Well Being and a critique of the consultation on the measures

The Positive Psychology website has been tracking the government's plans to measure well being. The Office for National Statistics has been carrying out a £12m national consultation as part of the work to identify the most appropriate measures for the well being metrics. The PP article is a cogent and reasoned critique of the risks of creating the measures in the way Government suggests and what may flow from those in policy terms. The article is worth a read.


http://mail.aol.com/34062-111/aol-6/en-gb/Suite.aspx

Broken Britain? Broken Nokia. Useless Vodafone.

News from the front-line of customer service. Regular readers will know I have little time for rubbish customer service from the much vaunted and over-hyped private sector. Typically, this manifests itself via mobile 'phone providers. Todays' story is high quality.


I have a Nokia E72.Nokia? You know, the company that was worth £200bn in 2001 and is  now worth south of £15bn and falling. Read this and you won't be surprised why the fall in value. 


Last Friday, 19/8, my handset, the 2nd of the last 6 months, failed again. Cue contact with Vodafone. Excellent response, new E72 handset arrives next day. They had though refused to provide another, different make, at least until I "upgrade", i.e. pay more and commit to a longer contract. Never mind, reload all data onto the handset and away we go. 


Wednesday of this week, the white-screen of death returns to the new handset and the phone fails. Cue call to Vodafone, who replace within 24 hours, but refuse to supply another make. Frustrated but in dire need to keep connected, I accept a second new handset and re-provision the handset again, re-load all data and off we go. 


Today, only 24 hours later, that handset, i.e. the third of the week, fails. Cue call to Vodafone who this time blame Nokia outright, refuse to provide anything other than another E72. I say, no thanks, and then the 'dance of the blind' takes place. The operative calls the "upgrades" department - but I don't want an upgrade say I - but they refuse to provide a different make. He suggests a "downgrade", yes, there is such a thing, but, the "upgrades" department refuses me a "downgrade". They will though credit me with £20 to spend in their shop to get a pay-as-you-go, but not email capability and that would deny me a replacement3G handset. All one-way. No notion of fairness, proper service, a decent response. Nothing. Just a dumb offer, an insult and a classic flip-off.


Getting the picture? I can't upgrade, even though I don't want to. I can't downgrade, even though I don't want to. I can't get similar, only identical. Is this starting to sound a bit like Kafka's The Trial? I think so. The operative tries the other department one last time, but in absolutely classic style "the computer say no". Yes, he really did say those words, the computer does not allow him to provide anything other than an identical replacement. And this time it will take 5 days to get it to me because, of course, it's the Bank Holiday!


He wouldn't even provide me with my PUK numbers so I could remove my business and go elsewhere. I have to "put that in writing" via their website, which when I tried was experiencing technical problems. Classic obfuscation - "put it in writing" - the old 1970's answer to everything.


What do I draw from this?

1. The decline and fall of customer service from Vodafone. A once quite efficient and helpful company.
2. The almost complete collapse of any 'empowerment' of a front-line employee, who must get sick and tired of fronting a faceless, bureaucratic and unhelpful back-office.
3. The shadowy 'upgrade department', who actually call the shots but you never to get to speak with them (I did ask several times to speak direct but the operative isn't allowed to do that)
4. The moronic parroting of 'customer service' language that is actually the complete antithesis of customer service.
5. The realisation, time and again, that call-centres simply do not work because they reduce all individuals, i.e. you and me, to a default stance; that of a fit-the-company template, or you don't fit at all.
6. The powerlessness that this induces. There is no-one to complain to, no resolution, no simple way to take your business elsewhere.
7. The comfort that the public sector will invariably out perform the hopeless service that companies like Vodafone and Nokia now provide.
8. The sense that those twin imposters, profit and growth, have so infected companies that they have almost completely lost touch with the reality customers have of using their defective products and trying to navigate their labrynthine and unhelpful so-called customer services.

 I know within these organisations there will be people who go to work to try and do a good job, to help others, but they are being massively let down by 'managers,' whose main interests are short-term targets and bonuses. Exactly the focus that led to the banking crisis and financial meltdown of 2007-09. 


When will they learn? 

Scorching critique of the uber-class

An interesting piece on the squeezed middles, unwittingly squeezed between the under-class and the uber-class, where-in the latter reside those who wrecked the economy and continue to escape absolutely free of punishment, with those in the former who decided to (very wrongly) take something from their neighbours and community are punished at sentences with 30-50% severity premiums.

http://www.publicservice.co.uk/blog_story.asp?id=309

We should see balance, responsibility and accountability for all in society, no just those who have their collars felt most easily. Will we finally see the hierarchy at News International bought to book with the latest disclosures and senior police officers who acted in concert with them properly held to account, just as the 'rioters' are?

Until then, whenever we have the choice or opportunity let's focus on what's working well in our communities, strengthening our voluntary and community sectors to work ever more deeply with young people to engage with them, then uncover and nurture their talents, whilst trying to resist siren calls for deeper public sector cuts. And these will come, if the recession slips into a depression and relatively small-scale business regeneration palliatives coupled with 'the markets' fail to deliver the transformation of the economy. 

Pause, reflect, understand and move on - not take revenge

Eight days since I last blogged and when I did the riots had taken place only in north London. What a difference those ensuing few days made, both to the 'landscape' of the ensuing violence in a variety of cities and just as importantly  to issues such as the reactions to the events, to community cohesion, to government/police relations and so on. Have a look at the link for an interesting piece on causes of the unrest. 
http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/blog-posts/2011/08/the-single-biggest-cause-of-rioting.htm


The propensity for mass hysteria, evidenced by the various reactions to the News International saga, was re-affirmed massively by the sorts of reactions we've seen in the (predominantly) right-wing press and media. 


The suggestion of conjoining of offences committed in city centres to someone's tenure, and not even the perpetrator's tenancy, but their mother's, is worthy of the 'knee-jerk' epithet more than any other. Local authorities and other social housing landlords have over the years strengthened tenancy agreements to allow for action against activities in relation to the proper conduct of the tenancy  and actions more widely in the vicinity. This development though seems to take the sense of those agreements to a different level.  If LB Wandsworth succeeds in its quest to gain possession of a social housing tenancy, one presumes the civil court judge will apply some pretty stern tests to a case based on a criminal act that has no connection to the tenant or the property in question other than a familial one, once removed at that. I would have thought the European Courts might also be asked to get involved at some point.


The more important issue however is why should those in one tenure only, face double jeopardy? There is no legal or moral basis for punishing people solely because of their tenure-and that's what this is. Will we see private sector tenants and home owners with family members who are convicted then be evicted? You answer the question. And that's called discrimination.


The government's desire to exact revenge rather than let the police and courts do their job, is a weakness, not strength. Neither of those bodies are perfect, both are under huge pressure to respond, from the press, public and also worryingly by a government demanding the harshest of penalties, some would say disproportionately harsh looking at the sentences. Also, the courts have the powers they require to deal with these matters in the criminal courts, and not to expand the scope into peoples' tenure. 


It's as if the government has its Falklands War, only a year and a bit into their tenure. The manna from this particular poisoned heaven averts attention from the £60 billion (sixty billion pounds) as yet unrepaid to the taxpayer by the banks and bankers; the £6.5 (six and a half million pounds) annual bonus one banker paid himself this year; the £1b (one billion pounds) and more government owned banks set aside for last year's bankers bonuses; the massive cuts to public funding of services and so on. 


I'll finish with 2 thoughts. First, that at this time what we have also seen is the wonderful, positive core of many of these communities as they respond, clean-up, band together to self-protect (and I don't include EDL-inspired vigilante groups in this) and call for peace and reconciliation. This positive core is helped by government and other parties setting the scene for repair and rehabilitation, providing effective, clear-thinking leadership and not bidding-up the revenge, all allied to some attempt to understand and explain what happened (which is NOT the same as condoning it).


And finally, an apparently prescient, forward thinking politician said this in 2010; "Imagine the Conservatives go home and get an absolute majority, on 25% of the eligible votes (they got 23%)...they turn around in the next week or two and chuck up VAT to 20%, we're going to start cutting teachers, cutting the police, and the wage bill in the public sector. I think if you're not careful in that situation...you'd get Greek-style unrest". That politician...Nicholas William Peter Clegg.

Haringey and the Tottenham riots

A quite momentous week, often for the most puzzling or troubling of reasons, e.g. USA’s downgrade to AA+ reliability (which panics 'the markets' - ever wondered just exactly what or who these 'markets' are and why they panic so easily?) juxtaposed with the highly local 2011 Tottenham ‘riots’, which if nothing else seems to show the relative fragility of community cohesion. The continued reduction in third sector sustainability, the lack of sustained growth in the economy and waves of redundancies in both the commercial and public sectors suggests a winter of discontent, whether of an employment relations nature or of community resilience.

Here's one recent perspective. Given the Tottenham events, a compelling video from Haringey about the effect of cuts on youth services, seems worryingly prescient.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2011/jul/31/haringey-youth-club-closures-video?CMP=twt_fd

Councils must reveal what they own

A report today on the Public Service website tells how the Coalition would like all local authorities to publish details of their assets. They report:


"Rather than cutting frontline services and funding to voluntary organisations, local authorities will have to publish full details of all their assets so the public can see which ones could be sold to generate revenue, the Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles has said.

To help them along, the coalition has produced a map of buildings and facilities that 87 English councils own, including hotels, restaurants, pubs, golf courses, sports stadiums, a sailing club, an airport and around 20 cinemas. Roughly 66 per cent of the country's £385bn worth of public sector assets are reckoned to be owned by councils.



"We need to know, now more than ever, exactly what assets are publicly owned," Pickles said. "The general public probably have no idea of the sheer scale and scope of property and land on the public sector's books. In many cases it goes way beyond traditional frontline services.

"I want the public sector to take a good hard look at what they own. By cataloguing each and every asset councils can help government find innovative new ways to utilise them, improve local services, keep council running costs down and save taxpayers' money."


We hope this does not presage a spate of misreporting about local government that tends to follow such 'hold the news' type stories. It's obviously no surprise that Council's own assets. Perhaps the eclectic mix might surprise, but surely in this new localised, big-society world, diversity of assets is a strength not a problem. Or is it that it's local authority ownership per se that is the problem here? The LGA says:

"Peter Fleming, chairman of the Local Government Association's improvement board, insisted that local authorities were already saving millions of pounds through smarter use of their assets. This included gathering different council services together under the one roof to reduce building management costs and sharing space with other councils, public bodies and the voluntary sector.

"The key issue remains that if the public sector is to find really big savings then Whitehall has to look at its own assets," he said. "Government agencies and the NHS must stop working in isolation and start sharing office space with each other and local authorities."