Letter To Richmond & Twickenham Times:

Dear Sir,


”Bureaucracy is running out of control in our borough.” So wrote the Conservative Councillor, Pamela Fleming, in a letter last week - and so it appears, and not just in Richmond.


Hampshire’s Fire Authority is recruiting 10 “diversity liaison officers”, at expense to its Council. It won’t help fire-fighting, but it will help the Council’s and the Authority’s assessment by the independent Audit Commission that puts the Government’s “equalities agenda” high on it list of priorities.


As in Hampshire, so in Richmond - and for community care just as much as for fire services.


Bureaucracy, however, is “not out of control”. In our democracy, it is very much under the control of our politicians - councillors in the first place, as Councillor Fleming so rightly confirms, and then our MPs: MEPs are a different story.


In China, Deng Xiaoping had a simple saying, “cats can be black or white, so long as they catch mice.” Social workers "catch mice”, bureaucrats don’t. Richmond Council should spend more time - and more of our taxes - on managing and improving services. So should our Primary Care Trust and Kingston Hospital where they are proposing to hand over management of some surgical services to the private sector.


Richmond Council is to be applauded for the way its Liberal Democrats are taking the lead on green, environmental issues. Sadly there is little sign of them supporting Vincent Cable MP in his campaign for “localism”, in which this excess of bureaucracy looms large. Nor indeed on democratic consultations, required by statute, which Vincent will have been raising this week with NHS London.


In no way does the fault lie with the Council’s officers, at whatever level - indeed Richmond is particularly well placed and fortunate. It was well demonstrated by Social Services Director Jeff Jerome at his conference last week on the Mental Capacity Act. Annually, too, the Director of Finance and Corporate Affairs issues the Council’s Finance and Performance Report as a consultation document.


Richmond has only itself to blame if performance does not come up to expectation. It is taking too long to get its act together. Perhaps it should make better use of “London Councils”, the umbrella group covering all London’s 32 boroughs. Councils deal with the coal-face of service delivery. Whitehall doesn’t. It was good to see Councillor Fleming speaking out loud on her party’s position.


Yours faithfully




Francis King