Letter to Sir Gus O'Donnell about Public Sector corruption of ‘good governance’, 8th July 2010
Dear Sir GusBecause you have not answered our previous correspondence, we once again voice our concerns re the corrupt acts put upon us by civil servants and the fraudulent government complaints procedures as run by civil servants and ombudsman.
Again we feel it necessary to let you know just how incompetent, fraudulent and corrupt many of your civil servants and public sector staff can be – public interest!
Your excruciating protective denial re crooked civil servants as indicated in your fraudulent statement that ‘if you break open a civil servant you would find like a stick of rock, the words Honesty, Objectivity, Integrity and Impartiality?
Following on from that deceit, you gave the nation even more deception, by claiming that ‘most of the recipients of public honours are put forward by members of the public?’
The NHS ‘killing fields’ have been in operation for some years! Just how many members and friends of the hundreds of distraught families of dead and neglected patients would have voted for NHS ‘gongs’ during this long drawn out period of ‘patient care’ abomination.
Would not the hundreds of grieving relatives and friends of the dead and neglected patients, plus public concern, not been enough to have negated the usual ‘old pals’ handing out of honours within the NHS during this ‘dark age’ period?
Your statement indicating that the general public is involved in the ‘honours’ process smacks of even more Whitehall porkies. It has been estimated that this year, some 120 of those honoured were central government civil servants. It seems that much of the ‘old pals’ honours went to the discreditable and seriously dysfunctional HMRC.
Astoundingly the Revenues permanent secretary Ms Leslie Ann Strathie, became a Dame Commander of the Bath? On a recent BBC ‘Watchdog’ programme, when grilled by Ann Robinson as to why the HMRC was making the usual gross mistakes with taxpayers money, Ms Strathie failed to give cogent answers.
The public is now questioning as to how easy it is to get on the ‘honours list’? And how honest is the process? It appears that everyone can nominate anyone?
Knowing the amount of skulduggery that goes on in the public sector, voting or nominating your public sector colleagues could easily become a sort of Whitehall round-robin scheme of self-aggrandisement – a bit like ‘Buggins turn’ promotion awaiting many a severe incompetent civil servant.
Just how many genuine citizens voted gongs for this most incompetent and ‘unfit for purpose’ HMRC department?
Hundreds of millions mysteriously found its way into civil service pension funds? There are many other excruciating fiddles over many years; many a HMRC crook has been let off the hook. Its difficult to believe that numbers of HMRC staff have been nominated by members of the public.
Sir Gus you also claimed that ‘One of the things I just love about my job is overseeing the ‘honours’ process and reading about the inspirational men and woman who make such a massive contribution to our society’
The public sector has long been allowed to establish an undemocratic cosy alliance that encourages self-promotion of the inept civil servant – the Cabinet Office does little or nothing to end this corruption of ‘good governance’.
No public sector idiot can be removed, in fact, as in our case, they are more often than not protected by the politically correct or ombudsman or adjudicators – such is the entrenched system of abuse against accountability.
The common recycling of the seriously inept within the public sector has now found its way into the Teaching profession where incompetents are generally ‘moved on’ some receiving unwarranted glowing references hoping to ease the transition.
Such long-term public sector protection of the inept means that there is a continuing pile-up of unproductive sewage forever blocking the machinery of government, contaminating ‘good governance’ yet again.
NHS regulators are in a position to quash all criticism, and like the Home Office, they often pushed propaganda as to how well they were doing – when in fact they had been abysmal in relation to patient care. Members of staff who complained to management were intimidated into silence – vital patient’s notes going missing - such was the level of managerial corruption.
It’s the politics of the mad-house where idiots have been promoted above their qualifications, they failing to see the need for ‘patient care’
One hospital consultant wrote ‘Managers have been like gypsies passing through various Trust hospitals keeping a lid on mishaps so that their career path is not disturbed’.
The Times claimed that ‘Our hospitals may be bad but our regulators are worse, while the Guardian wrote ‘Hospital Trust branded the worst in Britain tried to gag whistleblowers’
Dr Tibor Machan claims that it is plain common sense and historically fully validated that people in government easily fall prey to the temptation of corruption since the time of Aristotle and before. He says, it has been noted over and over again that people with power over other people tend towards corruption, that Aristotle argued that once in power, such ‘ideal’ bureaucrats tend to become despotic.
Despotic acts and gross errors can be seen within most government departments.
Prof Hazel Green, reporting for the Ministry of Justice a couple of years ago, called for a new agency to oversee Delivery of Public legal education. Her report suggests that around a million civil service problems go unresolved every year, with the burden falling most heavily on the vulnerable. As always.
Despite the fact that members of the electorate etc with genuine grievance against civil servants may go to court or a Tribunal, this does not guarantee them a fair hearing. Government regulators too often step in with corruptive information that denies justice to the vulnerable.
The debilitating government regulatory system relies heavily on promotion from within – the nonsense of government appointed ombudsman and other regulators has to stop.
Unwisely ombudsman and adjudicators are allowed to be self-policing, a danger to all institutions. Incompetent adjudicators are moved on – never kicked out.
Regulators are seldom picked from people who have the public’s interest at heart.
Because of the serious fraudulence often found throughout the public sector, there is a serious need that the public takes over the cleansing of parliament, politicians and civil servants. Politicians can no longer be trusted to deliver good government.
There is a serious need for a PEOPLES CHARTER with the sole purpose of breaking up the long entrenched corruption of ‘good governance’ that pervades much of the public sector.
A National Peoples Charter Advisory Council has been set up in Fiji to tackle serious civil service corruption. It plans to ‘down-size’ its overloaded civil service, it intends to tackle ineffective service standards, ineffective works systems, ineffectual leadership and the lack of transparency and accountability along with low productivity. (All this corruption of good governance can be laid at the feet of uncaring politicians)
It will be vital to dismantle the entrenched public sectors cover-up culture for good; otherwise public sector skulduggery will soon be back alive and kicking.
Another common public sector failure by civil servants; fines dished out in courts are not being collected – MoJ staff cannot or will not roll up their sleeves to collect such fines. Maybe they lack know-how or may be they just don’t care.
The same long-term failure to collect vast sums of council rent that would help the public purse can be seen in local government, where despite enormous salaries paid out to officials untold millions of unpaid council rent has gone uncollected for years.
AW & I Tanner cc to all interested in governmental corruption.