A TALE OF FOUR BINS

A few days ago I wrote about waste by local and national government and the need to axe useless, nonproductive jobs which the general public would not miss.
This would help mitigate the disasterous national financial situation, I argued while those displaced from their unproductive positions could be redeployed in work which provided a return.

A day later I had an instance of such inefficiency.

My wife had asked for a "green bin" for garden rubbish, (why I do not know as we live on a farm, but that's not the point), and efficiently the next day one was delivered.
That was in April this year but the trouble is that it has never been emptied.

My wife rang the council and an official said he would get "The Green Bin Officer" to ring back.
We had a phone call the next day, not from the officer who was on holiday (it makes a change from being at a meeting or off sick) who said that they had no record of the green bin.
Not only that but that the computer did not indicate that the council had ever emptied our bin as the farm road was too narrow for the vehicle to access.

Now this is strange because a full sized bin wagon has emptied my bins since 1967 so it was strange to learn that the officer had no record of the bin wagon having visited my premises, in spite of their computer technology (no doubt requiring a "computer officer")
I believe he is to visit us to check whether the vehicle which has come down the drive for 40 years can actually do so. A nice hour out of the office for him.

Also for the last 10 months we have had a blue paper bin and a brown bottle bin provided by the council and which are emptied regularly as is the usual black wheely bin for general rubbish. Presumably these bins have their own controllers,(a blue, brown and black bin officer)but they don't know that we exist, in spite of emptying them.

I am a strong believer in recycling and I have no complaints at all with the service I get from the bin men, the people who actually do the work.
But times are hard and finances tight and cuts could have to be made.
I would expect these to fall on those at the bin face with fewer collections made.

Meanwhile I am sure all will be in order in the office and the various "officers" and "controllers" will continue to tap their keyboards and tick the requisite boxes at pay rates no doubt greater than those who actually do the donkey work.

All's well then

NO IT ISN'T!
This unimportant little episode indicates what is wrong with local and national government.
Many involved in controlling, discussing and record keeping --BUT FEW DOING THE WORK.

It can be put right, but will it?

I doubt it as those box tickers are the ones allocating the jobs and redundancies and you can be sure it will not be their jobs which will be lost.
IT WILL BE THE JOBS AT THE WORK FACE and the services which we want and pay for will deteriorate still further.