Emergency services 'should share control rooms'

Standardisation and centralisation in the public sector - another example of the unintended outcomes

Just when the news of the Scottish police centralisation of call handlng has shown that there are significant problems with this approach, Mike Penning, a home office minister has stated that the combining of three emergency services will bring significant benefits. This will bring in economies of scale with the sharing of back office services. Efficiency jsut drops out as the answer, doesn't it?

This is not the place to resort to egoistically stating one view over another. No, its time to realise that we, as a nation, relish in stating the obvious. At least, we all think we are stating the obvious, and each of us comes up with the solution that makes sense. Maybe its about time that we stood back a little, and recognise that we keep returning to this style of behaviour like flies around a light bulb.

Its obvious that covering a pan that is boiling over, to stop it from spilling its hot contents is a solution to a problem. But the better solution is to switch off the gas.

Transformation is about doing different things, not doing the same things differently. It is about looking at what we have been doing, and choosing to approach problems from different perspectives. I would suggest to Mike Penning that his good idea, based on common sense, just before he commits millions, to just do a few simple things:

1. Get someone to help you learn how the current system works. Understand its underlying assumptions. Discover the root cause of the issues.

2. Start with a better set of assumptions, and apply a different logic to the problem you have to solve.

3. Start to redesign the system, so that the problem's root causes are eliminated.

4. You end up with a system that works differently than before, will cost less, and performs better.

You need someone to show you how to do it, because it is very difficult to see the system we are in differently, without someone to help us.

Its actually not difficult, and will only take a few weeks to do 1 and 2, but it will save milllions.

Remember this from 2010? The principles were exactly the same...

“FiRecontrol was a project established under the previous Labour Government, and is now being scrapped because it does not work.

“This project has wasted millions of pounds, perhaps around £550million of public money as well as thousands of firefighter hours in trying to bring it to completion." https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmpubacc/110/110.pdf

This is a plea for trying something different, so my tax money will not be wasted again.

I just want to add this about Ian Duncan Smith and Universal Credits. Its the same principle as sharing control centres, related to a process:

"This is the man who is the chief architect of the Universal Credit, which was supposed to have been rolled out in October 2013, and in March 2016 has been rolled out to the grand total of 141,100 people - and by "people", I mean "single men without dependents", the only group whose claims are simple enough to be processed on the Universal Credit."
Stephen Bush, New Statesman

Good grief, look at this! facebook page about universal credit