When you hear this: "A council has backtracked after ordering a tenant to remove two garden gnomes from outside her front door on health and safety grounds", Your first guess is always going to be Sandwell MBC, surely the barmiest council in the UK, which is going some because there's some tough competition out there. The gnomes were apparently judged to be a fire risk.
One of these days I'll compile a list of 'The People Who Ruined West Bromwich' and I have a strong suspicion that somewhere on it will be those who worry about gnomes whilst not noticing or caring that all housing within reasonable walking distance of the town centre has been flattened only to be replaced by a waste land of brick rubble and concrete slabs surrounding that enduring monument to their stupidity, The Public.
Thursday 3 December 2009
Monday 26 October 2009
“There are enormous pressures on NHS staff to deliver waiting times within Government targets.”
It has emerged that A&E figures at Arrowe Park Hospital in Merseyside between March 2008 and April 2009 cannot be relied upon because they were fiddled by A&E managers who were under pressure to meet government targets. There's a similar case being investigated at Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham where the waiting times figures for treating A&E patients within the stipulated four hours were also allegedly fiddled.
I came across one way which is used to distort the figures in NHS A&E recently. Patients wait for up to four hours in the waiting room and just as they are about to go over into the fifth hour, they are moved from the waiting room to the treatment area where they wait for another couple of hours. The target is met i.e. out of the waiting room in less than four hours and the government inspector is satisfied.
Who is not satisfied? The patient of course, the customer, who is using a different system of measurement, the only one that matters, the one that says "waited for six hours".
We've also heard of ambulances waiting on the car park until Accident and Emergency is in a position to start the clock and process the patient within the four hour target, but that's old news, they've obviously moved on to some new fiddle by now. Haven't they?
If only the government could channel all the creative thinking that goes into finding new ways to cheat to meet their targets into creating genuine improvements we'd all be much happier - and where did they come up with the notion that a four hour wait is a good thing to aim for anyway? Not by listening to the 'Voice of the Customer" that's for certain.
Link: Daily Express
I came across one way which is used to distort the figures in NHS A&E recently. Patients wait for up to four hours in the waiting room and just as they are about to go over into the fifth hour, they are moved from the waiting room to the treatment area where they wait for another couple of hours. The target is met i.e. out of the waiting room in less than four hours and the government inspector is satisfied.
Who is not satisfied? The patient of course, the customer, who is using a different system of measurement, the only one that matters, the one that says "waited for six hours".
We've also heard of ambulances waiting on the car park until Accident and Emergency is in a position to start the clock and process the patient within the four hour target, but that's old news, they've obviously moved on to some new fiddle by now. Haven't they?
If only the government could channel all the creative thinking that goes into finding new ways to cheat to meet their targets into creating genuine improvements we'd all be much happier - and where did they come up with the notion that a four hour wait is a good thing to aim for anyway? Not by listening to the 'Voice of the Customer" that's for certain.
Link: Daily Express
Friday 23 October 2009
UK Police improve crime clear up rates by pretending it didn't happen.
Here's another case of making your own performance look better and at the same time giving complete dissatisfaction to your customers whilst not performing at all. It sounds like something from Alice In Wonderland doesn't it, and of course it is, or the UK as we sometimes call it. It's all to do with government targets of course and the cheating that goes on to meet them.
The UK police can improve their clear up rates and reduce figures for the number of crimes committed at a stroke by the simple expedient of declaring the hard to solve crimes, such as vicious beatings where the perpetrator hasn't given themselves up, as a "No Crime".
No paperwork. No awkward questions. Just a dissatisfied public who are one more step away from trusting the police and the things they say about themselves.
Link: The Independent
The UK police can improve their clear up rates and reduce figures for the number of crimes committed at a stroke by the simple expedient of declaring the hard to solve crimes, such as vicious beatings where the perpetrator hasn't given themselves up, as a "No Crime".
No paperwork. No awkward questions. Just a dissatisfied public who are one more step away from trusting the police and the things they say about themselves.
Link: The Independent
Wednesday 21 October 2009
Targets encouraging prison managers to cheat to meet them
Nobody should really be surprised, except our government, by the news that prison managers have been moving vulnerable inmates between prisons in order to meet government targets when the inspectors visit. I've heard similar stories of schools encouraging disruptive pupils to stay at home when OFSTED are visiting. The sad part of the prisoner issue is that it has caused the prisoners distress and driven some of them to self harm.
Prison managers say they are 'over inspected' and the need to meet performance targets is unbearable.
Targets are counter-productive. They do not bring about improvement, they bring about stress and cheating and actually damage the system they are meant to improve. Nobody wins, but it's a lesson our government refuses to learn.
Links:
Wider probe over inmate transfers - BBC
Prison managers say they are 'over inspected' and the need to meet performance targets is unbearable.
Targets are counter-productive. They do not bring about improvement, they bring about stress and cheating and actually damage the system they are meant to improve. Nobody wins, but it's a lesson our government refuses to learn.
Links:
Wider probe over inmate transfers - BBC
Thursday 15 October 2009
The Public - Put it out of its misery says KPMG
The news yesterday that auditors KPMG are suggesting that The pUBLIC in West Bromwich which is currently £49 million over budget and rising should be either mothballed or demolished was very sad to hear. We saw something similar to this with The Millennium Dome which was built with no clear purpose but has since found one. It appears that The Public will be less fortunate.
How it all got to this after such humble beginnings is probably a management book in itself. It began as a small project to build an arts centre in West Bromwich - but even back then its purpose was ill defined. I knew some of the people involved and once asked them what things were going to be housed in the proposed arts centre. I didn't get a satisfactory response because I don't think they knew the answer themselves. The word they used most was 'space'.
How it was taken out of the hands of those well-meaning but naiive people and grew to cost £79 million and counting without ever developing a viable business plan is a tale of hubris, mis-management and groupthink - the kind of thing that could only happen when funded by taxpayer's money - and I hope somebody writes it all down one day. It will be hard to find people willing to tell their story though, because as each one leaves the project they very carefully remove the stain from their CV.
Notes:
the pUBLIC logo and namestyle appears to have been quietly dropped in favour of THE PUBLIC.
In 2008, Architect Will Alsop won Private Eye's spoof award The Sir Hugh Casson Award for the Worst New Building for his design of the pUBLIC.
Links:
Sandwell MBC
Express and Star Newspaper
Thursday 1 October 2009
Suicide 'Fad' at French Telecom.
In the past 19 months, 24 workers have committed suicide.
Management have fobbed it off as a fad, or a quirk of statistics - they have said many things but they have not admitted that in an attempt to drive profits they have created a Papillon* inspired version of hell on earth in their call centres. Here's how the inmates describes life in that awful place.
"Everything the employee does is counted: when he or she goes to the toilet; when he eats; when he smokes a cigarette. The workers are even made to wear wi-fi ear and mouth pieces so they can deal with calls during their breaks."
"The workers were treated like cattle. When they failed to meet their targets, they were punished or screamed at."
"My job is to sell more and more stuff, new services, to clients who ring up with some kind of problem. I am supposed to be obsessed with making more and more money on commission."
Raised eyebrows in the UK and the USA. Isn't that the way call centres have to be run? Isn't it just a fact of life? Perhaps the French just aren't used to modern management. They've been spoiled all these years perhaps and can't adjust.
I hope my readers will see immediately that good customer service and sustained growth are not the results of such amazing management stupidity and that the reason we hate call centres is because they are designed to be staffed by discontented employees who cannot help but give us bad service. It's all in the design of the work and management is responsible for that.
Sadly, poor service and employee's dissatisfaction ultimately come back to management via those same old culprits Targets and Bonuses, but I'm not so sure we can so easily pin the responsibility for the French Telecom suicide rate which is comparable with the French national average and may actually not be getting any better or any worse but simply demonstrating random variation.
I'm not going to look into it any more than that in case it depresses me.
* Note: I'm referring of course to the Henri Charrière book and the 1973 film and not to any similarly named call centre technology provider.
From The Independent
Management have fobbed it off as a fad, or a quirk of statistics - they have said many things but they have not admitted that in an attempt to drive profits they have created a Papillon* inspired version of hell on earth in their call centres. Here's how the inmates describes life in that awful place.
"Everything the employee does is counted: when he or she goes to the toilet; when he eats; when he smokes a cigarette. The workers are even made to wear wi-fi ear and mouth pieces so they can deal with calls during their breaks."
"The workers were treated like cattle. When they failed to meet their targets, they were punished or screamed at."
"My job is to sell more and more stuff, new services, to clients who ring up with some kind of problem. I am supposed to be obsessed with making more and more money on commission."
Raised eyebrows in the UK and the USA. Isn't that the way call centres have to be run? Isn't it just a fact of life? Perhaps the French just aren't used to modern management. They've been spoiled all these years perhaps and can't adjust.
I hope my readers will see immediately that good customer service and sustained growth are not the results of such amazing management stupidity and that the reason we hate call centres is because they are designed to be staffed by discontented employees who cannot help but give us bad service. It's all in the design of the work and management is responsible for that.
Sadly, poor service and employee's dissatisfaction ultimately come back to management via those same old culprits Targets and Bonuses, but I'm not so sure we can so easily pin the responsibility for the French Telecom suicide rate which is comparable with the French national average and may actually not be getting any better or any worse but simply demonstrating random variation.
I'm not going to look into it any more than that in case it depresses me.
* Note: I'm referring of course to the Henri Charrière book and the 1973 film and not to any similarly named call centre technology provider.
From The Independent
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Google Maps Mania: Sydney Dust Storm YouTube Google Map
More about the Sydney photo opportunity. This time from Google Maps.
Google AdSense
As I write this I see that the smart Google ads on this page have picked up on the keywords in the post about the cloud of dust that is smothering Sydney and are advertising Dust Extraction. It's a very clever technology but it really needs to be cleverer than that I think. I suppose the success of the thing depends very much on how many visitors from Sydney I get who are looking for ways to clean up after the cloud and are planning to install an industrial strength extraction system to keep them safe and clean for the next twenty five years or so. Not many I suspect.
Clare looking pensive
Clare wasn't posing for this pic, she was just wondering where her boss had vanished to. We needed him so we could do some shots about the new Future Skills Sandwell shirt sponsorship for the Dudley Ladies Hockey Club. She looks a bit incongruous standing there in a factory unit all dressed up for hockey doesn't she. I think it's the kind of thing that should be encouraged.
Sydney Dust Storm
Red dust created during the hot Aussie winter and being blown into Sydney is creating some rare and wonderful photo opportunities like this one from Tom Hide.
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