Here at Commentator are my vivid thoughts on the way The Rules drive out common sense discretion in public services in general, and at Leeds Crown Court in particular:

Stop right there, Mr Ambassador! What would happen if the Embassy in Warsaw went out of its way at a senior level to help this one hapless citizen? That would set a precedent for the whole network — word would get around that one person in Poland had had a lot of active support from the Embassy and the Ambassador personally, and everyone else would expect the same! Worse, it could even be a breach of their Human Rights if they did not get it!

… So there it is. After years if not decades of Citizen’s Charters and all sorts of official Mission Statements, Objectives, Targets and goodness knows what other noisily proclaimed expensive initiatives intended to make public servants helpful and responsive to the public, this forlorn group of public servants were bent on driving a few taxpayers and citizens out into a howling rainstorm for no reason other than the fact that The Rules appeared to require it.

The point?

The standardisation of public service needed to deliver what, as far as possible, counts as equality of treatment for all can be achieved only by deliberately excluding competition and any serious incentives to improve services.

Those people at any level of public service finding a clear case for common sense and discretion which somehow goes against The Rules risk getting into trouble (or think they do).

And in such an uncompetitive, neurotic context The Rules breed like crazy, as we see in English education where the state’s instructions to schools now run into hundreds of pages and have catastrophic results.

Outcomes deteriorate. Dumbed down stupidity and officiousness result. Confidence in the state erodes. 

But as the Leeds episode shows, the public can fight back. When confronted with an obviously insane decision, politely insist that those concerned use their discretion or demand to see where The Rules say that no such discretion exists.

The officials concerned are visibly rattled by the thought that maybe, just maybe, The Rules in fact allow them to think.

Civil servants! If you have any examples of this working against good practice, just send them in. Key thing: do you think your hierarchy will support you if you do the smart thing, even if it goes against established procedure?