The roundabout of fashion is speeding up

Unfortunately, like the grumpy old men on TV, I am going to give in to temptation. I now firmly believe that, not only do policies and flares go round and round, they seem to be doing it with ever increasing rapidity. Take an example of inspection; we have a few scandals, and a lot of complaints, Ministers take notice, get some funding and, reassuring the public, announce a new inspection regime that will sort it all out. Civil servants do their best to do things ‘properly’ that is what they do best, but at a price. The price escalates as huge bureaucratic juggernauts are put into place, costs worry government, cuts are made, changes imposed, reorganisations come thick and fast, the original worries are forgotten. The new regimes become ‘light’ touch; organisations are left more to themselves. Eventually, new scandals happen or a large enough size, the regime will be blamed as too lax and the need for closer and more rigorous inspection will rise, like a phoenix, from the ashes.

The need for change carries on relentlessly and, I firmly believe, at an ever faster speed, government decides something needs to change, they look around for new ideas, pick the best looking ones, put it out to trial in a few areas at the same time as generally talking it up at conferences, and then launch it as a new policy before the pilot findings have dried from the printers. This way of working has been picked up by senior management, no organisation can be seen to be just doing a good job, they have to be innovative, leading on the new ideas regardless of how they will be implemented and work in practice.

This needs to happen to get marks and funding. But, as a consequence of this, I have felt surprisingly sorry for middle managers who are being placed in impossible positions. They are told to implement, with no extra resources of course, staff leave, get stressed, and don’t cope. The service actually deteriorates as a result, although you would never think so from the messages the organisation gives out. These difficulties are passed on to senior managers at your peril; it is not doing your job properly if you can’t make the impossible happen. You are an ‘unbeliever’ in the new ways and therefore close to philistine. The next round of our renewed world of social care is happening as we speak. Driven by this need for new policies, many of which we have seen before in one way or another, they are about to be rolled out all under the name of modernisation. Yet, as usual, the real motive is unclear and overriding, it is to cut costs, and I pity the middle managers landed with the impossible task of implementation.