Recent Childcare scandals prompt the inevitable call for more rules but the recent Dispatches programme on Child Protection clearly shows what too much regulation can do. http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/
Each new social worker scandal prompts more reviews and rules with the obvious effect that more time is spent on paperwork in the office leaving less time to visit the children who are threatened. With sanctions on putting reports in late, it is pretty obvious what the priority of a social worker will be. Didn’t watch all the programme but recent tragedies have mentioned the huge number of files that some social workers have to handle. In one case the council’s own maximum was 30 files per social worker whereas one social worker had over 100.
If ever a situation cried out for a paperless system, social care is one. A similar situation exists still in financial services where in paper-based IFA offices, client data may have to be transposed up to 15 times in order to get policy on risk. Most obvious examples are where client’s name, address, contact details, date of birth etc is copied and copied and copied with the risk of error increasing each time. Insurance companies recognise this and offer enhanced commissions for life insurance where the IFA submits the application electronically. Tablet computers with built in wireless chips have been around for years in the private sector, but seem rare in the public sector. Anyone who thinks more regulation will solve any perceived wrongs in financial services is being naive.
After David Cameron’s speech, the cost of accumulated government debt will hopefully sink in, but this has only doubled since about 2002. At that time, government debt went down for a little while which probably gave the last government the excuse to spend, spend, spend with most of the debt being accumulated in the last two or three years. Makes me wonder if we are heading for a rerun of the 1950s where the greyness and dullness of those childhood years still haunts me.
Same day, different programme makes me think about Afghanistan. The Grenadier Guards have returned from Helmand and are due to lead the Trooping the Colour this month. Good to see the soldiers talking to the elders in a village, but talk of withdrawing in a couple of years does not help and only encourages the Taliban to wait. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sqrqy/ForQueenand_Country/ There are some chilling parallels with the French conquest of Morocco where the mindset of the Berber people seems strikingly similar to the Pashtun people in the Afghan region. Prophetically, one tribesman tells the French when they first land in Morocco “If you come, come to stay. Then I will join you”. All this from the tome that I haven’t finished yet Our Friends beneath the Sands by Martin Windrow mentioned in previous blogs. Tribal squabbling is the norm. Instead of spears, it’s AK 47 rifles these days, cheap at about US$50 each apparently. One man one vote or elections as we understand them, are something quite alien, especially when the President cheats at election time.
Eventually Morocco was pacified. Most intractable were the Berbers from the mountains who were very good fighters carrying very little kit with them and always making their shots count. Prisoners and enemies suffered unspeakably. Defeat in battle of one tribe led to the loser seeking aman (peace terms) with the victor, after which the peace which might last for a few months or a few years. French persistance eventually won through after some enlightened leadership from General Lyautey, but it took years. Colonial ghettos where locals were not allowed were banned, and marriage with the locals was encouraged. Harking back to regulation and bureaucracy, the French administration in Morocco was three times larger than the British equivalent in India where the population was forty times larger.
With no empire anymore, no one relishes the prospect of an Afghan war lasting a generation or more, but a passing visit will not win it. The Taliban are a direct result of the vacuum created after the Russians were defeated when America did not wanted to get send any troops - Vietnam was too recent a memory. Our very sensible self-interest in being in Afghanistan is no better expressed than by former soldier Paddy Ashdown http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/paddy-ashdown-what-we-must-do-to-win-this-war-in-afghanistan-1755787.html This raises the thought, will my two grandsons end up fighting there in 20 years time? We shall see.