05/05/2009 by Esio Trot.

Well, actually, the arrival happened a few years ago, but it still makes the mouth drop at some of the decisions.

We all know of some incident that shouts idiocy: the villager who has tended the flowers in a bed in the middle of the road for 60 years is told that she must either stop or have a lookout, warning signs and HV wear; the childens organisation that had to obtain an event permit, conduct a risk assessment, obtain police clearance and liability insurance before they could continue their annual pensioners Christmas lunch. The list could go on.

When some bod issues an edict, like the examples above, they normally quote ‘health and safety’. Trouble is, there is no room left for any discussion. The very mention of health and safety normally requires all who hear it to nod appreciatively, to give a deep sucking-in of breath and a resigned look of “well, that’s that then.”.

Who is the giver of all these edicts? Where can we go to obtain a more commonsense approach? Is this nation so litigious that unless we adhere to the minutei of each dot and tick of multitudinous forms we are likely to suffer hell and damnation?

Take this case in Preston, Lancashire. Police Community Support Officers are being supplied with mountain bikes to assist in increasing their mobility, yet staying visible in the community.  For the first two bikes some publicity was thought to be useful so a photocall was arranged, and all was well until PC Tony Cobban was asked to sit on a stationary bike. He declined, insisting that doing something as risky as sitting on a bicycle was not to be undertaken without proper training - and he has the support of senior officers. Most reasonable people will make him an object of ridicule.

At least in the above case, unlike this one involving PCSO’s,  a human life was not involved - or even worse the life of a child even if ‘probably dead’ when they arrived. Rather than ‘possibly dead’, I would have read the scene as possibly alive and acted accordingly. And as David Blunkett, former Home Secretary said in the Today programme when hearing that the water visibility was poor, “I would like to think that you or I, when we arrived on the bank as just normal human beings . . . we would have a go.”

Health and Safety does have a place, but not above - and really well below - that of common sense.

May Jordon Lyon, aged 10 when he drowned, rest in peace.

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05/05/2009 by Esio Trot.

In one of my reference dictionaries, it states that a debacle is “Something that ends in a disastrous failure, esp. because it has not been properly planned.”

The liberalisation of the Royal Mail monopoly in 2006 is certainly that: motivated by political dogma, rather than planned with the long-term future of Royal Mail in mind.

It allowed private operators to do the all of the processes involved in the collection, sorting and delivery of mail - with the option of still using Royal Mail to do the final walk-up-the-path delivery (for a fee).

Sounds great, but in practice has meant that all the mass mailings from businesses (and more and more government departments) where Royal Mail used to derive a significant element of their profits, have been taken over by the likes of TNT, Business Post etc. YET, Royal Mail is still required to maintain the universal postal service.

In addition, I understand that the bean counters who worked out the commission earned by Royal Mail for providing the last walk-up-the-path bit was flawed - Royal Mail just about breaks even for providing this bit.

So, we have private companies processing profitable bulk mail and using Royal Mail when it suites them for the last bit.  And what has been the result for us, the general public:

• Royal Mail having to increase the cost of first and second class postage that you and I have to pay at a rate well beyond the rate of inflation (In only two years there has been a 30% increase: second class has risen from 23p to 30p; second, from 30p to 39p).
• Government Ministers harangue us nearly every week that Royal Mail is insolvent, that its operations hardly covers its running costs.
• A huge pension deficit exists that needs private money to make it solvent.

Seems to me that the simplest solution to Royal Mail’s predicament will be to re-impose the monopoly it had - thus it’s turnover will increase significantly, thus contributing greatly to its profits (as most of its fixed costs are already met) and it will then be able to make decent inroads into the pension deficit by making contributions out of the extra revenue generated.

Posted in Business, Politics | No Comments »