Excellent Savings!

As promised, here is the Official Dog & Duck Summary of all the savings we’ve noticed the Council announcing since we started taking an interest (less than six months ago). In fact, just today, here they are at it AGAIN!!

By our reckoning, before long they will be paying us to live here!

Unfortunately, like the Council, we are having problems with our auditor.

Audit Report

Our auditor, Albert Einstein, is currently in no position to issue any sort of coherent report on this summary. This is entirely his own fault, for insisting on trying to comply with trivial and irrelevant rules such as: the Laws of Nature, Logic, the Law of Gravy, Prudence (whoever she is), and others that we can’t pronounce. Let alone spell.

Before we pressed the “publish post” button on the blog, he was heard muttering something like “Nein, Nein Dumbkopf! You are double counting, and it does not vork like zat anyvay!”

However, every single one of these numbers has been taken from the Council’s own website, or from reputable sources like the TV. We have actually taken care not to do double counting (e.g. procurement savings started off being only £140,000,000 and then got raised to £150,000,000 so we put in £140,000,000 and £10,000,000, NOT £140,000,000 and £150,000,000, which would have given us a far better figure, but would have been double counting).

As a matter of fact, WE were the ones that suggested that the Council originally raised the procurement figure from £140m to £150m because they realised that even if 150+17 does not come to 200, at least it comes closer than 140+17.

Daffer, who happens to have “O” Level Maths, even suggested helpfully that 150+17 might be 167, and that this (using technical terms such as “one significant figure” and “rounding”) was the same as 200.

At this, Albert just flew off the handle yelling “Illogical, illogical! Nein … vorse than illogical, WRONG!”

Anyway, the point is, there is a deadline that was set 2,000 years ago and cannot be changed. Christmas is nearly upon us and all we know is that the Council has been going on and on about saving hundreds of millions of pounds, without bothering with explanations. This is an important time of year for household budgets. People need to have some idea of what all these big numbers mean for their Council Tax, so they know how much they have left to spend on presents.

These are special circumstances and we have done our best. OK?

Incompetent Auditors?

More in hope than expectation, we had a quick look at the latest minutes of the Excellent Audit Committee last night.

You see, these were the minutes of the first meeting of this committee since Somerset County Council achieved its latest distinction. That is, the National Award for tossing away more taxpayers' money in Iceland than any other LibDem run Council in the whole country.

In fact, they threw away two-and-a-half times more than their closest rival for this prestigious trophy. The runners up, Cambridge, only lost a measly nine million - even less than the Audit Commission.

Needless to say there was no hint of apology or humble pie or embarassment. In fact once again there was absolutely no mention of Iceland at all.

There was, however, an astonishing crypto-criticism of ... wait for it ... the very same Audit Commission!

It went like this "... both Members and Officers expressed disappointment that the external auditors findings had been received in such proximity to the 30 September deadline ..."

Apparently this meant that " ... the nature of the discussion at the September meeting could have create (sic.) a poor perception if members of the public had been in attendance ..."

Hmm. A poor perception of what, exactly? Are they trying to say it's a good job none of us ignorant yokels were at the meeting, because they did something wrong, and the auditors actually noticed? That would be a first!

Anyway, before anyone starts cracking jokes about Enron and Ponzi Schemes, let us commiserate with the poor old Council. That's because down at the Dog & Duck we are having problems with our own auditor.

All we are trying to do is a simple summary of all the savings announced by SCC this year, and set out a broad overview of what they mean for the average Council Tax payer. It's not finished yet, but is a real proper job exercise, with a spreadsheet and everything.

Meanwhile Albert Einstein (our auditor) is still tearing his hair out because he reckons 17+140 does not equal 200, and is being a general pain in the arse. However, we will publish it this week. That's a promise. Audit or no audit.

Excellent Complaints Management

One thing that has long taxed the (limited) intellectual resources of the Dog n' Duck is how the Forces of Excellence are able to claim that they get so few complaints. However over the weekend a CHUM agent was so incensed by the censorship issue that they leaked us a copy of this spreadsheet. It is self explanatory, and just reinforces what we suspected all along!

Videos – Don't Panic!

Whoever drew up the Human Rights Act obviously had no regard for the needs of people who have spent the whole week in County Hall, reading extraordinary emails then going around in circles and banging their heads against the wall in despair.

Otherwise there would be an additional “right”, namely to a bit of light relief at the weekends, watching the latest video about their tormentors on YouTube.

This weekend, when Les Miserables click on their favourites to have another look at Ian Liddell Grainger’s famous video about their plight, they will see the words … "This video has been (censored)"

The same applies to all the others as well. Even the most innocuous ones (the ones that we liked best, incidentally).

Luckily the legendary County Hall Underground Movement (CHUM) was tipped off in advance. Hey! Maybe by Simon? That would be in keeping with the Matt Finnegan / Tony Parrish tradition.

Anyway, as a result someone was able to download most of the videos before C-day, and re-post them on another site (presumably offshore) called vimeo.com.

Here is our selection.

First, there is everyone’s favourite – the firing squad in a quarry (subtitled: “why no-one waved a red flag about the issue ").

Then there is the one about chaotic innovation … which includes the infamous words that inspired the folks down the Dog n’ Duck to start taking an interest.

We also like Bugs Bunny & the Jackass.

Some of the others can be found there as well, but as you know, we don’t do Sex or Politics down at the Dog n’ Duck. We are “strictly business”.

So … your weekend has been saved!

Public Apology to communities team

A group claiming to represent people of Gypsy/Roma heritage recently contacted the Dog n’ Duck. They told us that the Somerset “Gypsy & Traveller Team” was in no way Excellent, and was, in fact, "doing a fe**ing good job”.

We promised to publicise this, and to link to a story about Somerset on a “Romany” website that they told us about …. but due to distractions around bullying and censorship it got overlooked. And in a display of utter incompetence (it wasn’t me, it was the Dog!) we have now lost the link.

However we would like to apologise for the delay in bringing it up, and to confirm our belief that this story on the Council’s own website is in fact true.

And, before you ask, no - we are not “only saying it” because they don’t mention Excellence.

Not even once!

CENSORED!

Down at the Dog n' Duck we are all hoping that Jonesy has gone to the same place as those disappearing videos on YouTube.

(NB - don't despair! A few days ago we noticed that someone had made a little collection of some of the videos and has posted them on another site - we are checking our browser's "history" to find out where, and will post the link when we find it. At the time Daffer Jones said something must be up. His voyages have taken him to many places where there is censorship, so he picked up on the vibe before the rest of us.)

Let us be clear: we did NOT approve of the videos. At least, not all of them.

But some were very topical. Especially the one with the firing squad in the quarry. I remember when Jonesy ordered that execution - we were all delighted. She was a real bitch.

However, one does have to wonder how much of our money the Council is spending on censorship. Presumably they will see it as money well spent, since without censorship there would be no Excellence.

Would there?

Where has Jonesy Gone?

The latest two TV programmes about Excellence (this one and the BBC effort on "cyber-bullying" a week earlier) show an astonishing shift in Policy. Jonesy, once so prominent in swanking to broadcasters, is nowhere to be seen or heard!

One must assume that the County Council has finally seen the light, and realised that Jonesy is a total liability in the presence of a camera or a microphone. Of course, down at the Dog n' Duck we consider him to be more of a comic genius than a liability, but then, we don't have to explain to the electorate what he has been up to. At least, not with a straight face.

Unfortunately, the Councillors seem to have decided to put themselves in the firing line (well that brave chap, Sam Crabb, has been doing so). This is bad news indeed, because:

(1) Councillor Crabb has an understandable but unfortunate tendency to look embarassed when being made to clutch meaningless trophies or spout idiotically large numbers that not even Albert Einstein can understand. It's hard for the audience to laugh and cringe at the same time;
(2) Councillor Crabb appears not to have been Linguistically Programmed to insert random but relevant phrases into his speech. That is phrases like "we, of course, are a four star (the most you could get before the plus was invented) excellent council as rated by the Audit Commission"; and
(3) The landlord has placed an absolute prohibition on "Political" postings from the Dog n' Duck computer (we even got into trouble for defending the Mogg).

Luckily, before Jonesy was removed from the public eye he showered us with so much bull that we estimate that the Dog n' Duck "explaining Excellence" programme could continue for another 2.75 years purely to clear the backlog. Even if he never said anything to anyone about "Excellence" ever again.

And let's face it - that is hardly likely to happen, is it?

Cyber-bullying (3) - can't get the staff?

I have to say it is a bit rotten of the County Council to accuse Mogg of making it hard for them to recruit staff, even claiming that candidates for senior posts have withdrawn their applications because of him.

You see, this sounds suspiciously like the makings of a splendid excuse for having incompetent staff, and I think it is unfair on the two latest senior appointees, both of whom seem to be doing a very good job in difficult circumstances.

Between them they have whipped the legal system into line, and brought the BBC firmly on board. This puts ITV on the back foot with their focus on sleazy CEOs and dodgy tactics.

How's that for a triumph of Excellence over expectation?

Cyber-bullying (2) - keep it real!

Just in case anyone is wondering what all the fuss was about - here is previously unseen footage of the Mogg's repeated vicious and unprovoked attacks on South West One.

Wicked(:-)) pussy! Poor innocent, defenceless baby!

Cyber-bullying – an outsider’s view

Weird or what? No sooner have we crawled out from under the shield of National Anti-Bullying Week than one of the Somerbloggers comes under the cosh from the County Council and the BBC!

He was an obvious target, I suppose, on account of using his real name. But is ILG (aka “Mogg”) really behind all those blogs and videos? He is certainly not one of the regulars down at the Dog n’ Duck. In fact the landlord is adamant that he has never set foot in the place, saying, “We doesn’t allow Politicians in ‘ere, and you lot would be as well as to remember that!”

Talking of Politicians, one of the Councillors said on TV yesterday that “we only have one detractor”. Hah! Reminds me of when they thought that everything must be OK ‘cos they’d only had three complaints in a year! (We may examine that in more detail at some point.)

Anyway, we outsiders reckon that, as usual, it is all down to Excellence and to Jonesy’s War on Organisational Terror. What we see happening is this:

(1) Potential Organisational Terrorists are pressurised by this chap called Their Conscience “… to divulge Council information to others …”
(2) Now, ideally they would like to divulge it to someone like their Councillor, the Audit Commission, the Union, the Police or whatever.
(3) However, advice from colleagues and independents such as the Dog n’ Duck is simple: don’t do it! It is a waste of time and will be bad for your health, and that of your family.
(4) Anyone foolish enough to discuss their troubled conscience with “a senior manager” will find this message quickly reinforced. Possibly with a P45.
(5) Meanwhile, everyone in County Hall knows about ILG and Mogg. You mention either of them to inmates and the response is either a smile or a frown or blathering hysteria, never a blank look.
(6) Therefore the POT reaches a compromise with that Conscience bloke.
(7) This involves leaking the information to Mogg.
(8) He then ducks, closes his eyes, and stick his fingers in his ears.

You see, for Organisational Terrorists, leaking to Mogg is the Nuclear Option. It should be a last resort, but the exigencies of Excellence mean that for many it is their only resort.

National Anti-Bullying Week (day 5) - precautions

OK, so you can’t be cured, and you are fully informed. If Organisational Terrorism was easy, no-one would do it, would they? Therefore, the final message of the week is – take sensible precautions.

Pay close attention. Today’s offering from the Dog n’ Duck is longer than usual, but it could literally save your life.

You must invest in essential basic kit. Around £30 will get you a decent MP3 recorder. To put it into perspective, that is not much more than SCC spent on investment advice before slinging £25,000,000 of our money into the North Atlantic.

These devices have powerful microphones that can record anything from intimate conversations to multiple participant meetings in rooms the size of Roger’s office. The microphones are about the size of a pin head, and the whole gadget looks (and works) like one of those memory sticks that office people wear around their necks these days. (Hey – maybe they are all Potential Organisational Terrorists!)

Dangling from your neck like an “ordinary” memory stick is the ideal place for such a device. But if you’re worried (or if you have a stick that flashes to warn everyone that they are recording) then the top pocket of a jacket works perfectly well. They record through cloth, no problem. It helps to keep it high enough to be above any tables or other physical obstructions, but even that is not essential….

…. because, and this is the really clever bit, you can download, free from the web, simple software that magically transforms your recordings. For those of us who learned our spy craft during the Cod War this is truly astonishing. In the old days you ended up with a tape of mush and crackle, with your own voice booming and everyone else’s just a murmur. You had to take this to the Anoraks down in the basement, and they would curse and mutter and spend all night wearing headphones and twiddling knobs to get you an incomplete and often useless transcript.

Nowadays all you do is open the digital recording in your chosen software, and click the button that says something like “clean up sound”. All the mush disappears and the incriminating words from the other side of the room come through loud and clear – you can even recognise whose voices are speaking!

Down at the Dog n’ Duck we have tested this technology extensively. We can assure you that it works and that it is easy to use. We recommend it unreservedly to anyone who works for an Excellent organisation.

Dog n’ Duck HOT TIP! Always use uncompressed formats (e.g. .WAV) for your initial recording. The files are bigger but they are much easier to clean up.

It is particularly useful to have a recording of all those meetings that never took place. That way if you are accused of having dreams, hallucinations or delusions, or even of making things up - you can simply play the recording back to yourself. This is helpful when you have to prove that you are in fact sane, and that the organisation’s groupies are suffering from collective amnesia (a common side effect of Excellence).

Official Dog n’ Duck Legal Advice! – join the Union, that way you might get help if Excellence dictates that you are an Organisational Terrorist and that you must be got rid of.

However, we recognise that some people are too important (or too scaredy-cats!) to join the Union, and so for them …

Dog n’ Duck HOT TIP! You can get personal legal cover with your house insurance, it costs peanuts but can literally save your life.

Employment Lawyers in Somerset are currently charging OTs £235 per hour … plus VAT - which the Excellent organisation can recover, but you can’t (see why we are so anxious to guide people away from Organisational Terrorism? The dice are loaded against you in every little way imaginable.)

So you rack up costs at £2,071 per day while struggling to get out of the slurry pit. Meanwhile the Excellent organisation, which recently admitted that it was sitting on £1,000,000,000 of our money, racks up costs at only £1,762 per day (less any discounts they get as a result of their Excellent Procurement Strategy). Who is going to run out of money first?

Even if you are not remotely interested in perpetrating an Act of Organisational Terror, and are not even on the County Hall POT register, it is wise to take these basic precautions.

And all because, to quote the core message of National Anti-Bullying Week, you never know when you too may be branded an Organisational Terrorist.

National Anti-Bullying Week (day 4) - information

If you are unable to curb your Terrorist leanings, then you should at least ensure that you are well informed. We have a couple of Former Organisational Terrorists down at the Dog n’ Duck, who are prepared to offer advice free of charge.

It is like counselling – the FOTs ask you all sorts of questions and leave you to draw your own conclusions (yeah right, what kind of “advice” is that? … well, if you are a Potential Organisational Terrorist it’s the best you’re gonna get!).

Anyway, the questions go like this:

(1) Do you want all the rooms at County Hall to fall silent as soon as you walk in?
(2) Do you want half the HR department to suddenly be tasked with a detailed review of your performance?
(3) Do you want to be reported to the Standards Board?
(4) Do you want a Business Re-engineering Consultant to be paid £10,000 for an essay on why the Public Sector Transformation Agenda requires that your job should be given a new title and then given to someone else (who is not on the POT register)?
(5) Do you want your colleagues to be informed, in a solemn voice and with much pursing of lips, that you are being offered “extra training”?
(6) Do you want to put your family through a nightmare likely to result in insanity or poverty affecting current and future generations?

Obviously, for most people the answer to this sort of question is “no”.

That means that most POTs realise that the only sensible course of action is to sit down, shut up, and write out 100 times: “140+17=200, or 210, or 140,000, or whatever Jonesy says it is”.

Because, as a former (District) Councillor told us, “… County Councillors have to be very brave to stick their heads above the parapet in Taunton.”

UNISON sources confirm that the same applies to members of staff (universally referred to as “officers”, even the ones who would barely qualify as “other ranks”!)

But sadly, there will always be some who are too brave, or just too stupid to understand the consequences of failing to control their urges. There is even a charity that has been set up for these very people. It is called Public Concern at Work.

Dog n’ Duck veterans, however, would strongly advise you to have nothing whatsoever to do with this outfit! Experience has shown that they actively encourage you to Terrorise your Organisation, and seek to radicalise you with promises of support and assurances about legal protection. However, once you have actually committed an Outrage, they reckon that their work is done. Then they leave you well and truly in the slurry pit, because the reality is: no-one really gives a shit.

Apart from the cattle of course - otherwise there wouldn’t be a slurry pit.

National Anti-Bullying Week (day 3) - remedies

So what do you do on discovering that you are a POT? DO NOT DESPAIR!

There are a number of possible cures available, most of which involve joining a satanic cult (which is not as bad as it sounds, and could be quite fun really!). Ordinary witchcraft (wicca) & VooDoo have also been known to help. The HR Department at County Hall will be pleased to advise, not least because it will give them a chance to make sure you are on the POT register.

However, at the end of the day, Organisational Terrorism is like sex. If all else fails you should at least be well informed (Thursday) and take sensible precautions (Friday).

National Anti-Bullying Week (day 2) - diagnosis

This is a serious week, for a serious subject (Organisational Terror, in case you've forgotten). No jokes.

So today, the regulars down at the Dog n' Duck would like to invite you all to examine the inner workings of your mind, to see whether you too are a Potential Organisational Terrorist.

Statistics have shown that POTs are most likely to be:

(1) recent recruits (watch out for Simon & Meic);
(2) newly elected (check out "question 3");
(3) refugees from the private sector (Yikes! That's the whole of IBM); and
(4) used to working in smaller organisations (Phew. IBM ruled out, our £400 million is safe).

As with drugs, young minds are most vulnerable. This is because they suffer from something called "idealism", also known as illusions. Fortunately Somerset County Council has an award-winning inducktrination program that has a proven track record of turning illusions into delusions.

That program uses the techniques of NLP ("Neuro Linguistic Programming" for those of you who are still not familiar with the inner workings of Excellence) to identify an individual's susceptibility to POTism.

What happens is this. To prepare for your journey, you do all that deep breathing, relaxation, visualisation, envisioning, and self-realisation stuff. Then you allow your mind to range freely over the Strategic Excellence Agenda and Service Delivery Branding Options and all the rest of it.

At this point, if your mind cannot be cleared of doubts and insists on returning to practicalities, and vernacular expressions such as "that ain't right!", then not only are you an ignorant yokel, but you have a problem.

Sorry, I meant "we" have a problem.

"Our" problem is that you are a Terrorist Outrage waiting to happen. There are two options. Either you can get rid of yourself, or you can read the advice being posted later this week.

National Anti-Bullying Week(1) - context

For five whole days, Organisational Terrorists and those who dare to negotiate with them can breathe easy. Down at the Dog n' Duck we are confident that, between them, Simon & Meic will be able to restrain their superiors' natural urges to "gather evidence" and brandish the P45s. At least until Friday.

And how better to remind ourselves of the problem than in the words of Jonesy himself:

“… there are organizational “terrorists”. These persons may even be in the top team or at the most senior level of the local authority. It is important to get rid of these people …”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice 2007

Good Luck Chaps!

Earth to Kershaw ...

Perhaps it was naïve, but we did expect to see some mention of investments in the latest Agenda of the Excellent Audit Committee. Down at the Dog & Duck we reckon that a cock-up of Icelandic proportions deserves at least a teeny-weeny little mention.

Under Reports, however, there is a thing called "Risk Management Update".

"Ach sooo! Zey vill haff hidden it here!" Said Albert Einstein confidently (Al's an Accountant, remember, so he knows about this stuff).

Anyway, we clicked away on the Dog & Duck computer, and lo and behold .... nothing. We found all sorts of Excellence, and discovered that SCC has lots of people called "Risk Management Champions", and plenty of other fancy talk and coloured matrices (hey! we can do colour too - look: ICELAND IRELAND ENGLAND).

But on the subject of investments or bank deposits or the like - a truly deafening silence.

However, let it not be said that Roger & Co. have passed up an opportunity to rub our noses in it. For this is the moment they chose to unveil something called the SCC Risk Management Standard, describing it as "a new addition to the Risk Management Toolkit"....

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, counties like Leicestershire have what they call "a prudent investment policy". And in February of this year, North West Leicestershire District Council took £6.5 million out of Icelandic banks, because they thought it wasn't safe.

Now, what was Roger doing back in February 2008? Oh yes, I remember! He was feeding spaghetti to a pirate that had boarded Spaceship Somerset and was forcing everyone worship his monster.

I told you he had balls!

Just in case anyone thought that Jonesy was considering curtailing his career in pubic squeaking ... just have a look at what he has let himself in for on 17th February 2009!

Now, in case I need to remind anyone, we are paying for all this. So I hope everyone will be taking a close interest in the second ever "Annual Public Sector Transformation Summit".

It has been confirmed that Jonesy will be sharing our experience of "using joint ventures to drive service transformation".

This will involve "determining how JV’s can bring about significant procurement savings", and "exploring the transformation initiatives that have benefited from a joint venture framework".

Hopefully the outcomes will be shared with us, and may help to clear up some of the confusion.

In the meantime, we regulars down at the Dog & Duck will be doing our best to articulate that confusion. Who knows - maybe some Public Sector Transformer will appear at the bar, as if by magic, to inform our debate?

And maybe one or more of the debaters will appear at the Conference in London next February with a few troublesome details for Jonesy to clear up!

Excellent News from Sheffield!

It looks like yet another Council was not too busy waffling on about Excellence to do one of those risk assessment things.

Sheffield had £12 million in Iceland, but moved it out a year ago because they thought it was not safe. That would have been around the time Alan was in Venice, going on about getting rid of Organisational Terrorists.

As for me - it looks like I have to eat my words about Northern Councils!

Roger’s Risk Assessment

Apparently not all Local Authorities are stupid. Like Somerset, East Northamptonshire Council had a load of cash stashed away in Iceland. Then they did this thing called “a risk management assessment of what was going on.” As a result their Leader was able to say "That means we didn't lose any money.”

What was Roger doing at the time? Oh yes, I remember. He was acting the part of Corporate Director of Resources, which involved

1) faffing about with groundbreaking initiatives;
1a) an enormous paycheck;
2) babbling on about Excellence;
2a) an even bigger paycheck;
3) authorising payments of £140,000;
3a) an absolutely gi-normous paycheck; and
4) Heaven only knows what else
(possibly involving brown envelopes full of £50 notes).

Then of course there was this §151 business. A little bird (naughty little bird!) told me that Roger’s Risk Assessment went something like this:

Christ! There’s all this shit going down in Taunton, and here’s poor little me acting as a §151 officer! And then there are all those things I am supposed to be §151ing. But Alan glares at me just for thinking it. And I can see him thinking and wondering if I’m an Organisational Terrorist and snarling something in my direction about how its time we had a permanent Corporate Director and did I really want to risk seeing the job “advertised externally”? And that is a risk I am not prepared to take so I better just shut up and who needs a business case anyway? So as Alan says I better focus on the big picture and important things like how to write big words in small spaces, like the words “Twenty-Five Million, One Hundred and Forty Thousand Pounds only” in that tiny little space on a Somerset County Council cheque. And if I use a biro there’s less risk to the Council that someone will alter the cheque when it gets lost. And that’s about all of §151 that any actor can take.

Anyway the Guardians and Verifiers of Excellence have also thrown millions away. So Somerset County Council were not the only ones who were too busy with Excellence to bother with “a risk management assessment of what was going on.”

And if that is Excellence, then God help Somerset when Jonesy & Co. drag us beyond it!

Organisational Terrorism in the spotlight again

Nice to see that the Beeb (radio 4 no less) and the Man are taking an interest in how to create Excellence.

Famous OTs being unmasked and hopefully getting their just desserts include Paul Van Buitenen (nice pseudonym Paul - but just a teeny weeny bit obvious innit?) and Sherron Watkins. Both of them feature in the hall of shame referred to in the story about Somerset's War on Terror.

But I would not like to have to clean Jonesy's underpants if anyone raises this at today's lunch in Frome! It is one thing swanking and bullshitting in front of a bunch of foreigners in Venice, quite another to risk facing your victims direct. (Whether they like it or not, Frome is still in Somerset, just about.)

It's like a voluntary form of restorative justice. Whatever complaints there may be about Jones - you have to admit he's got balls!

Somerset's Darkest Days

I try not to blog when my sense of humour has failed. But today, today has to become an exception.

First, a rumour that Mr. Buchanan may be innocent. There is however no confirmation of this on the Council's website. In any normal Local Authority, the news that a leading Councillor has been cleared by the Standards Board would be something to celebrate. In Somerset's darkest days we wonder whether it will even be reported. Give it time? Maybe.

But as they say in the land of Excellence, "let's park that one". It has been trumped.

There is no easy way to say this. Somerset County Council invested £25 million of our money in Icelandic banks.

In confirming this figure, the Leader of the Council is alleged by the BBC to have said "...the money represented 2.5% of the overall portfolio..." and "...the authority had always tried to be prudent and spread investments..."

£4,000,000 a year on spin, and that is the best they can come up with?

Let's re-spin it.

"2.5%"? That means the Council is sitting on £1,000,000,000 of our money (yes, nine "zeros"). That is more than £5,000 for each household. Why in the name of Alan Jones have they been putting the Council Tax up every year?

"spreading investments"? Iceland makes up 0.003% of the world's population. Somerset's investment represented £100 for every member of that population. An equivalent investment in the banking system of the United Kingdom would amount to £6,500,000,000. If every Council in the UK made a similar investment it would come to £820,000,000,000. The Financial Crisis would be over.

"prudent"? It makes you wonder where they've put the other £975,000,000 that they took from Somerset's Council Tax Payers.

Where was Roger Kershaw when BCCI went tits up? Obviously not learning any lessons. And the country wasn't even a couple of years into a credit crunch at the time (yes, "experts" reckon it started well over a year ago, but Taunton clearly did not notice).

Other councils have also been stupid and have lost money. But I don't care about other councils. They are not cramming Excellence down my throat and bringing Stars to my eyes. They are not fleecing me for the privilege of being subject to their fantasies. And as for the Plus ....

Somerset's War on Terror

Jonesy has repeatedly congratulated himself, at home and abroad, for his success in the War on Organisational Terror.

So who is this “enemy within”? What organisations have they terrorised? What did they do, or say, or write, that terrified their victims?

Even the most incompetent Googler will quickly work out that Organisational Terrorists did not come into being purely to interfere with Jonesy’s delusions of Excellence.

In fact this evil breed has been active since the beginning of time. The second person in history, and the very first woman ever invented, was also the first Organisational Terrorist. She upset the applecart in Eden (NB: the Garden of Eden was officially recognised as the world’s first “Excellent” organisation in the year 6000 B.C.).

Eve threatened to tell God about what she and the Man got up to behind the bike shed, so the Man got rid of her by feeding her to a serpent. It didn’t cost the Garden of Eden £140,000. In fact, it didn’t cost anything – there’s a thought!

More recently another lady, Karen Silkwood, asked all sorts of unhelpful questions. The victim was a Nuclear Technology Organisation. In accordance with the principles of sincerity that underpin Excellence, the Organisation earnestly welcomed these questions. Then she was killed.

As Jonesy said in Venice "It is important to get rid of these people.”

And it’s not just women, or foreigners. In fact the OTs have their own Hall of Shame!

Council Tax REBATES! Hurray!

Last night I caught up with Albert Einstein down at the Dog & Duck.

As you may recall he was last seen scratching his head over Jonesy's sums, and in particular the famous (now infamous) £200,000,000 that IBM is going to save Somerset over the next 10 years.

Apparently Jonesy's confirmation via the LGC that the discount rate should be zero (uh?) has thrown Albert's previous calculations into disarray. He is now one mightily pissed off famous mathematical genius.

However, I went out to join the smokers in the rain, and borrowed a fag packet to do some maths the old fashioned way.

It is confusing with all those zeros, but when you take the £200 million, and divide it by the 190,000 Somerset Council Tax Payers, you get ...... £1,052.63. Blimey! Now divide that by another 10 (for the 10 years), and what do you get?

Yippee!!! We're all gonna get a rebate of £105.26 at the end of the year! That's more than Gordon Brown gave us last month!

We'll be having a drink on that tonight.

Incompetence or Malice?

Another Somerset County Councillor has got into trouble, and there seems to be quite a lot of glee about it in the SomerBlogging community. It seems the chap in the slurry pit this time is one of Jonesy's mates.

But I, for one, am not interested. The thing I want to know is: how was the Buchanan issue concluded? You know, Cornwall's troublesome "question 3".

Most of us will recall how shifty Jones became when the subject of his relationship with the Standards Board came up on TV (West Eye View, 24/07/08). He was accused of using the Standards Board to get rid of Councillor Buchanan, and eventually put his hands up to it.

Somerset County Council continues to batten down the hatches on information, so as usual we will have to spell it out. Since they are obviously good at ticking boxes, perhaps these will help:

Have the complaints against Cllr Buchanan been upheld by the Standards Board?
Yes c
No c

If the answer is "yes" then we can make our sincerest apologies to Alan Jones for casting aspersions, and blame the Standards Board for not getting their fingers out. Their incompetence will have caused Jonesy a great deal of aggro.

On the other hand, if the tick goes in the "no" box ... (It is so simple isn't it? "Yes" or "No"), then the next question asks itself. Were the complaints the result of incompetence or malice?

Jonesy himself told us on TV how the complaints originated. In his own words, "evidence was gathered from people who supplied it willingly". He admitted that he himself then submitted that evidence to the Standards Board. In other words, he made the decision that the evidence gathered warranted investigation.

This decision was made by someone who costs us at least £160,000 per year (about £1 for every Council Tax payer), just to be in post. It was made by someone who also spends thousands of our pounds on legal advice every year, and who bought himself TWO new in-house lawyers this summer (a big one earning "up to £84,000" and a little one earning "up to £61,000").

So I say again: was this decision incompetent, or was it malicious?

Either way, there is a clear case for impeachment. No golden parachute. Not a penny more!

Anal Retention

As I predicted, Cornwall does not display any of the symptoms of this ghastly Somerset condition.

Most of us have the greatest respect for Cornwall - the place, the people, and even the Council. Unlike some SomerBloggers, I knew there was no hope they’d take Jonesy off our hands.

Instead, we should be looking to the North for salvation. I hear that there are hundreds of little known boroughs and municipalities where abuse of power and misuse of public funds are endemic. Jonesy and his crew would fit like noodly appendages in rubber gloves.

Alternatively, Somerset could go for something genuinely innovative in English Local Government - impeachment.

Only £20?

Many people would find it difficult to spend a council’s Information Presentation Budget in a rural county of half a million citizens.

Especially when those citizens are not known for their sophistication. And especially when the amounts involved – were they to be spent on matters of substance - would pretty much pay for a whole Somerset District!

Well, the good news is that our Simon will have plenty of help in spending the £4 million a year Somerset County Council spin budget.

According to information from County Hall, The “Head of Communications” has no less than three “Marketing & Communications Managers”, none of whom are to be confused with the “Communications & Marketing Manager” (spot the difference!).

In addition to this lot, there are two “Access & Communications Managers” who between them deal with “Publications”, “Media”, “Reputation”, and “Branding”.

Now, there may only be six spin managers, but they require an awful lot of support from people with Titles like:

- Events Coordinator
- Media Analyst
- PR Officer
- Communications Officer
- Press Officer
- PR & Communications Officer
- Communications & Media Officer
- Assistant PR, Communications, Media & Press Officer
- etc. etc. (you get the picture, right?)

They are all busy explaining away Jonesy’s words and deeds to the people of $omerset and b€yond. Clearly Excellence is not a product that sells itself!

The bad news is that SCC has flatly refused to fund a new smoking room down at the Dog & Duck, and our annual budget remains at £NIL. We are all disappointed with the lack of cooperation. It seems that on board Jonesy’s ship …

“The spirit of partnership is weaker than the spirit of independence”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice, 2007

… as his Excellency himself once pontificated.

An Excellent team?

A Big Thank You to the Official Alan Jones Blog for introducing the latest member of the Explaining Excellence Team:
http://theofficialalanjonesblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/big-hitters.html

Down at the Dog & Duck we went over Simon’s job description again. Most of it is the usual incomprehensible Excellence bullshit, but amongst the "Main Responsibilities and Duties" we found this hairy old chestnut “To ensure effective working relationships with relevant partners”.

Now, who could be more relevant than the regulars down at the Dog & Duck? And me and Anon are only the spokespersons, remember that there’s a whole team of us down here! We are all looking forward to working with Simon on the difficult task of explaining Excellence to the ignorant people of Somerset.

With a salary of £70K (50% of £140K as Albert Einstein pointed out), and an annual budget of £4 million, we could really face up to The Challenge.

As you may remember, Al is a famous mathematician who is currently struggling with Jonesian Paradigms.

Then there is Pat, the famous philanderer, who always rings twice. Pat has been able to explain things about Jonesy that the rest of us would never have thought of. (Trailer!: Without Pat, Anon would never have been able to work out what Jonesy got up to in the bar one night after a hard day at the BT conference that got Mr. Buchanan into so much trouble … http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/)

And don’t forget Daffer, the famous sailor, who will help us to understand Jonesy’s nautical illusions. Being myopic, Daffer is also well placed to understand key concepts such as Jonesian Loyalty, which are the crucial building blocks of Excellence.

Anyway, in the spirit of partnership, we have asked Simon if he could spare some of his £4million to build us an outdoor smoking room down at the Dog & Duck, where Daffer can smoke his pipe. He needs it to calm down, poor chap – it is stressful sharing a surname with Alan.

Don't rely on Cornwall!

Sorry to put a dampener on all the excitement generated by Jonesy’s bid for the Cornwall job … but we have to be realistic.

By the Law of Unintended Consequences, all these blogs and YouTube videos, born as they were of frustration, and sharing a desperation to get Jonesy out of Somerset, may have the opposite effect.

If the Cornwall selectors do their job properly they will certainly happen upon the West Eye View programme, not to mention these blogs. They be asking questions such as the three I put to the Local Government Chronicle as being worthy of answers …

(1) Is it the case that during 2005/2006 the Manager of the ISiS Project made complaints of harassment or similar against the Chief Executive of Somerset County Council?

(2) Is it the case that, after several months' absence on sick leave, the Manager of the ISiS Project subsequently received a severance payment of an amount in the region of £140,000 from Somerset County Council?

(3) Is it the case that during 2007, and again during 2008, the Chief Executive of Somerset County Council made a number of complaints to the Standards Board about Councillor Paul Buchanan (who had been deputy leader of the ruling group prior to the first complaints), and that the Standards Board has either declined to investigate, or has investigated but failed to uphold, all of these complaints?

Neither Somerset County Council nor Jonesy himself seem to have done anything to deny or clarify any of the above, but sadly I don’t think that will be good enough for the Cornwall selectors.

And these three questions are only the beginning. They lead unhappily into the whole sorry story about misuse of public funds, dodgy management, abuse of position and what have you. In Somerset, like Liverpool before us, we have come to take these things for granted. We have also come to accept that straight questions will not get straight answers from Jonesy and his crew.

However the Cornwall selectors do not have to accept this. In fact they would run a grave risk in appointing Jonesy while there are so many unanswered questions about his conduct and competence circulating in public. Somerset’s selectors, back in 2003, could at least plead that they had no knowledge of such issues.

Another thing to remember is that Cornwall did not get to where it is today by alienating over 80% of the population.

But all is not lost! This may be the perfect opportunity to finally get some answers. And who knows, if Jonesy really wants the Cornwall job then they may turn out to good and honest answers.

Creating Excellence (lesson 69)

It is September 2008, and time to recover our sense of humour, so as to fuel a renewed effort to get to grips with Excellence in Somerset.

Albert is still struggling to reconcile himself to Jonesy’s latest figures, and Daffer’s in a strop about the Spaghetti Monster, so it’s time to introduce Pat, another of the regulars down at the Dog & Duck.

Pat is a Postman (of course), and like Jonesy, likes a bit. He is also like Jonesy in that people make irreverent videos about him on youtube – see here.

Anyway, one morning last summer (actually it was at 10.04 am local time on 25th June 2007, not that this information was leaked from a County Council surveillance unit or anything) Postie Pat was making a delivery at a certain address in Somerset.

According to Pat, the door was opened by a goddess in a negligée, exuding come-hither vibes like one of Jonesy’s office girls. Sadly the spell was quickly broken by an almighty outburst of squawking from inside the house, followed by a high-pitched voice proclaiming:

“As a Four Star the most you can get Excellent Authority with a Positive direction of travel …”

“Don’t worry about that, Pat,” said the goddess, “it’s only my husband.”

“Your HUSBAND?”

“Well, his parrot actually.”

“His p-p-parrot?” Pat stammered.

“Yeah, his parrot, OK? He hears Rupert learning his lines, then he repeats it. It’s what parrots DO, alright?”

“Right, right, so your husband’s an actor is he? Away making a movie somewhere … a long way away … ?” Pat’s voice would have tailed off in a mixture of dwindling hope, now battered with the confusion and bewilderment that follows Excellence everywhere.

“No you idiot, he works at County Hall! He’s Acting Assistant Strategic Director of Strategy. Now are we going to have sex or what?”

According to Pat, after this passion-smothering series of revelations he immediately scarpered; like a postman who’s accidentally gone walkabout in the grounds of a loony bin patrolled by Dobermans. Of course, at the time none of us believed this, or indeed any part of his story.

But we are better informed now, if none the wiser!

New Code of Conduct for Somerset

It is important that everyone knows where they stand. So to simplify things, I propose a local code of conduct comprising 100 simple rules for Somerset County Councillors.

Rule 1: The Chief Executive knows best;
Rules 2-99: As Rule 1;
Rule 100: In the interests of importance, anyone who disregards any of rules 1 to 99 will be got rid of, in accordance with the Venice Protocols.

The local code of conduct also makes life easier for us lesser mortals, since it means we can not vote with a clear conscience.

And if we don’t like it … we can move to Devon, like Jonesy himself!

Excellent words from Venice!

Many thanks to Clara, who was at Venice last November, for putting us on to another rich vein of Excellent Jonesisms. For example, this is how he described his internal critics:

“There are organizational “terrorists”. These persons may even be in the top team or at the most senior level of the local authority. It is important to get rid of these people.”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice, 2007

When the history of Somerset County Council in the 21st Century is written, the story of how this intellectual cleansing was achieved will warrant a chapter all of its own. Perhaps it is something that the Audit Commission will examine in detail as part of the next Excellence inspection?

That way the Excellent practice they uncover can be spread to all parts of the country.

Jonesy also used the opportunity provided by Venice to chew over a few sour grapes left over from his failed attempt to spread his cloak over the Somerset Districts, going on about

“… misplaced rivalry between organizations, e.g., the district councils fighting one another and fighting with the county councils.”
Alan Jones, Chief Executive of Somerset County Council, Venice, 2007

Come here (Somerset) and say that, Jonesy, if you dare! And while you’re rubbing our noses in it from afar, how much did that particular débâcle of your making cost us?

Sorry folks, another sense of humour failure …. Jonesy and his crew do have that effect – must be the latest red letter about my Council Tax!

Source: http://www.items.fr/spip.php?page=globalforum&id_rubrique=82

Who's "Roger"?

A bit of a mystery really, who IS this idiot?

He has his own blogspot where he makes all manner of disgusting revelations:
http://rogerkershawconfesses.blogspot.com/

and a secret spot where he leaks even worse stuff: http://www.scribd.com/people/view/1944987-rogerjkershaw

Which "Mr. Jones" then has removed: http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/4805430

Before it reappears in the same place with a different title: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4939004/Napoleons-Hitman

Meanwhile a trawl of the official archives: http://search.somerset.gov.uk/search?site=somerset&client=somerset&proxystylesheet=somerset&output=xml_no_dtd&q=Roger+Kershaw&submit=Go

shows him babbling on about all manner of Excellent nonsense.

The same archives reveal something else (look at changing job titles). They call it "career progression", without evidence of much in the way of "competition" (as in external advertising, interviews, independent panels and what-have-you). If you are REALLY bored, then why don't you see if you can join up the dots?

If not, take my word for it - Cabin Boy to First Mate, with quite a bit of "Acting" in between.

I'll say one thing for Jonesy, the archives indicate that his appointment does at least appear "regular". I mean, there's all kinds of references to a recruitment process for him, back in 2003 ... and no "Acting".

Anyway, however it happened, it seems like we are lumbered. As is poor old Jonesy. This is what HE wrote to Roger ...."It is such a pity that, try as you might, you cannot even imitate real talent".
source: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4075098/fromAlan-Jones

Grumbling Ducks (2)

Just checked my email and guess what, a County Council service I have been using (the only one, I think) is going to be curtailed, because "the powers that be" are getting tight with funding.

In the pre-Excellence days, of course, this would have just run off with a shrug.

However, nowadays County is spending £4million a year on presentation (roughly £20 per household), and who knows how much on staff brainwashing, statisticians, Excellence consultants, additional legal fees, IBM etc. There is even a rumour that every household in Somerset had to chip in nearly £1 each just to pay off one of the Chief Executive's lady friends in time for the Excellence inspection.

So in that context, this Duck feels ever so slightly aggrieved. In the old days he may even have been naïve enough to consider complaining! (A sure fire way to get the offending service cut completely.)

But now all we have is the blog, and it is time to re-focus on our core business, which is to examine and to try to unravel the thing called "Excellence".

This has been a miserable little post, so here's a film to cheer you up. An excellent (small "e"), short, management training video all about something SCC seems to have signed up to in order to deal with complaints. It is called the "it could be worse" programme : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl_WPggs1cw

Don't you just love that phrase "delegitimise complaints"? I'm sure we'll hear more of it! What a useful management tool. Money well spent Jonesy!

The net closes in ...

Phew! Only yesterday I posted a link to a document on the internet, and today it has been shredded - allegedly at the request of the Standards Board ... see : http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/4074094

However according to the webstats over 400 people viewed the document before it was censored, including, you will all be glad to know, ME!

And in case you are worried about the fictional work in progress (http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/) this blogger, let me tell you, has a memory like a Supergrass. He can remember, with crystal clear photographic recall, documents that never existed at all. The dots are in good hands!

More to the point, during the months that this extraordinary 32-page document was up on the net, many of us had puzzled over a key question: was it genuine, or was it a fake?

You see, it certainly LOOKED genuine - layout, language, subject matter, etc. However when you read it closely (as I certainly did), the content was so extraordinary that I really did have doubts. Among other things, it showed Roger dropping Jonesy right in the slurry pit. Up to his neck in it he would have been (except that Roger pitched him in head first).

As time passed, I slowly came to the conclusion that it was, in fact, a hoax. The main evidence for this was that every time I drove past County Hall, the Plus Fours continued to flutter from the flag pole. If the document HAD been genuine, I had no doubt, the Plus Fours would have been promptly replaced with Roger's Noodly Appendage. Pour décourager les autres!

Anyway, of course, the fact that they have now gone to all the trouble (and our expense) of getting the thing removed does add considerably to the case for authenticity.

Which leads one to wonder - what actually has been done with Roger's ... wotsits?

Do they mean us?

Oh dear, oh dear - be careful what you blog for! No, Jonesy hasn't quit, but his sense of humour does seem to have failed us, again - see here: http://www.lgcplus.com/InthisweeksLGC/2008/08/chief_threatens_legal_action_over_fake_blog.html

Hurray! More threats from our local hero! Blogs and films under fire ... now, which particular blog does he mean? Could it be one of these?

http://thedragonstear.blogspot.com/
http://joiningthedotz.blogspot.com/
http://rogerkershawconfesses.blogspot.com/
http://theofficialalanjonesblog.blogspot.com/
(there are others, but I'm squeamish - you'll have to surf for them yourselves)

or is it the one that started it all? http://www.liddellgrainger.org.uk/ian/MOGGTHEBLOGISBACK.html

As for "films" ... I can find these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiklM51QRfU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gCETYnygA0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3KzR5AL1cs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuBedgK7_Kw

Whatever, but I cannot believe Blogbuster Jones would want to draw anyone's attention to THIS! http://www.scribd.com/word/removal/4074094 (that really would be cutting his own throat, even if it is just a series of dots - so far ...)

POSTSCRIPT: SORRY FOR THE DUFF LINK. SEE TOMORROW'S BLOG ENTRY FOR FURTHER DETAILS. http://farbeyondexcellence.blogspot.com/2008/08/net-closes-in.html

Anyway, the good news is that Jonesy has given us two new numbers to play with: £17 million (in savings to SCC), and £140 million (in "procurement savings"). I'll get Albert and his calculator on the job, so he can explain these to us.

Somerset’s Mugabe

Thanks to DNA we now know that everyone in the world is related. Three foot pygmies in undiscovered (except by themselves of course) tribes in the Amazon Jungle. Eight foot Africans. 5’10” spotty teenage oiks in Yeovil. You. Me. Jonesy. All the same.

Hitler had the same genes as Moses. Kruger (who would not have believed it of course, seeing as how he insisted until his dying day that the world was flat) was related to Mandela. Sorry Nelson. Fact.

The scientists also say that it only takes 10,000 years for people to evolve from white to black (and vice versa), so this is not as fanciful as it may seem …

… and I sometimes wonder what would happen if Mugabe were in charge of Somerset ...

Inflation would be 43.3%
The Police would get a good deal
Morgan would be reported to the Standards Board for being a pirate
The County Farms would be sold off
All Robert’s cronies would get cracking jobs
Anyone he didn’t like would be threatened then sacked
If the wrong people were elected he would cut off ….

… Yikes! What about Bloggers?

Where chaos resides?

No, not County Hall!

I am referring to another of Jonesy's gifts to the people of Somerset, delivered via HTV (West Eye View on 24th July).

I didn't write down this quote, luckily someone used it on an excellent little video pastiche at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiklM51QRfU so I can, once again, give you the Great Man's EXACT words!

"It's like sailing a, er, sailing ship close to the wind, you know, that's where innovation lives but that's also where chaos resides."

Right Jonesy. Thanks for spelling it out. Nice one : your innovation = our chaos.

Now we're a bunch of ignorant landlubbers down at the Dog & Duck, but luckily in a couple of days Daffer will be back. He's a sailor, and will be able to explain this stuff. Poor old Daffer has been offshore since before Valentine's day, so he hasn't yet heard about the sh*tstorm that his namesake has been whipping up.

However, I can tell you now that Daffer Jones will NOT be amused.

Excellent Economics!

Now, I may be really stupid or something, but at first I couldn’t quite understand how a project saving £1.7 million per year over 10 years would save £200 million in total. You see, being a simpleton, I thought Jonesy was saying 1.7 x 10 = 200.

Luckily me mate Albert Einstein is an accountant, and he explained it all to us last night, down at the Dog & Duck. He started by droning on about this thing called economics, and inflation and discounting and investment returns and opportunity costs and all that sort of stuff.

Huh? We stare at Al as if he’s dropped in from another planet.

“Look,” says Al, “a regular cash flow of £1.7 million per year, with a compound return of 43.3% over a ten year period, would give you £200 million.”

“Cut it OUT Al!” says I. “Give it to us straight. You know, like Jonesy says, in a way that real people can understand!”

“OK,” says Al. “How much is your house worth?”

“Well,” says I, “last year it was valued at £200,000.”

“OK,” says Al. “Now get this, if Jonesy’s economic forecast is correct, by the end of the SCC/IBM contract your house will be worth £7.3 million!”

And as the Spaghetti Monster is my witness, Your Honour, that is how I came to put the deposit on a Lear Jet.

Plus Fours

Hurray! Another bit of literature from the County Council arrived in the letter box today, shedding light on what Jonesy meant by "Beyond Excellence".

To be honest, I thought this whole "Beyond Excellence" nonsense was just a smokescreen. I suspected (quite wrongly, as it happens) that Jonesy was trying to confuse us even more, so as to distract attention from the IBM saga. And the various other sagas.

But no, it seems that the County Council has genuinely managed to improve on its four stars ("the most you can get", as they never tired of telling us). They have now been given a "plus", and to celebrate this have decided to invest in a new flag.

Unfortunately, it seems that the plus is to be placed in front of the stars. The obvious thing would have been to put the plus after the stars, as in "4+". That would at least have made sense to primary school kids and their parents and teachers.

This is what Jonesy (Chief Executive of Somerset County Council) said to his new Head of Communications ("Spin Doctor" to you and me) earlier in the summer: "... we must be careful not to let this 'internal speak' flow over into the language which we use both to describe success and to get our messages across to people ... We are interested in the real things that real people use to judge ..."

Real people? A bit of googling soon led me to the conclusion that Plus Fours are only really of interest to geriatric golfers!

The Somerset Inquisition?

People ask why I am indifferent to the IBM saga. It's quite simple really, I don't understand it. All I know is what they said on TV, i.e. it is going to cost us a zillion squid, but the Boss says it will save billions in the long run ("We in Somerset have a ten-year-plan"). All we need is faith in the Boss, and everything will be all right. As for IBM, well my Nan says they make really good typewriters.

It all sounded fine until they mentioned the name "Councillor Buchanan". To be honest, I had never heard of him up until that point. I knew about the Boss, and as I said last night was mightily pissed off when he accused me of worshipping the Spaghetti Monster on Valentine's day. I also knew that the regime in County Hall was harsh on employees who asked questions, raised concerns, expressed doubt, or otherwise behaved inappropriately. More about this another time, perhaps.

But a Councillor? This was taking things WAY too far. After all, these are the people we elect to represent us. I had even started writing to my own County Councillor to complain about the Spaghetti Monster and other issues. If they can be bullied, harassed and silenced, then what is the point of voting? This reminded me of Zimbabwe, and is the thing that really made me sit up and start paying attention.

It was quite clear that the Journalist was accusing the Boss of making up complaints about the Councillor who disagreed with him, and of then sending these complaints to the Standards Board (something else I'd never heard of until last week), in order to shut him up. Now I am not a shrink or a fortune cookie, but even I noticed the body language and saw the Boss literally put his hands up (both of them).

I also get suspicious when people answer a question with another question. In this case the Journalist asked the Boss why he had made "x dozen" complaints about the Councillor, and the Boss immediately replied "where did you get that figure from?" One can imagine the poor sod who revealed the figure being tarred and feathered and made to lick the floor of County Hall for the entire duration of his notice period.

The Boss did manage to calm down, and finally started talking about the complaints to the Standards Board. He spoke sternly, saying

"... evidence was gathered from people who supplied it willingly."

Those were his exact words - I wrote them down so as not to forget.

It made me wonder what would have happened to anyone who was not "willing". And why was "evidence" being "gathered" in the first place? It sounded like the Spanish Inquisition.

Fowl run-off

Some things, however, make the duck feel like he's been thrown into the slurry pit then hung out to dry in the middle of a six-week heat wave.

Based on their actual day-to-day experience, a lot of people think that Somerset County Council is OK, but a bit of a shambles at times. It would be unfair to give details that are specific, so better not to give any at all, but the local ducks have been known to grumble.

For the sins of grumbling, sighing, and doubting (or even worse, failing to notice!) the arrival of Excellence, this is what Jonesy said about us:

"In the light of this assessment, they now join the ranks of those who believe the earth is flat, that the Holocaust never happened, and those who dress as pirates to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his noodly appendages."

I read the above in February on the BBC website http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/somerset/7245071.stm.
I was most definitely not amused, in fact it quite ruined my Valentine's day.

This is just one example of the insults they expect us to swallow. Maybe we are slow, even a bit backward; but do they think we are really stupid or what?

Injury - water off a duck's back

Most of us know that it is hard running a local authority and can admit a little indulgence. The big government piles more and more b*llsh1t on the little government, and gives them all the sh1tty jobs - like a junior partner in a law firm (read any John Grisham novel for details).

So when we bounce along the neglected country lanes, with their ruts and overgrown hedges, their floods and debris from blocked culverts, we reflect on the damage being done to our vehicles and rejoice at this ingenious way of supporting the local economy. My mate the garage man explained how it works. Somerset garages gain a valuable source of income from the thousands of people that have to get their suspension, tyres, windscreens and so on replaced prematurely. We may not have our own automotive industry, but the labour costs go straight into the hands of local people.

To some extent this is also an excellent voluntary tax on the an*lly retentive. We all have to get through the MOT, but apparently some people (called "townies") even go in to get scratches fixed when they've had close encounters with overgrown hawthorn. Unbelievable!

Some people were "injured" on the A37 last year, because they were too busy reading all the signs the County Council had put up about road safety to notice what was going on around them, and ended up in the overgrown ditches (more excellent news for the local vehicle repair industry). These road safety signs were a subject of much discussion down at our local. For example, some of them gave interesting statistics about the number of people killed and injured on the A37, either general numbers - for the whole road, or specific numbers - for upcoming features such as the bends between Yeovil and Shepton. We in Somerset are a pretty numerate bunch, it must be said, and spend a lot of time looking at and thinking about all the different numbers on the Council's signs.

One series of signs proclaimed "Road Safety Improvements Planned for 2007". They became more and more controversial as the year drew to a close and speculation mounted as to what the Council would do when 2008 arrived. One faction maintained that they would paint an "8" over the "7" and leave the signs up, while a second faction suggested that money would be saved by painting a "9" over the "7". Then a third faction came to the bar, claiming that the Council was planning to pay a private contractor to go out on New Year's Eve and take down ALL the signs. The improvement to Road Safety would be immediate and obvious, as drivers would have a hundred less excuses for not concentrating on the road.

The County Council is also responsible for a number of other services (Education, Social Work, Library Fines etc.) and many of us have also suffered "injury" at the hands of these too. But we take it all with good grace, with rolling eyeballs and expressions like "'tis bureacracy gone mad!" and "gotta do another form for county". Like I say, water off a duck's back!