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May 18, 2005
One of those days ....
We all have 'em, one of those days when you wonder why you bothered to get up, why the h**l you bother even making an effort to do anything at all, and continuing to work at what you spent the last 30+ years of your life trying to achieve. Well, since the Monk's employers suddenly decided, around two years ago, to impose a new "development" system on the service he has been proud to be a member of for most of his working life, he's been having a lot of "those" days.
It's not so much the new system itself - it is, after all, just a glorified development of a system that is supposed to have been in place all along - it's the manner in which it was imposed without the proper support mechanisms and totally without consideration of the implications.
The system depends heavily on selection of candidates for development through a process of assessment of need, ability, and suitablility for task. That process is not in place, and will not be in place for some time to come - if ever. It is a grand scheme which is supposed to support an individuals development throughout his career, but it has been, and still is, unworkable in the organisation that piloted it (the management deny this and loudly insist that it IS working despite all evidence to the contrary!) and now it is being imposed for political reasons on the rest of the nation. Eighteen months down the road and the chaos is worsening - again despite denials by management in the face of mounting evidence - and one other aspect which the Whitehall Wankers overlooked - fragmentation of training delivery.
To make matters even worse, as a result of the strike, the fatally flawed, but ever so politically expedient Review of the Service, and the rushed-through "modernisation" programme, the entire management structure and rank/role structure is now linked to the the new "development" progression. This effectively contains several "glass ceilings" which are perfectly placed to destroy the opportunities for promotion available to any fire fighter with the ability and the leadership potential for promotion up the tree. This has been done deliberately so that "under represented" groups can be parachuted into the upper eschelons of the service without having to get the requisite experience or knowledge in the usual way. The results are now beginning to be apparent as one service now has as its "Chief" (called a Service Manager or "Chief Executive"!) a lady recruited from a large motor manufacturer with no fire service connection whatsoever. Let us hope that she does a better job than the Rover Group management have done with a knowledge of the car industry! Nor is she alone; there have been a very large number of such appointments to roles from Station Manager up to Deputy Chief Executive in the FS around the country. Again, what is being missed is the fact that "Strategic" policies and decisions impact on all matters related to service delivery and therefore on "Technical Operations" at the frontline. Ask the Army about the decision to have only one infantry weapon for all ranks and services. The SA-80 looks good, is very accurate, and may be super for certain types of warfare but is no damned good at all in hot sandy deserts! Nor are boots that melt in the heat - another example of "Strategic" decisions impacting on operations.
This country has had a good reputation for successfully developing its fire service officers from their fire fighter recruits - roughly 10% of the recruits have always had "leadership" potential - and through a central training organisation. This is now being destroyed, and each service is now being encouraged to source its "development" programmes away from the central organisation, which is accused by these clever people in Whitehall of using a "sheep dipping" approach. According to them it is much better to have each service "do its own thing" to "meet local need". As an incentive they have also saddled the central training organisation with a huge bureaucracy which substantially increases the cost of doing anything there. Then, as a final nail in the coffin, they created a "Trading Fund Agency" and insist that it must "pay its own way". Naturally it is now the most expensive provider of development programmes!
Just to make very sure they have killed it off effectively, they have also cut the budget to the fire and rescue services for "training" - you don't need as much if you are "developing" - and so, in order to meet their development needs, Development Managers (used to be called Brigade Training Officers - but we can't have Brigades or Officers anymore - far too Militaristic!) are forced to source their development programme provisions from the lowest bidder. It's called "Best Value" in Civil Service double-speak, but in reality it simply ensures that the services will increasingly lose their professional edge.
All of this is what the Monk has had to deal with on a daily basis for almost two years now, and he is approaching the point where something has to be done. In the next couple of days he has to deal with another little offshoot of the matters outlined above - namely the drop in student (sorry Delegate!) numbers from the police and fire services which is now threatening a very good partnership with the central police training organisation. They, too, have pressures and must condsider the future of joint training - and the breech could threaten a lot more than one set of programmes!
Is there any point in taking any of this up the tree to the Damagement? No there isn't; they are so far out of their depth that they haven't noticed that the ship is fatally holed and that the rest of us are so busy pumping we can't fit the patches anymore. Well, being career Civil Servants, they'll be OK when it finally sinks; pity about the rest of the staff though!
Redundancy or retirement is looking increasingly attractive!
Posted by The Gray Monk at May 18, 2005 01:09 PM