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Not corruption but politicisation.

The service has also twisted in someways to become a perverse version of a sales unit with targets and sales patter to go along with it.

Ditto the CPS and the courts.

Cuts only exacerbate the situation in the service.

Police targets have always seems absurd to me, crime happens and police try to catch it. Just let coppers catch villains, the good ones will always do their job with dedication, the bad ones will play any system in place anyway. The idea that good police wouldn’t catch criminals if they’re not given targets seems daft to me, but as a teacher the implication is always there that without a string of targets I won’t teach children properly. All it does is increase workload and stress on everyone. Instead of focusing on ‘good old fashioned policing’ they have to reach some arbitrary target that results in officers trying to overanalyse petty matters to get more ‘crimes detected’.

I think we all know though, that 'targets' in crime and education aren't intrinsically there to help boost performance . They're there to generate metrics which can be used by the people above you to try and a) justify their own existence/performance to their bosses, and b) give them a quantitative way of assessing your own performance which doesn't consist of throwing darts at a board. The more data you have, the more it can be manipulated for either purpose.

Agreed, there seems to be a huge amount of box ticking and data generated to satisfy senior staff in all sorts of jobs.

I spend a lot of time filling in data as a teacher, as though half of it means anything more than my gut feeling based on a few tests. When it comes to their current GCSE level we’ve always been on the cautious side, no point in making kids think they’re already teaching their target grade in October so can slack off, also if they ultimately fall short in the summer you don’t want to be making rope to hang yourself because you ‘overpredicted’. Last time the reports were made they generated even more spreadsheets listing every pupil who was currently rated below the grade they are predicted for the end of the year expecting us to make individual comments what we were doing to support each one. It’s just work for work’s sake. We also have a scheme to highlight six pupils on our register, usually those least able or SEN, as being our priorities to go to first when greeting at the door, checking work, offering help, etc. As a teacher I know who the children with greatest need are in the class are, their ability and SEN are already on the register anyway, I go to them first as standard practice, colouring them in on the register and making comments doesn’t help my practice it’s just another sink for my time.

If policing is like that no wonder they have many leaving too.

Herzlos wrote:
The Tories whilst being the party of law and order have also been the party of slashing police budgets and numbers.

If MP's are doing something wrong, then I'm all for the police (or any other body) having an appropriate pop at them. Leaking details of an investigation is less acceptable, especially since he did nothing illegal.

Should we be outraged at the amount of time MP's are spending looking at porn whilst they are meant to be working? Absolutely.

There are always going to be leaks. That's what a lot of the press work to, whether that is from disgruntled employees, people thinking it is in the interest of the public to know and so on.. How likely is that an FOI would be granted of non work websites perused by an MP would be released?

For example is it in the interest of the public to know that there is significant private use of work computers? It does however show how little is changing and that once you get to a certain position people tend to turn a blind eye to actions that for the poor mortal would be fired over. Can you imagine a teacher looking at legal porn during work hours on a works computer would not be summarily told to leave? It's not just MPs though. Look at Sam Allardyce in football but still going strong and so on.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Police targets have always seems absurd to me, crime happens and police try to catch it. Just let coppers catch villains, the good ones will always do their job with dedication, the bad ones will play any system in place anyway. The idea that good police wouldn’t catch criminals if they’re not given targets seems daft to me, but as a teacher the implication is always there that without a string of targets I won’t teach children properly. All it does is increase workload and stress on everyone. Instead of focusing on ‘good old fashioned policing’ they have to reach some arbitrary target that results in officers trying to overanalyse petty matters to get more ‘crimes detected’.

The way targets are implemented is poor rather than the principle. If you have performance indicators then you can use these to compare different areas to see if there are areas of 'good practice' that will allow other areas to benefit from the idea and to improve as well. Not every person, business, local authority, school can keep up to data with whatever every other one is doing and one teacher may come up with an outstanding way of improving children interaction but because the teacher is based on in outer Hebrides no one else gets to hear about it. The problem with the targets we have now is that the government condemn/praise those that meet those targets and hence things start to be prioritised to meet these targets regardless of any other considerations or whether they actually benefit.

For example a local secondary school was told that to score higher it needed to put security fencing around the site so they could guarantee they locked the children in. There wasn't any particular need, it's not like that it was next to a high speed or busy road (out of the school run anyway which makes no difference), however because to meet those targets they undertook it a significant cost that could for example been spent on employing another teacher for several years and so on.

Performance Indicators are fine when they are used correctly. This and previous governments have not used them correctly at all.

-------

I also see that the Farage is being his continuing loathsome self. He despises the idea that the UK should fund EU liabilities associated with the EU but at the same time is quite happy to take those same pensions (>£70k pa)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-42213947/nigel-farage-it-s-not-hypocrisy-to-take-eu-pension

He also thinks that retweeting Far right nationalistic propaganda is all OK if you don't know what you are doing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-42213950/nigel-farage-defends-donald-trump-s-britain-first-tweets

Finally the board that the government has put in charge of trying to help with social mobility functions has resigned on mass because of lack of any interest from Theresa May and the government (which isn't a particular surprise).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42212270

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_City_of_Culture

Establishment
In January 2009, it was announced that then Culture Secretary Andy Burnham was considering establishing a British City of Culture prize and that the winning city might possibly host events such as the Turner Prize, Brit Awards, Man Booker Prize and the Stirling Prize. Phil Redmond was invited to chair a panel set up to consider the proposal, with a remit including deciding how often the prize should be awarded.[2] A working group was established in March and reported in June 2009, suggesting that the designation be given to a city once every four years starting in 2013

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/01/jacob-rees-mogg-held-meeting-with-steve-bannon-in-london

note the quiet mention of Bannon also meeting Farage

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15698835.Revealed__Trump_guru_Steve_Bannon_s_secret_trip_to_Scotland/?ref=twtrec

whilst the business people apparently gave him short shrift, one wonders if there's any other political movements he might be interested in ..?

He was a guest of Scotland International Ltd, a think tank headed by Angus Grossart. Who in this article compares the press criticism of his friend ex RBS chief, Fred "the Shred" Goodwin, to Kristallnacht.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/aug/02/sir-fred-goodwin-persecuted-says-banker?CMP=share_btn_tw

Grossart is also head of http://www.noblegrossart.co.uk/ ..... who are named in the Panama Papers




.. awful lot of offshore money floating around some of the recent political campaigns eh ?

Farage is being his continuing loathsome self.

..



it's funny how things work out eh ?
.

Apparently the entire team of the social mobility commission are quitting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42216622

Apparently MPs thing sharing passwords is fine. And these are the people who want backdoors to WhatsApp and VPN banned...

 Steve steveson wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42216622

Apparently MPs thing sharing passwords is fine. And these are the people who want backdoors to WhatsApp and VPN banned...

Shouldn't happen but its out there. Happens all the time in the workplace. Know loads of directors and execs who rely on secretaries and assistants to keep track of log in details etc. not to mention regular joes who share 'password' 'admin' and 0000 on machines they operate.

I don't think we need to spin up outrage against Dorres comments. Maybe more education is needed on security.

As the UK has GCHQ it's a shame we can't get our gak on one sock and make a good security application for government use.

I suppose that would not be free market enough, so we have to rely on the Russian compay Kapersky instead.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5141521/Farage-accused-hypocrite-EU-pension.html

Nigel Farage is accused of being a 'shameless hypocrite' for agreeing to take his £73,000 taxpayer-funded EU pension which could be part-paid by Britain's £50BILLION Brexit bill

OK...even I have to admit...what a fething gakker.

Yeah, but he has worked in the EU for nearly 20 years and we were contributing all that time into the pension fund. I don’t know why his pension is worth £73k a year though, no wonder the EU guzzles so much money if there’s an army of people on those sorts of pensions.

Good point.

 Mr. Burning wrote:

 Steve steveson wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42216622

Apparently MPs thing sharing passwords is fine. And these are the people who want backdoors to WhatsApp and VPN banned...

Shouldn't happen but its out there. Happens all the time in the workplace. Know loads of directors and execs who rely on secretaries and assistants to keep track of log in details etc. not to mention regular joes who share 'password' 'admin' and 0000 on machines they operate.

I don't think we need to spin up outrage against Dorres comments. Maybe more education is needed on security.

Not on my system it doesn’t. Anyone caught doing that gets their account locked, a phone call from our internal audit and an audit of their history to see if there was anything suspicious happening. It is a finance system, but between myself and my colleague in internal audit we are quite clear, you are responsible for anything that happens on your account. Lots more education is needed. No decent sysadmin will be letting their password policy be so lax that “password” “admin” or “0000” are allowed. Any company big enough to have an IT team will have stopped that. There are many too small, but that does not include the Houses of Parliament. Education is needed, lots of it, but idiots like these MPs keep dragging us back.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Yeah, but he has worked in the EU for nearly 20 years and we were contributing all that time into the pension fund. I don’t know why his pension is worth £73k a year though, no wonder the EU guzzles so much money if there’s an army of people on those sorts of pensions.

Worked is a relative term.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5141521/Farage-accused-hypocrite-EU-pension.html

Nigel Farage is accused of being a 'shameless hypocrite' for agreeing to take his £73,000 taxpayer-funded EU pension which could be part-paid by Britain's £50BILLION Brexit bill

OK...even I have to admit...what a fething gakker.

“Could be part paid”. That’s some weasel words by the DM. Pensions for our people is one of the liabilities the UK has.

Good point Steve, even if they’d shared the password (which is at least a disciplinary out in the real world), they are still responsible for what happens on the account, so should have been monitoring the staff with access.

And what’s this bs about needing multiple people to respond to emails; has no one in the Westminster heard of a shared inbox?!

It could be a department account.


We have one here where I work. It's easier and more reliable for sharing things on the intranet.


As for Farage getting a pension, he has worked for 20 years so he's entitled to it. After all, aren't we paying the EU money anyway for things like this?.

Farage is a man who is not easy to love. £73,000 a year is a whopping pension even after 20 years as an MEP, which duties he discharged negligently.

That said, it was up to his constituents to call him to account, and I am sure they will be pleased to contribute towards the £50Bn settlement that will enable Nigel to maintain the lifestyle to which he is accustomed.

Turning up, telling lies and claiming your expenses isn't doing the job of an MEP.

Farage - the avatar of 'I'm alright Jack'.

Well, today's the day where we could have an agreement over Brexit, with the outline of a deal broadly agreed.

I'll believe it when i see it. This sham of a negotiation, this mockery, this travesty, will be dragged on a lot longer.

In the highly unlikely event a deal does happen, I'll put an EU flag in my avatar.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Farage is a man who is not easy to love. £73,000 a year is a whopping pension even after 20 years as an MEP, which duties he discharged negligently.

That said, it was up to his constituents to call him to account, and I am sure they will be pleased to contribute towards the £50Bn settlement that will enable Nigel to maintain the lifestyle to which he is accustomed.

His constituents?

This is MEP elections we're talking about. The turnout is that low, he was probably elected by two men and a dog.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
Yeah, but he has worked in the EU for nearly 20 years and we were contributing all that time into the pension fund. I don’t know why his pension is worth £73k a year though, no wonder the EU guzzles so much money if there’s an army of people on those sorts of pensions.

Well said. Forget Farage's hypocrisy for a minute here. 73k a year?

No wonder they've never had their accounts signed off for years.

Gravy train? Total understatement.

With such a low turnout it should have been easy to replace him with someone that actually turned up. Maybe the European Parliament should have minimum attendance requirements or something.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


No wonder they've never had their accounts signed off for years.

https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

Auditors say the accounts have been accurate since 2007. But they have historically recorded significant errors in how money is paid since their first audit in 1995. In the most recent year, they found a significant part of the EU’s spending was largely error-free for the first time.

I'm not sure what you're implying?

Gravy train? Total understatement.

It's not vastly different to an MP's package. Mind you it is a total gravy train to take that kind of money for doing nothing for an organization you're against. But we already knew Farage was a hypocrite,

I predict that a deal will be agreed today.

This will either:

A) be kicked out by the Irish government when it actually goes to a vote in a week or so or

B) infuriate the DUP

Should be a good show.

I predict the Heil, Scum and Express will call the deal a betrayal.

Because of course they will.

Herzlos wrote:
With such a low turnout it should have been easy to replace him with someone that actually turned up. Maybe the European Parliament should have minimum attendance requirements or something.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:


No wonder they've never had their accounts signed off for years.

https://fullfact.org/europe/did-auditors-sign-eu-budget/

Auditors say the accounts have been accurate since 2007. But they have historically recorded significant errors in how money is paid since their first audit in 1995. In the most recent year, they found a significant part of the EU’s spending was largely error-free for the first time.

I'm not sure what you're implying?

Gravy train? Total understatement.

It's not vastly different to an MP's package. Mind you it is a total gravy train to take that kind of money for doing nothing for an organization you're against. But we already knew Farage was a hypocrite,

Aren't roughly half of the MEPs members of Euroskeptic parties?

I mean, I'd become an MEP if the pension was good enough. Doesn't matter if I like or agree with them or not.

Problem is, the European Parliament is poorly enforced and people just don't tend to show up a lot. But they still get paid.

Problem is, the European Parliament is poorly enforced and people just don't tend to show up a lot. But they still get paid.

Which is par for the course for most Parliaments really. Our own British Parliament isn't much better.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

Problem is, the European Parliament is poorly enforced and people just don't tend to show up a lot. But they still get paid.

Which is par for the course for most Parliaments really. Our own British Parliament isn't much better.

Maybe they should bring in attendance requirements?

Farage wasn't working for the EU, he was paid by them on our behalf to be an elected representative of his constituents, even the ones who didn't bother to vote.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Aren't roughly half of the MEPs members of Euroskeptic parties?

Euroskeptics have as much reason to get involved as everyone else - they have ample opportunity to try and resist everything they dislike and make their concerns known.

Being a skeptic, taking a salary and ignoring the whole system is hypocritical and grossly unfair on the people you are being paid to represent.

It looks like there may be broad agreement today to recommend the 27 member states approve the talks to move into the second phase.

This means a pretty soft border in Ireland, which isn't going to make the DUP happy. However, there will be a lot more support in Parliament to get a soft Brexit kind of deal through, so the sticking point would be how badly May wants to keep the Tories in power against the broader national interest.