Government
Complexity of Government

The White House has an infographic on its website that describes the complexity of government and a LinkedIn Group

The White House has an infographic on its website that describes the complexity of government

I was pretty happy when I first saw something about an 'infographic', but when I went to the image it was just an image and not the true live 'infographic' that I had been expecting.

The White House ... that is the Obama team that got him elected has some of the technology smarts to do a very good job ... but this will not happen if the agenda that we need gats implemented by the political hacks that masquerade as experts in Washington and on talk shows.

One of the best implementations of technology to make governance better is the 311 system in New York City implemented by Mayor Bloomburg early in his administration with very little fanfare. One 311 call, and a citizen gets in touch with a telephone operator who knows the layout of the City Government and gets the caller to somewhere that makes sense. It does not work, perfectly, but it works pretty well most of the time. This is a sharp contrast to most telephone calls to big organizations ... government and private ... where your call goes through a ridiculous automated menu and in the end the person who answers has no idea about anything.

I had to call Verizon in the recent past ... to sort out a technical question about lack of service in a location. I spent about three hours trying all sorts of different menu compinations to get to a technical support person who could or would help, but essential just got in line behind God knows how many others. In exasperation I used the menu option to talk to a sales person about new service, and got through in about 3 seconds. There is something about this that should be making society mad.

I hope society will start to hold the people in Washington accountable. I intend to do my part.

Discussion Group on LinkedIn ... Organized by the Obama White House

The organizer said:

As a follow up to last year’s State of the Union, President Obama called on Congress to reinstate Presidential authority to reorganize and consolidate the federal government, which will ensure swift action on his proposals to streamline government to make it work better for the American people while eliminating duplication, waste and inefficiencies.

“We live in a 21st century economy, but we’ve still got a government organized for the 20th century. Our economy has fundamentally changed – as has the world – but the government has not. The needs of our citizens have fundamentally changed but their government has not. Instead, it has often grown more complex. Today, I am calling on Congress to reinstate the authority that past presidents have had to streamline and reform the Executive Branch. This is the same sort of authority that every business owner has to make sure that his or her company keeps pace with the times. And let me be clear: I will only use this authority for reforms that result in more efficiency, better service, and a leaner government,” said President Obama.

Making it Easier to Do Business in America whitehouse.gov

President Obama wants to reorganize the federal government to make it easier to do business in America.

January 13, 2012

The problem is pretty obvious, as it has been for a very long time. It makes for good political PR to rant about the complexities of government and the waste and the incompetence, but nothing of significance gets done.

There are reasons. A big part of a big portfolio of reasons is that most of the experts who get charged with solving the problem have much too limited a mandate. The problem is systemic with issues like 'turf' and inertia and so on in play.

But there is another problem. Many that talk the talk about big government and the solution is 'the private sector' are also big contractors to government. What is a high cost when looked at from the taxpayer's perspective becomes a huge profit opportunity as the costs get 'outsourced' to private contractors. For the taxpayer the result is more or less the same, but the problem now gets even more difficult to solve.

For me the most powerful tool in private sector management is analytical accounting ... something almost totally lacking in the public sector. They cannot account for multi-billions of dollars, yet with good accounting every penny would be accounted for. This is a scandal, but either nobody in the public sector knows how to do it, or wants to do it. Both are bad reasons.

If there was accounting worth a damn, there would be responsible people who have to explain why the same job is being done in different parts of the government ... but the money flows and nobody cares.

Management without accounting that keeps score is not management. And reorganization without accounting to keep score is an exercise in moving deck chairs on the Titanic.

I can go on ... the lack of accounting and accountability in the public sector is a disgrace.

Peter Burgess