Well, there's a title that I never thought that I would write.It seems that Nanny has got her knickers in a twist over Nannyism, and is rather upset by the fact that we are all upset by her, as such she has come to the conclusion that she has been far too strict with us.
Her solution?
Simple, she has set up a new government body to...errmm...look into cases of "excessive" Nannyism (eg anything mentioned on this site) and issue edicts and advice against them.
So, just in case you haven't quite grasped that, Nanny is going to set up another Nanny organisation to lecture herself and us about the danger of Nanny.
That helps us how?
Wouldn't it be better to scale back on the bureaucracy, reduce the number of 'elf and safety jobsworths, cut back on 'elf and safety rules and abolish local councils?
Well, of course it would!
However, Nanny doesn't work like that.
The new body is called the Risk and Regulation Advisory Council (a warm, cuddly name if ever I heard one...not expensive to run I assume?), it has a nice little website (interim website) which starts off:
"On taking office as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown committed to taking the Better Regulation agenda to a new level by focusing upstream at where policy-making engages with risk. This is the critical starting-point of the regulatory process. It is here that culture and process must achieve a better understanding of public risk:
The Government believes that policy-making would benefit considerably from a fuller and more rounded consideration of public risk. I have asked the Better Regulation Commission, building on its report 'Risk, Responsibility and Regulation', to devise a structure and approach that ensures that this ambition is embedded in real policy action, even when facing pressures to react to events."
Pass the sick bag someone!
Any organisation that kicks off by using phrases such as "upstream" and "policy-making engages with risk" clearly has no concept of the real world, and no intention of simplifying Nanny's edicts.
These people are up their own backsides (so to speak). In fact, if you look at the website you will see that RRAC appears to have been tagged onto a body that has been in existence for some years now, The Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory reform (BERR contains numerous committees) that itself recommended the creation of RRAC.
As per the website:
"The RRAC will initially consist of seven people, including the Chair, Rick Haythornthwaite, drawn from the pool of strategic regulatory experience in the Better Regulation Commission."
It is basically a version of BERR, and will grow like crazy "initially consist of..."
I would venture to suggest that if BERR had being doing its job properly, it would not have needed to create another quango to mull over the creation of even more regulations.
FYI, the chairman of RRAC is Rick Haythornthwaite. He used to be chairman of the Better Regulation Commission (BRC), which is meant to provide independent advice to government, from business and other external stakeholders, about new regulatory proposals and about the Government's overall regulatory performance.
Has that body cut down on government regultions and bureacracy, since it was formed in 2005?
Errmmm...no it hasn't.
Seems like a case of jobs for the boys to me.
I think it fair to say that this is Smiler Brown's attempt at catching the wave of public repulsion and opinion re Nanny; he has absolutely no intention of lightening Nanny's grip on us, as he is a control freak.
BTW, RRAC will be starting a campaign soon whereby Nanny will tell us how important it is to be self reliant...that will be a laugh, rich pickings for this site I shouldn't wonder!
I wonder how much this little "initiative" from Nanny will cost us?
Quite how you contact these people directly is a little unclear (policy being made up on the hoof as it were?).
However, here is a link to BERR enquiries@berr.gsi.gov.uk.
I suggest to point them to this site, which has been doing their job for them since 2004.
To repeat myself again:
Wouldn't it be better to scale back on the bureaucracy, reduce the number of 'elf and safety jobsworths, cut back on 'elf and safety rules and abolish local councils?
Just what we want...another bloody quango!!! I suppose this will have the power to issue "record fines"...Kerching....perhaps it will fine Nanny; one publicly funded quango fining another publicly funded quango as so often is the case these days, with we the taxpayer picking up the tab as usual.
ReplyDeleteMakes you proud to be British doesn't it.
Obviously my crystal ball was working well yesterday when I said;
ReplyDelete"...recruiting yet more 'operatives' for even more agencies to nick even more money in (as yet) unthought of ways."
There is a certain lunatic logic in the way that, in such matters, Nanny closes the loop and just passes the cash backwards and forwards between her own tight-knit little circle of friends.
It's just a shame that they have to nick the money off us first; otherwise we could just maroon the whole stinking lot of them on some desert Island and let them play their version of Monopoly for ever and ever and ever......
Isnt' this a game of the government creating two sides, and then playing both sides against the middle? Of course, it's the taxpayers who fund the game itself.
ReplyDeleteA new arm of the government bureaucracy must be created to keep in check . . . all the other arms of the government bureaucracy! Nanny isn't as stupid as she seems when money, the taxpayer's of course, is involved.
It is rather interesting that, having measured, analyzed, and regulated every aspect of once private, personal behavior, Nanny's expansionist impulses leave her with no recourse but to move on to measuring, analyzing, and regulating herself!
Somehow, I doubt that the RRAC will prove quite as tart, succinct, and amusing as NKB, Ken, so you've nothing to fear from the competition.
I see 'Rick' is an Oxford man.
ReplyDeleteThere is a saying in the Groves of Academe - "You can always tell an Oxford man - but you can't tell him much."
Seems that the only way forward for him is to set up a sub-quango so that he can tell himself (or his successor) something, that being the only way any of his ideas would be listened to.
Grant