Pro civilis muneris

Like Elvis, this week Cicero has left the building.

Yes, that’s right, Cicero has left the VTSSB to move onto pastures new but uncertain. He has laid down his career in an effort to help the resolve the Two Caesar’s wee financial headache. And as Edith Piaf might say at times like this ‘je ne regrette, je ne regrette ne rien’.

But fear not for this column does not depend on life on the VTSSB for inspiration and stimulation. This will continue and will live on. Bet you glad about that.

And it is noted that quietly and gently the flags are no longer fluttering from the chariots. Enough said

To mark Cicero’s departure from the VTSSB and as he wanders off into the sunset, this week’s dose of enlightenment is going to be a wee bit different and a wee bit self indulgent. Hopefully you will not mind.

But this week Cicero feels that he must speak up on behalf of the Apparatchiks with whom he has worked for the past 15 months, with whom he has toiled to preserve your security and freedom, with whom he has produced some great marketing stuff.

This week we speak out ‘pro Civilis Muneris’ which for those of you, remarkably few no doubt, who do not have the Latin tongue, means ‘in defence of the Civil Service’.

Now you might think at this point that Cicero after 15 months working amongst the Apparatchiks has gone native. This is most definitely not the case but the current attitude towards the Apparatchiks raises some serious issues, questions and concerns for the nation that must be debated and understood. And Cicero is just the man to lead said debate.

There is no question that the Civilis Muneris is too large and expensive. Undoubtedly its pay and pension policies need over hauled and reformed to align better with those creating the wealth in the country. And indubitably there is an excess of jobsworth zeal stifling creativity, imagination and simplification. But let us put such issues to one side for one moment and look beyond this.

We need to remember that the Apparatchiks are essential to us. They keep out streets safe and secure; they educate us; they keep us healthy; they collect our taxes; they pay our pensions and benefits; they provide support to business; they give us passports; they help the unemployed find work; and so on and so forth.

And yet we as a nation have in recent weeks and recent months taken against these people. And if we are not careful we will end up with the Civilis Muneris that we deserve.

It is easy these days to kick and pummel the Civilis Muneris but we must never forget that the Civilis Muneris is at the end of the day a collection of people trying to do a good job in difficult circumstances on our behalf. And if it is true that in any business people are its greatest asset then surely that is equally true in the Civilis Muneris. So let’s look after them.

This is a business where training and development in its people has been cut back to the point where it is non existent; where it is impossible to get a free cup of coffee; where you cannot buy pot plants to humanise the office; where there is paranoia about spending any kind of money to help make the Civilis Muneris a great place to work. And when you get a great place to work, you do great things for your customers.

And then when your Apparatchik wends his weary way home he is confronted with news of massive redundancy cuts, of changes to pensions and pay, of the value of his or her job being questioned and whether necessary, of salaries being published. How would you react to trying to do your best work in this environment?

Cicero fears for the health of the Civilis Muneris. The Apparatchiks are demotivated and demoralised. And how can it ever hope to recruit the brightest and best to work for it when this is the state of affairs. And that is why Cicero feels he must speak out in their defence.

A smaller lower cost Civilis Muneris, yes. A demotivated, demoralised, de-skilled de-humanised Civilis Muneris, no.

Batty? Brilliant? Please do tell.

Is it only me………………………………….but is this why we pay our taxes?

When news of the Two Caesars’ plan to reduce the amount of amount they wanted to spend, the Last Lot were a wee bit miffed. And as the Lot who worked with the Last Caesar, and who still wanted to be Caesar, pointed out ‘this is going to cost jobs in the public sector’.

Similar feelings of annoyance were expressed by a series of spokespeople from a consortium of unions and other lobby group supporters of the Lot that wanted to be the new Caesar but are not.

And here is question for you as an aside. Why are all Trade Union Head Honchos, Scottish….well a lot of them at any rate?

But back to my point.

Clearly if the Caesars want to spend less of our money it will have an impact on the Apparatchiks across the VTSSBs and TSSBs. If you have less income then you need to reduce the costs. You will know this from your own business. It is not nice and it does have consequences for those affected (yes, contrary to popular belief, Cicero does have a heart) but sometimes we have to do unpleasant things to do the right thing.

Now it might only be me but surely the role of the State is not to provide jobs but to provide critical services which cannot or do not want to be provided by anyone else. It should not be about jobs but outputs and outcomes. That is why we pay our money and we should be talking more about the value delivered rather than the cost of the inputs.

The primary role of the NHS is to cure the sick. Not to create jobs for marketing folk, for example. How exactly do you create demand for the NHS and why would you want to?

Schools should be about teaching kids to read and write and it would be good if they did that well. But why do they need folks to produce engagement strategies and to manage communications? Getting young people to spell ‘engagement strategy’ would be a great start.

And why does a local council need someone promote walking? All we want them to do is empty the bins and keep the lights in the libraries on. Spend money on that kind of stuff and not on something most of us do naturally and without promotion. If people want to get fat and lazy, leave them to it.

There was even a discussion overheard with one of the Last Lot who said with all seriousness that the decision not to be so profligate with our money meant that, and we are quoting here, ‘there would now be cutbacks in non-essential services’.

Hello. Wake up. Smell the coffee. If it is non-essential why is it being done in the first place? And if this means job losses, so be it. But quite frankly surely we only want our money spent on essential stuff and not non-essentials. We can debate what is essential and what is non-essential and that is a worthy debate but if it is non essential stop wanting to spend our money on it. Government is so simple.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.