And Another Thing…

Tom

Here is a good candidate fit right in at Westminster. Thinking about it he has been there from the very beginning

http://www.whyguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/satan.jpg

I love the smell of an expenses claim in the morning…

Wait…
They appointed an independent compliance officer to improve relations with an independent office?

All I see is yet another unnecessary civil servant being recruited. I believe that the eventual headcount for IPSA will be roughly 80 at a total cost of £6.5 million pounds.

So roughly 8 MPs per staff member – unbelievably.

Are they going to sit next to each of you to make sure you tick the right boxes? They have enough staff to actually do that.

In the same way thousands of companies in the UK successfuly handle the expenses of millions of workers – what we need is for all of you to fill the forms in honestly; for a small, simple admin team to proccess them quickly and pay you promptly; and for you to face the same penalties as we do (i.e. sacking or criminal charges) if you cheat.

We do not need ever larger groups of seatwarmers to be recruited for what is a basic business admin process.

Shambolic, we deserve better.

Just as you were nearly all to blame for your failure to reform the old corrupt expenses system which so many MPs happily milked for years until exposed by the Telegraph; you are just as much to blame for the fiasco that has replaced it. You allowed it to happen. For God sake stop pretending it all someone else’s fault!

If he has an RAF pension he might not be getting paid much, if at all. If it’s the Alan Lockwood I think it is, he was British Military Spokesman and, as a Group Captain has a lot of management as well as operational experience. They don’t give away braids for fun or just for decoration, rank has to be earned.

Can’t he be given the title of Czar like all the Obama staffers? We’re falling behind here! And does his Air Force skill set involve predator drones?

If there is a way to spend money Westminster will find it.

On the nail, JohnRS – except that substitute ‘very simple spreadsheet’ for ‘fill in the form’. One of the things about the expenses scandal was the scandal of very well paid secretaries being unable to organise a simple expenses spreadsheet on their tax-payer bought computers.

Regarding Lockwood, I would say that a person who was not the least bit contaminated by politicians and civil servants is precisely the right sort of person to take charge – management is management – a good manager can manage anything, given a little time to get up to speed.

Delighted everyone’s able to appreciate the humour here…

It’s obviously still a raw subject.

I’ve a feeling this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

All this because we can’t trust politicians to behave honestly.

The last Parliament was a horrendous body really.

Hopefully he’s trained in waterboarding.

ps…here’s a reason why you may have lost the election:

http://notalwaysright.com/big-bother/5677

You might think it’s funny – I couldnt possibly comment.

Is that the same Alan Lockwood who was a Conservative Parliamentary candidate in 2005?

So much for the “New Politics”…

Wouldn’t one of the guys who ran the bomb disposal squads in Afghanistan be a better choice?

I have lots of sympathy for you Tom – genuinely I have.

Lots of us live under the rule of Quango’s and public bodies run by people with no knowledge or expertise in the field, with senior managers who’ve been ‘fast tracked’ because of their academic degree but with no common-sense or appreciation of the nature of the work.

Believe me, your nightmare has just begun. Wait ’til all the revising memos come through. And restructuring. And efficiency targets. And compulsory diversity training before they release your money. Welcome to my world … the one created by NuLabour.

It ill behoves a politician to raise an eyebrow at any official’s lack of specific experience for a job.

Unless, of course, only those who’d had experience in, say, transport could be appointed ministers in a transport department.

I do hope you’re not suggesting I was appointed as a transport minister just because of my experience wotking with a passenger transport authority?

And the point of the post (and this should be read by all my readers with a sense of humour deficit) is that perhaps experience working in some of the world’s most violent trouble spots is exactly the kind of experience Ipsa should be looking for.

I know you’re out there – I can hear you breathing…

‘GoooooooD Morniiiiiig WeeeestMinster’

JohnRS- I can give you three reasons why IPSA would have to employ so many people.

1. IPSA’s ‘Customers’ are 650 extremely legalistic MPs (and staff), scared that if they make an honest mistake they will be ‘hounded out’ by the media, a la David Laws. Therefore you have to employ people to deal with what must be a mountain of correspondence.

2. It is a publicly accountable body under tighter scrutiny. Therefore you have various media pressures, which means more people to make more checks, stopping anything going wrong.

3. It’s not an expenses ‘department’ of another organisation. Therefore it has its own structures, own management, etc.

Welcome to the world of the media, where pointing out that the taxpayer funds illegitimate expenses means that, for the sake of a good story, the taxpayer pays more for the setup of a new system in the long run.