The following submission has been made
to the UK Westminster Parliamentary House-of Lords’s
“two-way democratic public reach-out” http://lordsoftheblog.net
by Lord Norton
upon a need for “Naming and Shaming”
Naming and shaming Departments
by Lord Norton • •
In a post on my blog, I have drawn attention to the report from the Procedure Committee
which was agreed yesterday by the House.
Part of the report was to inform the House that in future the names of Government Departments
that failed to respond to reports from select committees within two months
would be listed in House of Lords Business.
Departments that fail to respond within the expected ten working days to written questions are already listed.
It is a useful way of naming and shaming.
It struck me that it would be appropriate to extend the practice to select committee reports.
I put down a question at the end of last year raising the proposal
and the Leader of the House, Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, said she would take it to the Procedure Committee.
They have now agreed to it.
It is a modest way of shaming Departments,
but it means any Department that takes a long time to reply –
and some can take many months –
will now be regularly shown to be remiss
and likely to be pursued by the Leader of the House to respond.
It may not have much impact on the quality of responses.
A delay in replying does not usually mean that a Department is deep in thought,
but rather is having to clear responses with other Departments,
resulting in an agreed response that represent the lowest common denominator.
However, it may encourage Departments to be more efficient
and at least alert to the need to respond.
They can no longer hope that their tardiness in responding has fallen below the parliamentary radar.
:-
JSDMiles comments:-
Further enormously laggardly and dead-weight-wastage-bulk can be espied, Lord Norton;
right down through Governmental-channels –
and upwards-through the multifarious “Departments”-
from such as
£500 invoiced to Westminster by Local Government Adult Social Care –
for a mere “Sitter” [good-as-gold ‘though the young lady was]
to sit with a harmless little old lady for five(5) hours
whilst her voluntary unpaid carer no. P77099
paid own way and costs to travel to Totnes
for a human-development-and-care course not accessible in Plymouth
for 7 weeks –
for which the taxpayer ‘run-of-the-mill covertly’ had to pay £3,500 !!!
How on Earth can any truly-responsible and sober democratic Electorate –
such as this UK “boasts” itself to be –
see honesty,
let alone “efficiency” and “value”
in such “grains-of-sand-in-the-works” –
– think how many further billions of taxpayers’ £££s
are being literally wasted away on all the other “hidden-office-costs”
and armies of drop-in-for-five-minutes only partly willing and able
“professional”-carers, nurses and such like — highly-trained and higher-paid “
we really do need a thoroughly-positivising and peaceful revolution, Lord Norton.
Again it needs to be repeatedly suggested now,
the embracing of such world-leadership
as the Mindells’ Team’s “Worldwork” — –
see 2014 key publication “Sitting InThe “Fire” ;
and do include in such “nation-self-strengthening”
both Gordon’s ” ‘No-Lose’ Method lll of Cooperative Problem Solving”
from “Leader Effectiveness Training”, “Teacher Effectiveness Training”, and “Parent Effectiveness Training”;
and
de Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” [as facilitative methodology] –
—-
And do run a non-political public-education-campaign –
– in how to start using the same methodology in local Neighbourhoods
as a part of ‘Life-Networking’
rather than of “citizenship-skilling”
or “closing ranks against the enemies at our gates”
or anything otherwise “competitively-democratic”.
[Clearly our Civil-Servants still don’t yet realise “which side their, and our, real-life bread’s buttered on”.]
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