Singing Pig

Ooops ! Nearly forgot the latest buzzword - and in my view one of the most pompous.

'The survey will "inform" revised planning policies'  etc .... where something unable to speak will address people deciding policies.

Yes, I know it could be a legitimate use of the word at a push, but one bureaucrat used it and now every other has jumped on the bandwagon ... just like they did with "robust".

It just sounds so damned supercilious and pompous to me, particularly when, even after being "informed", the policies still end up being Stalinist, ridiculous or ineffective.

Rather than dreaming up new uses of words in a bid to make themselves sound ultra-professional, they could spend their time ensuring that the planning system met peoples needs in their area - the purpose for which it was actually introduced in 1947/1948 !

Here endeth the rant !

 

Thanks Trevor - I'll add 'robust' and 'inform' to 'sustainable' and 'appropriate' on my list of words to pepper proposals with.

As an amusing aside - a colleague ran a search in Microsoft Word on his local plan, and found over 300 uses of the word 'sustainable'.  A perfect example of a system with more chiefs than indians.

 

Yes, the pepperpot is overflowing !

But sometimes you have to "play the game their way" and do the stupid things they do, simply in order to WIN. (He who laughs last, etc !)

I've just had a go at the RTPI for coming up with really daft and unworkable ideas about gauging housing accessibility. It is not published on their forum yet, but when (if?) it is, I'll post a copy on here. It might amuse !

RTPI's proposal all hinges on builders and developers "declaring" commercially sensitive information ..... which their competitors will then be able to pick over (Tch ! As if !) .... and my post was submitted under the heading "Bureaucrats' Dreamland?"

Surprise surprise, the RTPI forum published my post virtually as submitted. Here it is : -

 

Friday, June 15, 2007 12:52 PM The RTPI report forming part of its evidence to the Callcutt Review of Housing Delivery (Opening Up The Debate : Exploring Housing Land Supply Myths") makes 5 recommendations which would require "house builders" to 'declare' the amount of land they currently control with planning permission in each local authority area. This would allow the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (Oh Gawd, not ANOTHER Quango?) to regularly publish (i) the amount of land held with planning permission broken down by lpa area and developer (ii) the amount of land held in strategic landbanks, by lpa area and developer (iii) the number of houses completed each year, by lpa area and developer. Are these people living in some kind of bureaucrats Dreamland, or what ? Do they really believe that developers and housebuilders are going to willingly "declare" all of this commercially sensitive information to be picked over by their competitors, subcontractors, et al ? Do they not realise that developers/housebuilders will simply form additional companies - perhaps many of them - to act as site-holding companies so that they don't have to reveal such sensitive information from which their competitors could benefit ?

if local government officials of whatever ilk had to run their own businesses, they'd be bankrupt in a couple of months   =   hang on a minute  they Running the Country !!!!  SCaaaryyyy   !

Oh NO ! ..... DON'T get me started on that subject or we'll be here all night, and it's Friday so it's one of my local pub visit nights that I allow myself.

I worked in Local Government for 20 years before I decided I couldn't stand it any more and left to set up Land Planning Associates in 1989, but realised that, if you operated through a company, the bureaucrats still controlled you and made you jump through silly hoops  !

I could tell you stories about waste and incompetence at my County Council which sound so outrageous and unbelieveable that you would HAVE to conclude that I was making it all up ! But it is all true. I saw it first hand. To some extent I was part of it. (You get sucked into the bureaucratic philosophy, like incremental budgeting - you never reduce a budget; if you don't need it all, you add inflation to it anyway and then transfer some of it to another heading.)

I am totally convinced that local and central government are at least 25% overstaffed, and have been so convinced since 1966. (I had a break in service in the early to mid 1970's when I left to work for a Norfolk property development company and architectural practice, where I learned everything that was worth knowing about life, business, property development, and the profits available from planning permission. And yes, we were using option agreements then in 1973.)

I am also totally convinced that, of the £500+ BILLION p.a. public expenditure by Central Government, at least 25% and probably more like 45% is wasted. (Blair's advisers have told him at least 20% is!)

That's a couple of hundred BILLION quid ! Imagine what the NHS could do with THAT if it was left to spend it without bureaucrats meddling in it. Elderly people going blind wouldn't have to be told they can only have the treatment if one eye is bolloxed already, and then only for the remaining eye. (N.I.C.E. ruling that is - the last two letters stand for Clinical Excellence. "Excellence" my ar se ! We should take the members of NICE out and shoot them all.)

I've got to stop now because my blood pressure will go through the roof. But believe me, most of this country's economic problems -  and the reasons we are held back from outstanding economic growth - are all down to a profligate, self-serving, autocratic, bullying, Stalinist Public Sector  ..... 

i.e.      'king BUREAUCRATS .

There you go. I told you not to get me on that subject ! Now if anyone wants to wind me up, they know exactly how to do it !

The Bath Spa  -    I rest your/my case !!! 

Landplanningassociates:

Surprise surprise, the RTPI forum published my post virtually as submitted. Here it is : -

 

Friday, June 15, 2007 12:52 PM The RTPI report forming part of its evidence to the Callcutt Review of Housing Delivery (Opening Up The Debate : Exploring Housing Land Supply Myths") makes 5 recommendations which would require "house builders" to 'declare' the amount of land they currently control with planning permission in each local authority area. This would allow the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (Oh Gawd, not ANOTHER Quango?) to regularly publish (i) the amount of land held with planning permission broken down by lpa area and developer (ii) the amount of land held in strategic landbanks, by lpa area and developer (iii) the number of houses completed each year, by lpa area and developer. Are these people living in some kind of bureaucrats Dreamland, or what ? Do they really believe that developers and housebuilders are going to willingly "declare" all of this commercially sensitive information to be picked over by their competitors, subcontractors, et al ? Do they not realise that developers/housebuilders will simply form additional companies - perhaps many of them - to act as site-holding companies so that they don't have to reveal such sensitive information from which their competitors could benefit ?

So far, 20 members have read that post. (They are mostly planning officers on there.)

And NOT ONE of them has replied to it seeking to justify the RTPI's ridiculous proposals.

 

Monday : 36 have read it now. And still NOBODY has replied justifying this absurd proposal on behalf of RTPI senior executives. I wonder why ?

 

12.20am Tuesday - 46 viewings .... still no response !