Listen to the little people

I work within the public sector, so I see at first hand what we are good at, but also what we are not good at. One of the biggest problems that I, and many more of my colleagues find, is that we can't really change things that much, either because of management, other workers or the unions. We find also that sometimes management, other staff or the unions change things without asking us, leading to more problems. People are very resourceful, so they come up with great workarounds. Unfortunately, sometimes the workarounds take over, or the problem that the workaround was supposed to work around goes away, but the workarounds become what the unions and management call "custom and practice."

So picture it this way. There used to be 3 staff in an office and they got the work done , but 1 left and wasn't replaced because of the employment embargo. They had to stretch, but they still got most of the work done. The phones had to be manned all the time but if one person was off or at a meeting, everybody still needed a tea break in the morning (you do, for your own mental and physical health, and for various other reasons) so they took turns in having a cup of tea and reading the paper at a desk. Unfortunately, a member of the public who was trying to get service at another office noticed a person sitting reading a paper mid-morning when he was not being served, got rightfully very annoyed (wasn't being served and was being treated badly by a monolithic state organisation) and rang Joe Duffy, getting the wrath of the nation going about public servants....

Another office needed a certain type of pen to complete certain tasks which required them to annotate certain documents. The ink in the pens had to be waterproof, smudge proof, visible when photocopied, and microfichable. The office went and found a suitable product that was being used in similar offices through the country. They then went and got all the documentation completed so that the company supplies offices would be able to supply a suitable product. The supplies office never seemed to like anything that was not standard, so it was no surprise when the second time the product was ordered, they told the office that the type of pen was discontinued, and that they would supply an alternative. The next time around they just sent bic biros, but when challenged, they then supplied, after a suitable delay in time, another type of pen. It was then discovered that the replacement pens were neither waterproof or smudge proof, and while out shopping a member of staff spotted the original pens, still for sale in a shop.

The workaround here was that the office went and got a purchase order to bypass their supplies office. This meant that they were paying full high street prices for the pens, and had to go through the costs associated with generating and processing a purchase order. This was not the first time that departments in the organisation had to resort to this approach. The supplies office were a much prized part of the organisation, but in reality, they were cutting costs because the people they were supposed to serve were ending up making different arrangements. They were so favoured in the organisation that they were able to get technology and staff numbers that other parts of the organisation could only dream about.

In many other cases, areas have been left understaffed, and the slack is taken up by agency staff, temps, and outsourcing. In fact, in some cases in the HSE it has been reported that nursing staff have taken retired only to turn up back in the same places as agency staff, costing more than they were originally paid, with the money going to the agency.

Now, I am not for one minute suggesting that if left to their own devices that no public servants would slack off. However, the lack of flexibility in the system, and the lack of any perception that change is possible, doesn't help people take initiative, except to organise workarounds when a task becomes impossible.

What I think is needed is some sort of channel of communication. The office causing the "reading the paper at work" scandal should be able to tell someone they need access to relief staff. The office with the supply problem should be able to burst the bubble of their supplies people, and have everything organised properly. But for these things to happen, senior management and politicians need to listen to the people on the front line (and not their union reps) about how things can be changed.

People at the coalface know how to make things better, piece by piece, cog by cog. Ideas from the grassroots can lead to better results than those worked out on a calculator in an corner office of an international consultancy firm on a retainer, or ideals held by politicians who have spent their lives among other politicians, where life is a game and frontline staff are pawns. There is no doubting that our whole public sector is a mess. But we can fix it. But we have to be given a chance. We have to be listened to.