Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 13,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

The issue that has occupied a good deal of the energy and time of the sixteen elected representatives of the good folk of Bideford is the earth-shattering question of whether their formal council meetings should start with a prayer or not.

This otherwise quaint custom became a matter of contention because a councillor who is an atheist objected to the routine blessing of the council’s deliberations by a man of the cloth (I’m not sure whether the body corporate of the council is advanced enough to admit a woman of the cloth).  He claimed to be ‘disadvantaged and embarrassed by the practice.’

The council have apparently discussed this burning topic three times without resolution and the upshot is that the National Secular Society has taken a case to the High Court in support of the councillor concerned.  To highlight the absurdity of the case the disadvantaged and embarrassed councillor is now an ex-councillor, presumably having resigned out of disgust or been rejected by his electors for the same reason.  Judgement in the case is currently reserved (lawyer speak for a decision is yet to be given).

On the BBC Today programme this week a spokesman for the NSS was countered by someone equally small-minded from the Christian Institute, so listeners could get a balanced view of this important issue.  For balanced read two lots of propaganda instead of one.

What better subject could there be for a rant as the HelpGov blog transforms itself into something a little more contentious and sheds the need to consider what potential clients think about it?

I think the rant’s already happened, but just to pile on the agony, doesn’t it make you despair?  Surely sixteen sensible adults could reach a compromise on something so fundamentally innocuous?

In the meantime the euro is collapsing, we seem to be creating a lost generation of unemployed young people, the world economy is probably moving into prolonged recession and the planet is arguably warming up to a point at which Bideford, for one, may well disappear under rising sea levels.

The only saving grace in the whole sorry tale is that town councils in England, while perhaps ‘supporting community participation in local democracy’ do…well not very much at all.  Their big brothers and sisters – the district, unitary and county councils are much more sensible.  I hope.

The truth is this old (for which read mature, experienced etc.) guy has been undergoing something of a change in his life.

‘HelpGov’ remains as a name meantime but the company is being dissolved.  I decided it was time to try something new and my energies have been devoted this last couple of months to the excellent Open University creative writing course I signed up for over the summer, helping to fulfil a long standing ambition to return to a type of writing that engaged me many years ago.

One result is that I have reviewed this site and decided to transform it into a more open, free-flowing blog on anything that interests me about the public sector in its widest sense.  Unfettered by the need to think about potential clients googling ‘HelpGov’ to check me out before adding me to some far-too-long long shortlist for a contract, it threatens to be more polemical, prejudiced and maybe even wrong.

When it arrives, I hope every week (that’s called an aspiration not a target) enjoy and please comment.

Having a vegetarian and then a vegan in the family has been a challenge that’s expanded my culinary repertoire in ways I didn’t expect and led to some interesting incidents over the years.

Here are the upsides and downsides from this amateur foodie of the three ways of eating (and cooking).

Meat (and fish) eater

Looking good

• Why not?  Humans are naturally omnivores – this is arguably our most ‘balanced’ diet
• Widest range of taste sensations – nothing beats the smell and taste of sizzling bacon
• It doesn’t mean only eat meat and fish – you can tuck into those wonderful veggies and fruit too
• Least hassle – you can find something to eat wherever you go

Not so hot

• Watch out for the more processed products – the cured meats, sausages and patés.  Some unhealthy stuff may lurk in there
• Most likely to plunder the planet for all that protein – whether it’s feeding the domesticated beasts before we eat them or hunting the wild ones almost to extinction
• Most expensive – in money for us, in cost for the environment

Vegetarian

Looking good

• Animals don’t get bumped off directly to feed you
• Some wonderful vegetarian recipes and restaurants out there
• Cheaper – meat and fish are expensive
• If you’re ethically minded you’ll feel better for that reason alone
• Less chance of putting on weight from all that animal protein and fat

Not so hot

• Friends – get used to meat eaters sniping at your diet.  Decide whether it’s something you’re going to debate or not
• Be aware the concept of food without animal products is barely understood in some countries.  Chances are that in Spain ‘Ensalada mixta, por favour. Pero no carne o pescado’  (‘Mixed salad please.  But no meat or fish in it’) will still arrive with a glob of tinned tuna on top
• Watch out for the vitamins and other good stuff like iron in meat and fish and make sure you still get them through your choice of vegetables and fruit.  Top up with dietary supplements if necessary

Vegan

Looking good

• Arguably the most ethical diet – dairy products may not kill animals directly but there’s a whole industry out there where they get bumped off as a direct result and often live in confined un-natural conditions
• Some unexpectedly great cake recipes
• Plus – the other benefits of being a veggie

Not so hot

• Hard work. Goodbye all animal products.  Goodbye honey.  Goodbye leather belts and shoes
• Get ready to search for substitutes for things like eggs to make those wonderful cakes rise
• People – if your carnivorous friends had a go at you because you were veggie, stand by for the mickey taking when you go vegan
• Eating out – in many countries get ready to negotiate around the one vegetarian dish on the menu to get the cheese taken out.  Resign yourself to more risotto than you’ve ever eaten before
• If you thought being a vegetarian needed attention to a balanced diet and the possible need for dietary supplements, don’t forget being a vegan is even more challenging.

PS – D2 has just told me that she became vegan exactly a year ago today, Blog Action Day.

* – regular readers will know that D1, D2 and D3 are my three daughters

This post is my response to Blog Action Day 2011 on the subject of Food.  Regular readers wondering what it’s got to do with helping the public sector improve its performance will be disappointed.  But I  did warn them when I started the HelpGov blog that there’d be the occasional random post

“We are at a very interesting point in terms of the products we can make…Anything we can imagine we can build, we are no longer really limited by the technology” – Justin Rattner,  chief technology officer Intel BBC web site

Intel’s new computer today…

• …halted the traffic and jollied the year 1s and their mums along as they crossed the road to school for the first time
• …paused sympathetically to allow the parents to gather their thoughts as they registered the death of their child
• …spoke to the troubled teenager after the lesson to find out what was really bothering her
• …spotted that the disabled driver was having problems getting out of the space and helped him manoeuvre his car
• …stroked the hand of an elderly dying woman in a council care home and assured her that her absent daughter loved her.

Public servants do a million small acts of human kindness every day.

My shortest post ever.

On the frame of my kitchen door are marks of the heights of my children, and now grandchildren, with names and dates written down over the course of years…

Unfortunately I can’t tell you how it goes on.  It’s described as a blog post.  But the web site concerned only lets you read its blogs if you register (without cost, to be fair) and I don’t like that principle.

So I don’t know what author John Pope thinks.

But since the HR Zone is about, er HR, and since I know what I think, I’ll finish his article for him.  And you don’t have to register to have the benefit of my views.

On the frame of John Pope’s kitchen door are marks of the heights of his children, and now grandchildren, with names and dates written down over the course of years.

How he uses this information I don’t know.  But like I guess most families we did the same.

• It was fun for our three girls
• We all shared a sense of pride in seeing how fast they were growing up
• It was very visible – we could all see it all the time
• It was an economical use of resources – no computer or software needed, not even a book to record the data in, just a pencil and a wall (and a tape measure if you wanted to make checking the height into a pain-free arithmetic lesson).

What we didn’t do was

• Use the information as a measure of each daughter’s performance in growing, which at least we as parents knew was due to a whole range of factors entirely outside their control
• Punish them if they didn’t grow between measurements – “You’ve only grown 2 cm in the last quarter Sophie.  No pet guinea pig until you do much better”
• Set up a database on our home computer to analyse progress
• Set them growth targets
• Make the exercise competitive – “Your sister’s grown 4cm in the last six months when you’ve only grown 2.  If you don’t catch up she’ll get your sweeties”
• Even less did we dispose of any daughter who wasn’t growing for a while by ‘letting them go’, offering them for fostering or adoption.

Yet these are the things, in effect, that many organisations do who’ve adopted the performance management approach to their staff.

You know it won’t work with your children, why would it work with your employees?

[Since I don’t like blogs that want you to register before you can read them I’m - exceptionally - not including a link to the HR Zone.  But you can doubtless find it if you want.]

Put simply, the chancellor’s rules are that if a council limits its annual spending increase to 2.5% and does not increase its council tax the government will provide additional funding to bridge the gap.

Of course 2.5% is below the rate of inflation so in real terms councils are being asked to spend less money each year.  But that’s another story.

A typical headline that greets these initiatives is Chancellor throws lifeline to hard-pressed council tax payers.  I’ve invented that one but you’ll be familiar with the style.

These ‘freezes’ are typically said, in today’s easy cliché, to be a win-win-win situation:

• The government wins because it helps keep inflation down and gets the credit for helping people (invariably characterised as ordinary decent hard-working people) in hard times
• The council wins because it shares the credit for keeping the tax down
• The council tax payer obviously wins because their tax doesn’t go up.

The truth is slightly more complex.

Take a look at the statistics.

Assume for ease of calculation a council with a yearly spend of £1,000,000, 75% of whose spend is currently funded by central government.  The £1,000,000 is unrealistically low (think 10 or 100) but the 75% is not untypical.

If that council accepts the government’s offer of 2.5% extra money and doesn’t increase its council tax, this is what happens over five years:

In other words, the percentage of the council’s spending funded directly by central government creeps inexorably upward.

In the short term you might say ‘So what?’ and councillors certainly find it convenient not to have to raise the council tax.

But all concerned would do well to remember the old saying He who pays the piper calls the tune.

Scottish councils have already found this, with their council tax freeze linked to a concordat with the Scottish government that includes a single outcome agreement in which they and their local partners have to agree with the government how they will help deliver their national priorities.

A quick glance across the water to the Republic of Ireland gives a taste of what could eventually happen.  As Wikipedia (not always right but near enough on this occasion) puts it

Following the abolition of domestic property rates in the late 1970s, local councils have found it extremely difficult to raise money…[National government] is a significant source of funding at present…The dependence on Exchequer has led to charges that the Republic has an overly centralised system of local government…numerous studies…have recommended the reintroduction of some form of local taxation/charging regime, but these are generally seen as politically unacceptable.

To mix my metaphors, as the link between taxation and democratic representation is weakened councils will inevitably become more emasculated and increasingly the hand maiden of central government.

Not a good idea.

For ten days this month I was away from the desk delivering D3 to her new university course in North Wales and then going on for a few days in the South West of England.  A lot of perhaps not very sustainable driving but also some great things seen and done.  For example

• the varying fortunes of the string of towns along the North and mid-Wales coasts, with some looking very neglected while others had a positive sparkle about them (I didn’t realise Bangor had such a splendidly restored Victorian pier)
• the strength of the Welsh language, not only in the north but down as far as Carmarthen and the excellent nearby National Botanical Garden.  It was great to hear it in everyday use
• the seaside home of the old (young actually) reprobate Dylan Thomas at Laugharne.  I was amused by two contrasting items of information in the same room – a local newspaper of the time noting that “Mr Thomas died of an unexplained brain disease in New York recently” while an actor on a tape told us “Dylan’s last known words were ‘Eighteen straight whiskies on the trot.  A record’”
• a brief visit to use the internet in Cornwall Council’s Wadebridge library – bright, obviously well cared-for, and helpful staff
• a visit to a friend near Bristol whose almost-village tranquillity is threatened by a giant development that would swallow up a golf course and other open land and dump a football stadium in the middle of it
• two wonderful days at the Eden project and lost gardens of Heligan, both inspired/developed by the amazing Tim Smit.  I suspect he’s a man who’s not easy for officialdom to deal with but he sure gets stuff done.

As I worked my way through this list I realised that it’s not just self-indulgent reminiscence.  In fitting with the theme of this blog you can see the hand, nearly always positive, of public agencies in almost everything I saw and enjoyed.  Well done government at all levels – EU (significant funder of the Eden project), Welsh assembly, councils and town and parish councils.

Footnote 14 October 2011 – I was saddened to see that the Poetry Archive web site claims Dylan Thomas’ last words were in fact “After 39 years, this is all I’ve done.”  Much more prosaic.

Every industry, part of the public sector, sport, public authority and leisure pursuit seems to have them.  And if you think the UK’s awash with them just google USA public agency award ceremony and see what comes up.

I’m a bit ambivalent about them.

The best can provide great recognition of an organisation’s achievements with a boost to morale, public perception, peer recognition, even staff recruitment.

After using the EFQM excellence model for several years West Lothian Council won the UK Council of the Year Award in 2006.  You knew it wasn’t a flash in the pan.  They’d worked hard at it.  When you visited there was a buzz about the place.  You could see the unease in the eyes of (some) other council chiefs when their then CE Alex Linkston spoke at COSLA events.

On the other hand, when Bumbleshire Council’s north area waste management team gets a commended certificate in the sludge removal awards of the year from a field of two entrants the earth won’t move in quite the same way.  People aren’t daft and they can spot what really counts.

The ones that really worry me are the internal awards.

They typically have categories like

• Efficiency and innovation
• Customer first
• Going green
• Learner of the year
• Unsung hero (all individual awards)
• Top team.

(This is a real example.  You’ll have to search hard to find the public agency concerned)

Within one organisation – let’s call it a system – individuals and teams are being picked out as better than their colleagues.  The process usually relies on nominations.  Be you ever so brilliant, if no one nominates you you’re not in the running.   And what does something like “learner of the year” mean?  Better than every other learner in the whole organisation?  On what grounds?  And at the end of the day, so what?  Do the 99.9% of people in these organisations who don’t get an award really believe that the 0.1% who do are better than them?

The big problem with these awards is hinted at by my use of the word “system” above.  An organisation is a system and how people perform in it depends largely on how senior people manage and improve the system.  Don’t agree with me?  Check out a book I’ve mentioned before, Alfie Kohn’s now classic Punished by Rewards.  The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes.

PS Literally while I was writing this an item popped up on the web from the Taxpayers’ Alliance – yes, them – Council spending on awards ceremonies revealed.  I don’t like them and their take on public services but given the coincidence of timing it would seem odd to ignore their ”research” (their word).  Their concern seems to be that councils spend some of their budgets (a minuscule proportion) on awards ceremonies, a different beef from mine altogether.