The reality of the Government’s broadband rollout plans

For those readers who live in cities, towns or even reasonably sized villages, the existence of decently fast broadband is a given, and in an increasingly digital world, you can easily take for granted the ability to makes transactions online. Accordingly, the Government is targeting the rollout of superfast broadband to 95% of all homes by the end of this year and, if you’re not in that 95%, you will have at least 2Mbps.

Well, it’s December, and I don’t have either. My village of two hundred or so souls, with two hundred and seventy-five residents in the Parish, is part of the 5% not considered to be worthy of having that sort of communications access, and thus on the wrong side of the digital divide.

What that means is that school children from villages are left at a disadvantage to their more urban colleagues - how can you do research online with slow internet access? - and running a business from home is, to put it mildly, challenging. The Government want us, for example, to file tax returns online, but if you can barely download your e-mail, how likely is it that you could do so easily?

The response of the Government is not encouraging. According to the Better Braodband for Suffolk site, we are scheduled to be upgraded at some point between now and 2020, which means potentially three years of unsatisfactory access to broadband. On the other hand, our MP has advised that we’re scheduled to be upgraded into Q1 of 2018/19, which sounds more promising, albeit that I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Government seems determined to make life harder for rural communities. The decimation of village schools and rural bus services, combined with closures of pubs, post offices and bank branches, makes it imperative to be able to do more and more online, yet compared to our urban neighbours, who have all of these things relatively close at hand, our ability to do so is less than theirs. And we don’t get the range of services provided by local government in towns either.

That’s fine, as we’re pretty self-sufficient in many ways. But we’re taxpayers too, and it’s hardly an encouragement to pay one’s dues if you don’t appear to get very much for your money. So, perhaps the Government might like to pull their collective finger out?...

Cry, my beloved country?

It is dark, and I am afraid.

And I am moved to 'pick up my pen' and 'write'. Hopefully, it is for the best.

A General Election has been called, with a fractured, crippled Opposition, liberal forces recovering from a near death experience and with a Government who, despite showing all the signs of having no idea as to how a modern economy works, seem determined to apply shock therapy in a manner comparable to that applied to the economy of the Soviet Union in the 1920s, albeit hardly on the same scale. My recollection is that the latter didn't work so well.

Governments come and go. If you're old enough, that knowledge offers some reassurance. And, as a liberal, you're relatively prepared for defeat. The catch is that, whilst there has always been something that philosophically separates the two main parties, they have enough in common that you can be reassured that our society will remain evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Not this time.

A governing party that intends to fundamentally change our relationships with our neighbours in pursuit of an ideological chimera will, in doing so, risk what many of us thought was the comfort of a community working to bring neighbours together. Oh yes, it wasn't, and still isn't, perfect, or even close to perfection. But it had potential, it had kept the peace, and it created opportunities and freedoms that we hadn't previously had, and quite appreciated once we'd got them.

And whilst some Conservatives chuntered on about how awful the whole thing was, we didn't take them seriously, especially as what they offered as an alternative really wasn't very attractive. And, the more you dug beneath their rhetoric, the less attractive it became. They were persistent, though.

Their opportunity came, in the shape of an ideologically vacuous administration, mired in cynicism after years of austerity, with a Labour Party veering towards anti-globalisation. And they certainly took it.

God, I hate them for that.

The expectation, as it currently stands, is that whilst the Liberal Democrats will recover somewhat, the Labour Party will suffer a crushing blow and the Conservatives will gain a majority large enough to inure themselves against short-term unpopularity and by-election defeats. I hope that this doesn't come to pass, but some of my lifelong optimism has been knocked out of me over the past few years.

Thus, my sense of fear. A fear that our country will be changed forever, a country where blame and recrimination displace the decent, tolerant, imperfect society where most of us tried to rub along. A fear that we stop looking outwards to see what we can do to build a better world. A fear that we become mean-spirited and suspicious of our neighbours. Because that is the sort of society that some of our opponents appear to aspire to.

But there is only one thing to do with fear - confront it and use it to your advantage. 

And so we must, as individuals and as communities, send out a message that we are better than that, that whatever our political beliefs, we believe in a broadly internationalist approach, in working with our neighbours for a common good. And, regardless of the result of the election, perhaps our efforts will cause an incoming government to hesitate before it takes irretrievable steps towards severing our ties with the European Union...

It's only a revolution if the people support it, otherwise it's just a reactionary coup...

One of the most worrying trends in recent politics is the rise of the demagogue in Western politics. It led to Brexit, and saw Donald Trump win the Presidency. Here in Britain though, it appears to be being usurped by a small bunch of highly influential ideologues.

First, it was experts. They're all biased, because they didn't agree that Brexit was the greatest thing since sliced bread. How very dare they suggest that things are complex, and that it might not be so easy, or beneficial to cut ourselves adrift from the largest single trading bloc in the world? The answer, discredit them, as the likes of Michael Gove chose to do.

By the way, what has happened to Michael since he lost his leadership bid? Has stabbing his former friends in the back caused him to lose the plot, for his use of Twitter is not that of someone behaving entirely rationally? But I digress...

By discrediting experts, the field is left open for any opinionated person with access to a media platform to make any claim they like, knowing that it will have to be given credence by repetition through an unquestioning media (yes, I'm looking at the BBC!).

And that credibility leads to influence.

But our system of government has checks and balances, through an independent judiciary and a neutral Civil Service. Well, they've got to go, haven't they? First, attack the right of the judiciary to determine what the law is (Iain Duncan-Smith, for ignominious example), leaving it to our merry band of opinionated ideologues again to define what they can get away with under the cover of leadership privilege.

And they then need a Civil Service which is unwaveringly committed to the Project. There's no need for balanced advice, or for experience, if the cause is so right, so glorious. Thus, pick new people, people who will do what they are told unquestioningly.

In such ways is our Government undermined. The cost is to our rights and freedoms, the protections from an over-mighty state in the hands of extremists. For I'm afraid that that's what the likes of Michael Gove and Iain Duncan-Smith presage, and it isn't a country for liberals or the powerless. Because, at the end of the day, it's all about taking back control, taking back control from the people and putting it in the hands of the ideologues.

That never ends well...

I've really blown the title this time - 28 October 2015

Is this Government really working on the incompetence bit?

There is a point when you really have to wonder. It's easy to describe Tories as evil. Lazy, perhaps, but easy nonetheless. But, the thing about the bad guys is that they're generally well-organised (evil lairs built into volcanoes don't come easy, you know). And, at the moment, with a European negotiation without much in the way of negotiating points, and welfare reform carried out via the most vulnerable of legislative methods, you begin to fear just how much damage they could do if they knew what they were doing.

In truth, they do know what they're doing. And we're not going to like it...

Not seventy-six trombones, but one will do...

More music from Latin America today and, just to prove that even a trombone can be hip, here's Hector "Parquimetro" Briceño, playing Doña Flor...

On this day in... 2011

I was wildlife spotting in... Creeting St Peter. It is easy to forget just how much wildlife there is, even in the arable landscape that is mid-Suffolk. Indeed, as it turns out, three types of deer can be spotted in the parish. And don't start me on the birds...

FoI review - a lack of information shalt make you free? Hancock abuses the concept of cross-party

The announcement by Cabinet Office Minister, Matthew Hancock, of a review in to the way Freedom of Information policy currently works is just another sign that the Conservatives would much prefer to be left alone in peace to run the country.

But, what would be almost amusing if it wasn't so important is the cynicism of his approach. It would not have surprised me to see a review panel stuffed with Conservative sympathisers - after all, it is highly unlikely that they will have launched this unless they have a pretty good idea as to their preferred outcome. That would at least make it obvious where the thinking is coming from, and the resultant report could be judged in the context of Party policy.

No, it's a cross-party panel, whereby Matthew has picked members of other parties whose views are, how might I put it, somewhat controversial amongst their own ranks.

Jack Straw has never really believed that the public deserve an insight into the workings of government. An authoritarian to his fingertips, he has never had any qualms about throwing our human rights, and those of people from other countries, 'under the bus' if it suits his political priorities.

Alex Carlile has what I can only describe as a blind spot when it comes to issues of security. In the past, I have defended him as, for the most part, pretty liberal. However, given that his past activities as the independent security advisor to the Government have generated much outrage amongst Liberal Democrats, his appointment is likely to welcomed with all the enthusiasm of a flying cowpat in a crowded room.

On the other hand, Michael Howard will perform entirely as the Government will wish him to. He is to civil liberties what Herod was to childminding.

There is, somewhat radically, a woman on the panel, Dame Patricia Hodgson, the current chair of Ofcom, and someone likely to play a role in the future supervision of the BBC, another Conservative target. It isn't clear to me what her background is that qualifies her to do this, but if this is intended to be a hatchet job, that probably doesn't matter. She may turn out to be more cover for young Hancock.

And finally, in the chair, that old reliable himself, Terry Burns. If in doubt, he is the establishment's go-to man. He does have some form on Freedom of Information, as in 2007 he indicated in an article in the Financial Times that some information, particularly analysis, supplied to ministers might be better made public. But, you sense, he will do as he is asked, rather than rock the boat.

So, I have some questions for the noble Lord Carlile. Firstly, how do you end up being appointed to the panel, and was there any consultation with the Party leadership before you accepted the invitation? Second, do you believe that it is a genuine cross-party review if your position is likely to be unrepresentative of Liberal Democrat thinking? Thirdly, does the fact that someone like me feels the need to ask such questions not make you wonder whether or not you've done the right thing?

Go on, Alex, prove me wrong...

Why does George Osborne need a law to make him do what he wants to do anyway?

We probably all have a piece of law which we believe to be stupid, or unnecessary, or both. And then there are laws which serve no useful purpose except to cause trouble for someone, some time, some place.

Enter George Osborne, who has the idea that you can have legislation which limits the freedom of not only himself, but any future occupant of his current position, to act as they see fit, applying the philosophy that they have a mandate for. He doesn't want to raise taxes, so he proposes to pass legislation preventing certain taxes or levies to be increased. He doesn't believe in debt-based government spending, so he seeks legislation preventing a future government from running a deficit except under certain unusual circumstances.

It's almost as though he doesn't trust himself.

But really, all he is doing is creating a pointless legislative stick to beat his opponents with. In a future election, he can tell the public that it is impossible for opponents to do certain things because they will be in breach of the surplus rule, or because they'll need to raise taxes that can't be increased. It is, if you like, the politics of the kindergarten.

And yet, it is astonishingly stupid for three reasons - there are probably more, but I'm in a hurry;

• Any incoming government can simply repeal it. If they want to be bound by it, they will behave accordingly. If not, they won't. So, wasting Parliamentary time on a piece of vanity legislation is really unhelpful, especially when your party has things it would really like to do.

• It gives the impression that your Party's future is more important than that of the country. Such a cynical move does not go unnoticed by your enemies, and even your current friends, and it does give this observer, at least, a reminder of your perceived arrogance.

• It takes away a whole clutch of your economic tools voluntarily. You might want to do something unexpected, or events elsewhere may force your hand. Do you really want to make yourself a liar? Are you seriously giving your opponents the means to bring your trustworthiness into question?

Frankly, if the Lords has a chance to play with it, they should. It is anti-democratic, foolish and unnecessary, and is the sign of a man who confuses smugness for competence, and has an opinion of his genius which is far outweighed by the evidence.

Fifty Shades of Grey - another bad weekend for the bureaucracy...

So, now that the HSBC scandal appears to have transmuted itself into a contest to see who can pin the blame for the way HMRC operates on whom, it looks as though the general lack of interest in how the Civil Service functions has finally come home to roost.

This stuff is important. How you organise a state determines what it can deliver and how it does so. That's why constitutional reform (yes, I know you're bored already, but bear with me) is important, and why doing it piecemeal appears ineffectual but isn't. And, the sinews of day to day government are your actual civil servants - yes, those useless, tea drinking, idle good-for-nothings so often chastised by the media and, increasingly, by the politicians whose erratic instruction and desire to pass law have done so much to make our administration sclerotic.

Taking turns to give civil servants a good kicking isn't necessarily helpful - ask the staff of the Rural Payments Agency or Border Force, whose travails in the media contributed to rock bottom levels of morale. And, if you reduce morale far enough, you tend to depress performance and motivation. That is, motivation to carry out tasks that you, the people (through your elected tribunes), apparently require to be done. That offers something of a dilemma.

It is interesting that, in cutting the number of civil servants, including in HMRC, the thought that certain activities might simply not get carried out appears not to have been considered. Or, perhaps it has...

For some time now, the ability of the Civil Service to recruit staff with technical skills - lawyers, procurement experts, accountants - has been in question. And what has been done about it? Conditions have been allowed to decay - higher pension contributions, significant real terms cuts in pay, decline in job security - making it harder to recruit and retain the sort of talent that allows the bureaucracy to compete against its private sector opposite numbers. It increasingly requires an old-fashioned sense of altruism to aspire to a career in the Senior Civil Service - you will be worse off than your peers in the private sector, you will be subject to abuse by the media, by politicians and the public, and you will be expected to perform at private sector levels without private sector conditions. Would you? Really?

A very senior tax inspector takes home about £100,000 per annum. His/her opposite number in one of the big accountancy firms will be taking home four or five times that. That in itself does not mean that there is an imbalance in skills, but what it does mean is that there is an incentive for PricewaterhouseCoopers to recruit that bright young tax official, in the same way that the likes of Chelsea can afford to buy players to deny them to the opposition. The flow of skills is one way, and it isn't one that favours the State.

So, politicians can investigate the bureaucracy all they like. Ultimately though, they are going to have to decide whether or not they want an effective one, and whether the cost is worth it to them. Given that the question may involve better resourcing, the answer may not be very helpful. Pity, that...

Universal Credit: is it the theory or the practice that is bothering Rachel Reeves?

According to the Daily Telegraph, Iain Duncan-Smith is intending to accelerate the rollout of Universal Credit to thwart Rachel Reeves and her intention to pause its implementation.

This is odd, because Ms Reeves said that in June, after the Major Projects Authority and the Public Accounts Committee has noted their concerns with the project. They were probably right to, if the concern was simply over the cost of the project and the likelihood of the IT infrastructure working. However, it isn't clear to me whether or not a pause would lead to scrapping the project or not.

Universal Credit, not necessarily coming to a town near you soon...

Universal Credit, in conceptual terms, seems like a bit of a no-brainer. Bringing together the application processes of a number of benefits and rolling them into one would reduce the cost of bureaucracy and, perhaps ironically, making it more likely that some vulnerable people would receive benefits to which they were entitled but had not actually claimed, put off by the hassle of form filling and assessment. And, in theory, there is nothing that should prevent the creation of an IT system that would support it.

In practice, however, government is bad at big IT projects, poor on procurement, prone to mid-project interference and weak on deciding what it actually wants in the first place.

And so it has come to pass with Universal Credit. Ironically, one of the underpinning changes, the introduction by HM Revenue & Customs of Real Time Information for PAYE, seems to have gone quite smoothly, exposing the uncomfortable fact that any system requiring the analysis and processing of data is only as good as the data fed in. And some employers, it turns out, aren't very good at that.

Nonetheless, the Universal Credit programme has been delayed significantly, leading to a perceived loss of confidence that it will work.

But what is one to do? Scrapping the project takes you back to the drawing board, whereby you still need to find ways of cutting the cost of social security. And, if cutting the cost of administration is made more difficult, that means an increased likelihood that benefits themselves will need to be cut - not an attractive option for politicians who claim to want to protect the poor and the vulnerable.

So, Ms Reeves faces a dilemma. Does she continue to harbour public doubts about the viability of Universal Credit, does she openly support the concept, or does she oppose both process and concept? And time is ticking...

Is understanding the implications of coalition really that difficult?

There are moments when, as someone who places quite a lot of faith in the basic decency and common sense of the British public, I get a bit depressed. Today saw an example of the sort of seemingly wilful blindness that makes our politics so frustrating.

A commenter on Liberal Democrat Voice, who shall remain nameless, but is a supporter of a political party beginning with L but without a D in it, was raging against the Party for the bedroom tax and the reduction in the top rate of tax to 45%. Liberal Democrats will, he claimed, get wiped out because there are so many people who won't forgive us for enabling the Conservatives to do these things.

One finds oneself wondering what his response will be if Labour have to go into a coalition in order to form a government. Will he expect them to deliver all of their programme, regardless of the view of any junior partner, or will he be comfortable with a degree of compromise in order to deliver key planks of the manifesto? Clearly, he is of the 'no compromise' school of politics, and perhaps he is lucky enough not to have ever been in a position where political compromises have to be made.

I don't like a number of things that Conservatives have wanted to do in government. However, in order that we might do some of the things that we believe are right for the country, we have to let them do likewise, otherwise nothing gets done at all. And, some of the things that Conservatives have required in exchange for taking the working poor out of income tax, long-term pension reform, the Pupil Premium and action on climate change are pretty stupid, or delivered by means that are almost catastrophically inept - the bedroom tax, a cap on net migration, free schools, to name but three. But, if they don't get those, we don't get our stuff.

It is, if you like, a business arrangement.

"But,", I hear my Labour supporting commenter cry, "if you hadn't allowed them to form a government, they couldn't have done all of those terrible things!". And, I must admit, that is true. At least, they wouldn't have been able to do them yet. My Labour friend would have then expected Liberal Democrats to vote down a Queen's Speech, in which the Conservatives would have outlined their plans, even though there was no alternative platform on offer. The result, another General Election, the result of which would have been what exactly?

Labour certainly couldn't have formed a majority administration. They would have had to outline how they were going to address the deficit, or hope that nobody really did, in which case why would those voters who had deserted them return? The Conservatives might have taken some seats from the Liberal Democrats, campaigning on the basis that the country needs a majority government, so wavering Lib Dems should switch to them instead. And, as a better funded party, they might have gained a majority - that would have been a far more likely outcome, although not a guaranteed one.

And, with a majority, you now know what you would have got. Not pretty, eh?

There are, of course, a whole series of counterfactuals, any of which might have come to pass in a second 2010 election, all of them less likely than an outcome where the Conservatives had a majority or were the largest party.

For Labour, it is easy. They will probably never know what it is like to be the junior partner in a coalition at Westminster, or indeed, in Edinburgh or Cardiff. They will expect to dominate any coalition arrangement. But if their members, activists and supporters are incapable of accepting that a third party might have an option other than a partnership with Labour, or that a junior partner might have a wishlist of its own that doesn't sit entirely comfortably with Labour policy, then finding a dancing partner after an inconclusive 2015 General Election might be surprisingly difficult...

Liberal Democrats: what is the point of playing the game just like everyone else?

Four years ago, Liberal Democrats fought a General Election campaign on the basis that we would be different - not just in terms of ideas, but in terms of the way government was done. In a country weary with a Labour administration which seemed perpetually to be on the edge of internecine war, and with the recent experience of an expenses scandal that had almost overwhelmed the House of Commons, the idea of a new, more open, more transparent way of doing politics resonated with some people. It didn't have to be like that.

And, unexpectedly for many, a hung parliament came to pass, and Liberal Democrats took their place within a Coalition administration. I had some optimism that, even though the reform agenda was going to be difficult to implement, we might be different about the way politics was now done.

I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed.

We tend to try to placate the media, even though most of them didn't like us, and possibly never will - we ruin their carefully cultivated binary coverage of X against Y, left against right. And we know that - we say it often enough. So, why not instead talk about our ideas, the areas of difference with the Conservatives, not in terms of "we're stopping the evil Tories from doing Z", but, our policy is to do J and we'll talk to other parties to see if we can reach some mutually acceptable compromise. That's the transparent, liberal thing to do. No, you can't provide a running commentary on the negotiations, but you can lay out the framework within which the discussions are taking place, and report back on the outcome.

But, it does depend on avoiding the cloak and dagger stuff. Did you really not see that document before it was published? If so, say so, if not, don't. Don't agree to something and then pretend that, no, you actually don't. Don't get yourself in a position whereby one Parliamentary Party says one thing and the other another. It's all too easy for people to work that out - remember how useful the internet is for looking up stuff? Like past speeches?

Anonymous briefings from 'senior Liberal Democrat sources'? They can go too. If you intend to say something, say it, don't try and hide behind 'deniability' - we'll respect you for it. Engage with your opponents, don't just exchange unpleasantries. I know that Labour don't have that many answers, but why not ask them to outline their alternative? Listen, they might have valuable input and, if they do, give them some credit.

In short, run our end of the Coalition like you would if you were running the show on your own, even if the Conservatives aren't willing to do likewise. Because the media will make it up anyway if they want to shaft you. They'll look for slight areas of uncertainty or difference of emphasis and, if they can't find them, they'll invent some. They really don't like us.

We talk a good game about collaborative government, where different political groups come together for the common good. If we don't practice it, who else will?

Reforming the EHRC: is the Coalition going about this the right way?

My Liberal Democrat Voice colleague, Caron Lindsay, has recently written about the proposed reform of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). Given that I am one of those people who theoretically should benefit from its work, perhaps I ought to put some thoughts out there.

Let's start with the negatives. The EHRC was hobbled from its outset by Labour's insistence on packing its leadership with Labour hacks, who saw their role as a political one. It also suffered from appalling financial management and a sense of mission creep. It was symptomatic of an administration which thought that bigger was necessarily better. Sadly, they were wrong.

There is a serious problem with the quango state. Broadly unaccountable, the leadership of quangos reflects the nature of the people who put them there. And, because they have contracts, when a new government comes in, the scope for conflict is obvious. That isn't a party political point, far from it - in the event that the Labour Party win a future General Election, they will encounter a well-entrenched 'quangocracy' packed with Conservative and Liberal Democrat appointees.

By politicising the delivery of Government functions - as opposed to the strategy - you incentivise 'empire building' and mission creep, and you generate internal opposition to the government of the day. If you are a supporter of the Opposition, you are hardly likely to willingly accept the Government's policy stance, indeed, the temptation to oppose a potentially unpopular administration is strong. So, an obvious first lesson is "don't politicise your bureaucracy".

Secondly, poor financial management is exactly that. However, that in itself doesn't justify radical change in the role and function of an organisation, it justifies finding those responsible, and call me quirky and old-fashioned here, holding them to account. That may mean, whisper it gently, punishing the guilty.

Finally, the sheer scale and scope of the EHRC meant that it tended to focus on those aspects of its brief which were of greatest interest to those who led it. Most of those in the sector tend to be campaigners against a particular brand of discrimination, rather than discrimination in its broadest sense. That isn't a criticism - very few of us are political generalists - but it inevitably impacts on the work of the EHRC. If human rights are about managing competing demands, and I would suggest that they are to some extent, any subconscious leaning towards one group or another endangers the rights of others.

So, what is the EHRC for, or, better still, what might be its role?

I agree that responsibility for impact assessments should be taken away from the EHRC and taken back into 'proper government', perhaps into the Cabinet Office. To be blunt, the notion that the EHRC is truly independent is hard to take seriously. The fact that there are a plethora of campaigning bodies shining a light on government policy and its impacts reflects a broadly held view that the EHRC is, in itself, insufficient to hold government to account.

And yes, a fundamental change in the way that government makes policy needs to come at the same time. By having a proper debate, and having real, public consultation before introducing changes, the public and, in particular, affected parties, can raise all of the salient issues, and government can respond to them as appropriate. That might not mean that there are not losers from any changes, but at least the issues are in the open.

I do see a role for the EHRC in helping organisations to operate in a non-discriminatory way, highlighting potential issues, providing guidance on specific topics and, if necessary, taking action to enforce anti-discrimination legislation. It also should provide support to individuals and groups seeking to act against discrimination, informing them of their rights, and of channels through which to confront those who discriminate.

It is very easy to talk about major reform of organisations, much harder to talk about what such reform is intended to achieve. In a political culture where being seen to be busy appears more important than outcomes, I want to see more information about what the future form and function of the EHRC will be before I get horribly excited. 

Death by a thousand cuts - the end of central government near you

This week, my union, the Public and Commercial Service union (PCS), issued a press release claiming that 3,500 jobs would be lost in local offices around the country. What they say is true, for a given value of true. What they have omitted to say is that these cuts are part of an already announced programme to axe 25,000 jobs, i.e. more than one in four of our staffing numbers as in 2005.

In an organisation that is seeking to achieve serious effiency gains over that period (5% each year), job losses are inevitable, and increased computerisation will allow technology to replace people in terms of data entry, filing and other humdrum, but currently essential tasks.

However, the Department are engaged in a simultaneous programme of 'estate rationalisation', i.e. closing smaller offices in favour of bringing larger concentrations of staff together in more space-effective configurations. The amount of space needed to house an individual officer has been pared back, a process known as 'restacking', allowing more staff to be housed in the same space.

This allows the release of now surplus office accommodation, thus reducing the running costs of the Department. The downside is that, in all likelihood, the HM Revenue & Customs presence near you soon won't be. For example, offices in Sudbury, Bury St Edmunds, Colchester, Clacton and Witham have all been designated for closure, with the work moving to Ipswich and Southend.

The process of retreat and amalgamation has been an ongoing story throughout my career. If Flanders and Swann were still alive today, instead of singing about the Beeching cuts, they would have been singing about the loss of offices such as Bryanston, Southwark and St Giles. Offices that covered geographically tiny area were prevalent just twenty years ago - the City of London had thirty-two offices dealing with its affairs, imaginatively called City I, City II, etc. However, the relationship between the offices and the individuals and companies that they dealt with was somehow more personal.

With 'progress' comes, unfortunately, the loss of that connection between government and community, and the rise of an apparently faceless bureaucracy. That appears to be the price to be paid for a leaner, meaner government. I just hope that it proves to be worth it.

Christopher Galley - possibly a bit of an idiot

We await the whole story of Damien Green's adventures in information gathering and, whilst I fear that it may not be as tidy as our Conservative friends would like us to believe, my concerns at this time are with the young man really at the centre of events, Christopher Galley. If, as accused, he wilfully leaked documents with the intention of embarassing his employer and, moreover, did so to achieve political advantage for one or other of the political parties, he is entirely reprehensible.

Civil servants, in their working lives, must be relied upon to give advice in an unbiased and neutral way, both by politicians and the public that they serve. If they find themselves unable to do so, resignation is the only acceptable course of action. This is not to say that they should not have political views, nor that they should be prevented from playing a full role in the society and communities in which they operate.

What Christopher Galley has done, if guilty, is to undermine that sense of trust which engenders good governance. Politicians must be able to trust those who work to them and, in eturn, politicians must respect the independence of the Civil Service. Otherwise, politicians work in isolation from those who must carry out their orders or, perhaps worse still, surround themselves with people that they trust, leading inevitably to a further politicisation of the bureaucracy.

If he is guilty, the book must be thrown at him, both to discourage others from behaving similarly and to restore confidence in the ability of the Civil Service to serve politicians of all parties and none. There is, as Mrs Thatcher once said, no alternative...

Baby P: emotion above reason - why politicians need to take a deep breath

There is no doubt that the tragic events leading up to the death of Baby P present a huge challenge to government, both local and national. However, they also present a challenge to politicians who, in their role as tribunes for the public, have multiple responsibilities. I've now watched the incident at Prime Ministers' Question Time which has caused so much controversy, and I'll return to that in a moment.

In his initial intervention, David Cameron condemned Haringey Council for having one in four social work posts left vacant. Interesting, really, given how many of his party's supporters are so critical of social workers in general, claiming that they are overpaid, irrelevant and, in general, unworthy of our support and/or sympathy. That said, he makes an excellent point. In the modern era, where local government comes under tremendous pressure to cut costs whilst meeting various obligations placed upon them by central government, leaving unfilled posts vacant helps to square the circle of falling grants and rising expectations.

That said, even if attempts are made to fill the vacancies, the general derision poured upon social workers tends to discourage applications. On one side of the debate, social workers are condemned for acting too precipitously - see John Hemming's blog for tales of inappropriate interventions, and at the other, they are condemned for failing to act quickly enough. Who would be a social worker under such circumstances? It is the sort of job where it is difficult to avoid taking your work home with you, and not one that I would fancy.

This is not to excuse any failings that the enquiry ordered into Haringey's Child Protection Services exposes, and I have little doubt that it will uncover them. However, finding errors of judgement and of process is only part of the task of fixing a department which is now perceived to be in crisis. We need to know why these mistakes were made, and whether the lack of staff led to a culture of shortcuts and superficiality, so often what happens when an organisation - public or private - is insufficiently resourced to carry out its allotted task.

Politicians have a responsibility to avoid hyperbole and nurture an environment whereby high quality, lasting solutions can be found - and implemented. And so I return to the events in the Commons...

David Cameron condemned "a social services department that gets £100 million a year and can't look after children". That was a cheap shot, unworthy of a serious politician. Is it really the case that Haringey Council is so awful, or was this a one-off case where, once things started going wrong, they kept going wrong? Does such a blanket accusation serve any purpose other than to get an easy headline?

Gordon Brown's response was ill-advised, although Conservative claims that he accused David Cameron of 'party politics' are on slightly shaky ground. He said, "I do regret making a party political issue of this issue..." - unwise, although not necessarily an accusation of the type alleged by David Cameron in his response. Equally, I thought that David Cameron's cheap comment, "I don't expect an answer, you never get one.", was wholly inappropriate given the gravity of the debate.

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the debate itself, it is a sad reflection of our political culture that the issue appeared to overshadow the root problem, that of a critical failure of child protection services to do their job in a specific instance.

Frankly, I expect better. I want my politicians to engage in measured debate rather than lapsing into outrage. Unlike some commentators, I presume that David Cameron's outrage was genuine, if ill-directed, but government by outrage is government by knee jerk. It prejudices outcomes and leads to the sort of snap legislation that stores up trouble for later on.

So, ladies and gentlemen, take a deep breath, encourage the enquiry to do its job and do it well, and then come up with a measured response. If you do that, then perhaps Baby P will not have died in vain...

What about my human rights?

For liberal civil servants, it's been a pretty ghastly weekend.

First, the Government start to float the idea that the Human Rights Act is causing problems in terms of their crime and community safety goals. If that wasn't bad enough, this morning's newspapers are full of claims that our Prime Minister is proposing to 'rescue' public services.

The Human Rights Act was one of the key things that led me to believe in 1997 that a Labour government would be, on balance, not unbearable (it didn't lead me to vote for them but...). The concept that citizens might have certain inalienable rights was long overdue and it was, after all, Liberal Democrat policy.

Recent events have conspired to create an atmosphere whereby it is possible to link any instance where the criminal justice system has failed to a 'complication brought about by the Human Rights Act'. The fact that in every instance, the problem could more validly be connected to an administrative failure, is not mentioned. Why? Bureaucracy is hated even more than 'liberal lawyers'. If politicians (and I don't spare Liberal Democrats from this charge - are you reading this, Vince Cable?) insist on slagging off the civil service at every opportunity, you hardly encourage the best and the brightest to join, do you? Most errors are committed, quite innocently, by junior members of staff trying to keep the system operating with judicious use of string and sealing wax. Training is poor, procedural changes too frequent, reforms ever ongoing.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Pay your bureaucrats properly, get the best, and you could make real savings by cutting the number of staff needed to fix problems caused by not having the ability to do things properly in the first place. A lot of what we do is process driven and there are usually only limited options. The secret is to know what those options are and, most important of all, why each is relevant and what impact it might have.

And so we are to be rescued... by a man who, quite frankly, appears to hate us and all that we stand for. Earth to Leader, Earth to Leader, you've been in charge for nine years now, so it must be your fault, mustn't it? How long can you blame previous administrations before your credibility runs out? The public sector doesn't need rescuing, it needs some certainty and a little tender loving care. That doesn't mean throwing a shedload of money at it, nor does it mean increasing staffing numbers. What it means is coming up with a clear concept of what government does, what it can do and what it should do?

Here's an outline draft for you to play with...

• government protects the citizenry from external and internal threats to its safety, defines a framework within which society interacts and provides core public services to enable equality of opportunity
• government can enable people to take control of their own lives, create a level playing field of opportunity, not of outcome, and protect those less able to protect themselves
• government should support freedom of the individual within the context of a free society, accept that its actions should be justified and, equally important, accountable and act as a force for good in a multilateral world

The concepts aren't difficult, the practice is, but it comes down to building a partnership with all of the stakeholders (to steal some classic New Labour jargon). I'm a stakeholder too, both as a civil servant and as a taxpayer. So at least look as though you care, can't you?...