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.