In the Service of the Public
Once upon a
time a long time ago, in a land they used to call the United Kingdom where
common-sense reigned; there lived a nation of folk content in the knowledge
that when they were in difficulty there would always be someone to help
them. The people didn’t expect that all
their problems could be instantly solved but they were confident that if their
lives, livelihoods, liberty, homes or health were under threat someone would be
there to lend a hand. One thing that
made them feel most re-assured was that when those troubles arose they always
knew exactly where to go to get that help.
In those times a quick telephone call to 999 would rapidly connect them
to the Police, Fire Brigade or Ambulance Service; and in some areas, also the Coastguard
or the Mountain Rescue Service. If they
needed to consult a doctor they called their local surgery and made an
appointment that was convenient to both parties; and when a medical problem was
more pressing such as a broken bone or an imminent birth they could drive to
the nearest hospital confident that a competent practitioner would be there to
help. They also knew that if the worst
were to happen and they found themselves on the wrong side of the law, then
access to a solicitor to act in their best interest and advise them of their
rights and best course of action.
The Police
That was then
of course, now things are not so straightforward. So there has been a crime, who do call, well
the police of course, but what is the number?
Three nines I hear you say well maybe, or maybe not? It might be 101, first you must ask yourself,
is it an emergency, because apparently police control officers are unable to
tell the difference. Well you might be
forgiven for thinking, ‘My home has been broken into and some of my possessions
have been taken, and I would like the perpetrator caught and my belongings
recovered. Of course it’s an emergency.’ Not so, apparently it’s not an emergency
because someone in a uniform can take down the particulars at any time. Not a detective then. Probably not.
Someone in a uniform don’t I mean a police officer? Well sort of.
Did I mean a well-intentioned volunteer a Special Police Constable, a
hobby bobby? Well not exactly. What then?
Well it would likely be Police Community Support Officer. What’s that?
Well usually, a slightly over-weight individual sometimes of rather
worryingly advancing years without a lot of training. Why’s that then? They’re cheaper. Oh.
The Fire
Service
But things
are still the same with the Fire Service aren’t they? Well the telephone number hasn’t
changed. What’s different then? After you’ve made the first call, the time
that you might expect the first appliance to arrive might be longer. But surely time is of the essence when your
house is on fire? Of course it is, it’s
just they just don’t want to waste all that money having all the those stations
not being used most of the time so they closed some down. That’s quite worrying, but at least they’ll
be properly equipped when they arrive won’t they? Possibly.
Possibly, why ever might they not be properly equipped? Well, all those big fully equipped fire
appliances were so expensive to maintain and it was terribly dear paying all
those well-trained firefighters. So what
happens now? You’ll probably get a converted
Mini with two firefighters and a couple of extinguishers. What!?
Will one of them be an officer to assess the situation? I doubt it, they don’t have officers anymore. What do they have? Team Leaders and managers. It sounds more like a call centre. What if they need to make a rescue? They’ll have to wait until the second
attendance arrives. Why? Because they are only allowed to go into a
building in pairs wearing breathing apparatus and a third person has to act as
a control officer (sorry I meant manager) and stay outside. How long before I can expect a second
attendance? Well it varies in some areas
it could be up to a further 20 minutes.
You can’t be serious another 20 minutes before I get a fully equipped appliance
with a trained and fit team of firefighters to rescue my family and save my
house? I didn’t say they would be fully
trained or fit. What do you mean? Well they’ve increased the minimum retirement
age to sixty; and since the overzealous enforcement of health and safety
regulations much of the training is thought to be too dangerous so they don’t
do it. What do they do then? Well between incidents they tour the streets
fitting free smoke detectors to any house that doesn’t have one. And when they do get to a fire some stand
outside and squirt water through the window while the others try to find
something soft for your family to jump onto when they throw themselves out of
the window.
Your GP
One place
where you could always be sure of a sympathetic ear was your local GP. Minor ailments were always dealt with by a
brief word or two of advice and a prescription, and more serious conditions
referred further up the health service chain to the appropriate specialist. Nowadays that uncomplicated system has been
replaced by arrangements that involve dialling the surgery number probably upwards
of twenty times before making a connection and hopefully before all the
appointments for that morning have been taken.
Of course if you are out of luck and the appointments have all gone then
you will need to start the whole process again at one o’clock and repeat twice
a day until you are lucky enough to be awarded an appointment. But that won’t happen until you have negotiated
with the receptionist; this is usually someone without any medical knowledge
whatsoever who will want to know all the intimate details of your alleged
ailment and who began their training as an interrogation officer for either the
KGB or Stasi. Of course being ill at
night or over the weekend presents an altogether different set hurdles; those
heady days where you rang your GP surgery and spoke to either you own doctor or
his immediate colleagues who gave advice directly related to your history or if
necessary even visited your home accompanied by your notes, those days have
long since gone. Now, if you ring your
surgery after-hours your call will be redirected to something called ‘NHS
Direct’. You will be connected to a ‘trained
nurse’ who will tell you one of five things; (a) There’s nothing wrong with
you, (b) Wait till your doctor’s surgery is open and go and ask him, (c) Go to
your nearest hospital and see the on-call GP at 3am and if you can’t drive get
a taxi, (d) Go to your local A&E department and if you can’t drive get a
taxi, or (e) Wait where you an ambulance is on its way and try not to die
before it gets there. Usually (c) and
(d) are the default answers. But all is
not lost because the government has brought in a new service called ‘111’. This new innovative service is exactly the
same as ‘NHS Direct’ but has the distinct advantage of having a different name
and different telephone number, but unfortunately has one minor problem in that
it doesn’t work.
The Post
Office
Remember
those days when you wanted to send someone a letter and all you had to do was
put a stamp on the envelope and pop it in the post box at the end of the road,
knowing that it would arrive at its destination the following day? Well it’s not quite like that now, somebody
thought it would be a great idea to sort all the mail out first into urgent and
non-urgent post, they called these first-class and second-class post and
charged differently for each. This new
arrangement still seemed quite easy to understand, although it was never made
clear how much time it took to carry out the sorting process. The idea was that first-class post would
arrive the following day and second-class the day after. However, although these arrangements started
well, this sorting business became quite a difficult problem and it seemed that
first-class letters were taking longer than one day to deliver and second-class
were taking anything up to a week and on occasion not at all. This problem prompted someone in the Royal Mail
to come up with the inspirational idea of sorting the mail by weight and
envelope size as well. To accommodate these
arrangements they gave every household a folded sheet of paper with a hole in
it for them to gauge the size of their envelope. They never did solve the problem of how
everyone was supposed to weigh the letters (not everyone owns scales suitable
for that purpose) nor did they manage to inform everybody of the various prices
of stamps appropriate for different sizes/weights of letters. The result of this is that every letter that
is larger or heavier than your common or garden small envelope with two pieces
of paper inside requires a trip to the Post Office (if you can find one that is
still open) and a half-hour wait in a queue.
After a while it became clear the new system was not going to work, it
seemed that many urgent first class letters were taking anything up to four or
five days to arrive and second-class up to a month. This was clearly not acceptable to businesses
and the legal profession where it is essential the mail arrives on time so the
Royal Mail wheeled out their tame mastermind again and he came up with the idea
of ‘Special Delivery’ where next-day delivery could be guaranteed. ‘Wait a minute’, I hear you ask, ‘isn’t that
what First-Class is supposed to do?’ Well
yes but this way they can charge a King’s ransom and take people off normal
deliveries to make sure they meet their obligations, thereby making First and
Second class post even slower. But does
it work? No of course not, but heigh-ho they’re
going to sell it off anyway and leave it for someone else to sort out.
Legal Aid
So there you
are one evening going home from the cinema with your wife, you are walking down
the high street and bunch drunken unruly youngsters spill out of a pub and bump
into your good lady. Your protests,
demanding they take more care, are met with a violent response from one or more
of the mob and understandably you defend yourself and a fight breaks out during
which one of your assailants receives an injury to his face. The police are called and the time they have arrived
the group of youths have largely disbanded leaving just the injured man and a couple
of others. The youths maintain a united
front and all claim that you were the aggressor and in the end the police have
no choice but to arrest you on suspicion affray or assault or maybe even
causing actual bodily harm. You are a British
citizen you know your rights and at the police station you ask to see a
solicitor before you are interviewed and to represent you should this lead to
you being charged. Now would you prefer
to have a Legal Aid lawyer whose job it is give you the best possible advice
and who has no advantage from you pleading guilty or otherwise to any possible
charge? Or would you prefer someone who
is paid the same whether you plead not-guilty (requiring a defence case to be prepared
and presented at a trial which may take a day or two; or if you plead guilty
(in other words very little work for him/her to do). In other words your lawyer would have a
financial incentive to persuade you to plead guilty perhaps even to a crime you
did not commit. Would you prefer a
lawyer to be experienced in dealing with the type of crimes you may be charged
with or perhaps one you may have used before and that you trust? Would like to be able to change your lawyer
if you are unsatisfied with his/her performance? Well if the Ministry of Justice have their
way none of those things will be possible.
You might be just as likely get a representative that has only just left
grammar school with an A level in law and a crash course in advocacy employed
by Eddie Stobart (yes that’s right, the lorry company). Furthermore you would have no right to choose
anybody different.
First there
were Public Services then came Public Service-Lite.
