker should be required to estimate a cost, they should be entitled to give that cost as a range.
• Only decisions where the decision maker estimates the cost is above a certain de minimus limit should be subject to the above (otherwise the cost of the decision making process could outweigh the cost of the decision).

Public service performance measurement

There are too many variables to allow for a public service performance measurement system that does not create perverse incentives. There are three variables that should be captured for all public service performance measurement systems:

• Opinion of the users (patients and relatives for hospitals, students and parents for schools, the unemployed and employers for jobcentres, etc)
• Opinion of the front line staff (nurses and doctors for hospitals, teachers for schools, jobcentre employees for jobcentres, etc)
• Costs

Evolution and design in government

Government evolved, it was not designed. This evolution means that whilst it gets the job done, it is not the most efficient way to be. If we make incremental changes (without a coherent plan) we are just continuing that evolution. Therefore I think we should develop a coherent plan for government, and ensure all change in government is consistent with that plan.

You can't win

Positive concept in organisation and management	Negative consequences/perceptions
Economies of scale	Can be considered a one-size-fits-all approach
Joined-up approach (AKA not working in silos)	Requires coordination, which can be considered a waste of time
Transparency	Requires data to be collected, which can be seen to be bureaucratic
Holding people to account	Targets-culture
Continuous improvement	Targets-culture/bureaucratic
Consistency	Can require central high-level (top-down) coordination, which can be considered dictatorial Can be considered a one-size-fits-all approach

Other factors: top-down vs bottom-up

Are compliments evil?

If you compliment someone to you not contribute to a dream or expectation of theirs that will eventually be painfully shattered?

Keep your distance behind

There are systems for cars that measure the distance to the car in front and, based on current speed, advise if the stopping distance is insufficient. It is, however, just as dangerous to you if the car behind you in not maintaining its stopping distance. I suggest therefore, a system that measures the distance to the car behind and, if the distance is insufficient, based on current speed, displays the message "Keep your distance!" on a display (e.g. an LED display) in the back window.