February 8: Kent Police goes on a diet
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LIKE
most parts of the public sector, Kent Police is feeling the pinch
as it strives to square the circle of maintaining services at
current levels with less money.
Members of Kent Police
Authority meet on Wednesday (10) to discuss setting its
precept – that is how much you might expect to pay to support the
service by way of council tax this year – and the options are for
an increase of either a 2.9 per cent increase or a 2.5 per cent
hike.
A rather complex report which you can
read
here setting out the budget plans inevitably talks about the
need for savings and some of the ways these savings will be
secured.
One particular part of the report that
left me slightly perplexed was the reference to the threat of
"corporate chaos" if individual managers "change the business in
isolation" - which some may consider language you might use to talk
about a retail company rather than a police force.
Anyway, to cut back on costs we are
told that Kent Police is to "train all supervisors and
managers in Lean techniques creating a Lean academy supported by
classroom learning and workplace assessment" and will
"embed Lean (sic) thinking and controlled project
management" and "facilitate Lean
events" and (presumably after they have been held)
"project manage the outcome of Lean events and ensure
realisation of benefits."
There is no real explanation of
what these "Lean techniques" are although I rather suspect the term
comes out of some management handbook. I suppose, given
that it sounds like one of those dieting regimes that holds
out the promise of major weight losses, "lean" techniques are an
apt description.
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A leak inquiry is underway at County
Hall to try to discover the identity of the individual who leaked
to the KM Group financial details relating to the contract of chief
executive Peter Gilroy.
Various people are being interviewed
as part of the inquiry, including certain councillors.
Generally speaking, leak inquiries do
not have a tremendous track record of success. We will have to wait
to see the outcome of this one.
However, that is generally not the
point of leak inquiries – or at least, it is only one of the
points.
One of the other purposes is to send a
very public signal by the powers that be that such leaks will not
be treated lightly and additionally, that no stone unturned in
seeking to identify the leaker.
Meanwhile, I gather that the
opposition Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are questioning
whether there was, as has been asserted,
"unanimous" support among members
of all-party Personnel Committee that agreed the remuneration
package for Mr Gilroy back in 2006.
The situation is not clear and is not
helped by the publicly available unrestricted minutes of the
meeting, which record only that the committee
"resolved" to vary the terms of Mr Gilroy's
contract, omitting any reference to any vote that might or
might not have happened.
I will of course clarify this should
any clarification of the assertion that it was unanimous be
forthcoming.
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Any hopes that MPs might have had that
they could draw a line under their allowances after the publication
of Sir Jonathan Legg’s audit seems to be rather
forlorn.
With three Labour MPs and a
Conservative peer facing criminal charges, the issue will be kept
in the spotlight right up to the expected general election in May
(if Bob Ainsworth is right).
I have some sympathy with Ann
Widdecombe’s view that the issue has become bogged down in
too many separate inquiries and investigations.
Although we have the Legg inquiry out
of the way with reviews conducted by Sir Paul Kennedy, we now await
the findings of the review of proposals first made by Sir
Christopher Kelly by – confusingly - Sir Ian Kennedy.
Politicians of all parties remain
desperate to try and draw a line under the whole affair and I can
understand why.
I just can’t see that line being drawn
in the short time left before the general election – or even after
the new Government is elected.
Tuesday, February 09 2010
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