Are Governments Badly Structured?

[Damocles]

I was listening to a talk fairly recently and somebody brought this up and it got to me thinking - if you were to setup a modern business that would run the economy of the country, would it look structurally like all the major Governments do?

You have a Department of X that solely deals with X and anything related to X. Then a Minister of X who we can use as a single point of failure for any of the inadequacies to do with the field of X.

I've worked in creative/problem solving settings an awful lot and this type of compartmentalisation is not just incredibly old fashioned but also creates innate rivalries and bad relationships between departments. I see it with family members who work in the public services and how such and such a department is the enemy and how they're competing for budgets or they don't know what they're talking about or whatever. The creation of interdepartmental tribalism is something that tends to occur when you give a team the name like "The User Interface Team". Then literally anything that even remotely seems like it might in some way be related even a bit to the User Interface has to be ran by them and God help you if you don't get the right Project Managers to sign off on the right things.

In more modern organisations, we seem to understand that this is basically stupid and have a much more holistic approach whereby the teams all work together and have no boundaries or separation thanks to better multi-department or in public services, multi-agency working setups. Hotdesking and the like helps a ton and that's a fairly recent thing in Councils from what I've seen.

If we were to start a Government from scratch without calling it a Government but instead calling it some such term that doesn't have loaded connotations to it, would we really have a whole department for foreign affairs? A single monetary unit like the Treasury that sets national and local and geopolitical economic policy?

Are we running an out of date format for Governments that doesn't really reflect life in the 21st century nor the innovations in communications technology?

 

[Ban-jani]

In a word, yes.

Our government is based on tradition and I’m fully in the opinion that we wouldn’t find ourselves in the messes we do, if we were to adopt a modern approach and run it like a business.

The fact is most governments would have been sacked if they had performed like they have done, in a private sector business.

 

[aguero93:20]

A far bigger problem is people being given ministerial positions that they've no technical expertise for. Being a geography teacher is all well and good but it doesn't qualify you to run national finance or justice.

 

[jma]

Huge arguement for putting a range of unelected experts in charge of planning and implementing policies, somewhat like the Bank of England was put in charge of setting interest rates, removing some, if not all of the previous political short termism and electioneering.

Of course, such appointments are susceptible to political patronage and somewhat fly in the face of our perceptions of democracy.

They also go against Michael Gove's ethos of people being "sick of experts".

Give me a long term healthcare strategy developed by healthcare experts and professionals, free from political point scoring and considering all options from purely a quality of service and sustainability viewpoint. Over the current situation of a 4 year ideologically driven short term set of decisions anyway.

 

[idahoblues]

Term limits needed for all positions

 

[buckshot]

I know ours is. Our "so-called" democracy is being run by a POTUS who got less votes than his opponent and a senate that represents just over 1/3 of the population while the other 2/3 gets screwed.

 

[Rascal]

In the UK it is not so much Government that is flawed it is that democracy is flawed. Democracy though is a flawed system and the problem is nobody has come up with a better system. Off the top of my head I don't think we have had a majority of the electorate vote for the party in government since 1950 which means we have had over 60 years of government that is unrepresentative of the people. That lack of absolutism creates the flaws although the danger is that absolutism can become authoritarian.

Without an overall majority then Government will remain poorly structured because it has no mandate to change the way we are governed. Again the danger is that an overall majority can quickly descend into despotism and impose a change in structure that creates authoritarianism. We risk the centralisation of power by changing the flawed system we have.

So the question should be, can we change the way we are governed under the current flawed democracy or can we change our flawed democracy to improve how we are governed.

The problem is will those in power have the will to change democracy knowing that it is what is needed to change the way we are governed and that change may render them powerless, turkeys do not traditionally vote for Christmas.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I was listening to a talk fairly recently and somebody brought this up and it got to me thinking - if you were to setup a modern business that would run the economy of the country, would it look structurally like all the major Governments do?

You have a Department of X that solely deals with X and anything related to X. Then a Minister of X who we can use as a single point of failure for any of the inadequacies to do with the field of X.

I've worked in creative/problem solving settings an awful lot and this type of compartmentalisation is not just incredibly old fashioned but also creates innate rivalries and bad relationships between departments. I see it with family members who work in the public services and how such and such a department is the enemy and how they're competing for budgets or they don't know what they're talking about or whatever. The creation of interdepartmental tribalism is something that tends to occur when you give a team the name like "The User Interface Team". Then literally anything that even remotely seems like it might in some way be related even a bit to the User Interface has to be ran by them and God help you if you don't get the right Project Managers to sign off on the right things.

In more modern organisations, we seem to understand that this is basically stupid and have a much more holistic approach whereby the teams all work together and have no boundaries or separation thanks to better multi-department or in public services, multi-agency working setups. Hotdesking and the like helps a ton and that's a fairly recent thing in Councils from what I've seen.

If we were to start a Government from scratch without calling it a Government but instead calling it some such term that doesn't have loaded connotations to it, would we really have a whole department for foreign affairs? A single monetary unit like the Treasury that sets national and local and geopolitical economic policy?

Are we running an out of date format for Governments that doesn't really reflect life in the 21st century nor the innovations in communications technology?

I'm sure New Zealand were trying something different. Instead of the different ministries all competing with one another for budget, they set some overarching 'outcomes' that had to be achieved to justify budget allocation. One concerned the environment, one mental health wellbeing. It was to try and achieve closer integration as well as ensuring more joined up thinking and collaboration. Not sure how its going though.

 

[Chippy_boy]

The fact is most governments would have been sacked if they had performed like they have done, in a private sector business.

Absolutely correct. Which is why it is so ludicrous that the lefties would have the government run more and more. Utterly bonkers.

I genuinely think its out of a despising of rich people and a hatred of seeing other people profit, so they'd rather a bunch of incompetent idiots ran things instead, who at least won't profit from their actions. What other explanation could there be?

 

[inbetween]

In the UK it is not so much Government that is flawed it is that democracy is flawed. Democracy though is a flawed system and the problem is nobody has come up with a better system. Off the top of my head I don't think we have had a majority of the electorate vote for the party in government since 1950 which means we have had over 60 years of government that is unrepresentative of the people. That lack of absolutism creates the flaws although the danger is that absolutism can become authoritarian.

Without an overall majority then Government will remain poorly structured because it has no mandate to change the way we are governed. Again the danger is that an overall majority can quickly descend into despotism and impose a change in structure that creates authoritarianism. We risk the centralisation of power by changing the flawed system we have.

So the question should be, can we change the way we are governed under the current flawed democracy or can we change our flawed democracy to improve how we are governed.

The problem is will those in power have the will to change democracy knowing that it is what is needed to change the way we are governed and that change may render them powerless, turkeys do not traditionally vote for Christmas.

You will never get a majority vote in todays climate, absolutely impossible.

For a start the vast majority of people vote for the two main political parties and most of those people probably have absolutely no idea why.

I like many things about all of the parties. I do actually like some Labour policies and I do like some Tory policies.

We can't pick and choose though which means there will always be a sizeable number that don't get what they want. That is why we elect a majority government and not some mish mash of parties that hate each other. We don't need more representation.

What we need in times like this is functionality and authority and you won't get that with a minority led representative government. For better or worse, Brexit for example would be done had the Tories held a functional government.