If you look in the press today we have a crisis of trust in the BBC as a result of a promotional tape which wrongly showed the Queen walking out on a New York Fashion Photographer, and much debate over whether the Government in Iraq have achieved their benchmarks. In the case of the BBC we are dealing with the outsourcing of programmes to independent producers who compete for business; as result of an earlier re-engineering process. It can be argued that one consequence of this is a loss of journalistic integrity in the process if not also the people. Coupled with the need to gain a scoop, to sensationalise if at all possible this is a dangerous cocktail. There are obvious parallels here with outsourcing that occurred in the British Health Service with negative consequences for integrity of hygiene practices. In parallel with this we see the benchmarking of the Iraq government. Now I have often thought that that benchmarking, KPIs and the the like are often an excuse for poor management, allowing leaders to hide behind a set of numbers and not take responsibility for their judgments, in other words displaying a lack of political integrity. One has to question the use of dubious business practice in government, or quasi-governmental bodies such as the BBC
In parallel with this I discover that Tony Blair in his new appointment to Middle East Peacekeeping has requested that he be accommodated in the former residence of the British High Commissioner in Palestine. It is located on the Hill of Evil Counsel where Judas is said to have betrayed Jesus.
PS. Having composed this, my RSS feed showed that Richard Sambrook picked up on both the BBC and US use of benchmarks yesterday so I can not claim originality here!
Comments (3)
Large quasi-governmental bodies have always been victim of the latest fad in management, usually about five years after everyone else has bailed and moved onto the next one. I well remember the interest in BPR and the hares that were set running because of that in the BBC during the 90's. This comes about partly because they have to be seen to be efficient in their spending of public money and Government committees tend to have a rather fashion driven agenda when it comes to accounting for the spend. Witness the outsourcing of large amounts of the corporate estate and the sell off of the technology division amongst other things.
You could argue that these historical decisions as to the structure and core activities of the BBC have led to very predictable outcomes. You've mentioned the issues over integrity already, the other interesting issue in the news has been the upset caused by iPlayer. I would argue that the focus on Windows Media as a delivery method has come about in part because of the outsourcing of technology and the consequent restriction in the choice of solutions, companies have their favourite sets of technology that they understand and can deploy with less overhead thereby maximising their return. It'll be interesting to see how the BBC Trust[1] views all this.
[1] http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/12/bbc_osc_meeting/
Posted by John Howard | July 13, 2007 12:07 PM
Posted on July 13, 2007 12:07
The house of the High Commissioner in Palestine as a residence for a Middle East peacekeeping commissioner? So apparently Bush using the word 'crusade' in a speech on the Middle East may not be the most culturally tone deaf blunder of a Western politician made in the Middle East this decade.
Lucky for us Americans we have dunderheads like Blair out there to make sure people realize we are the only fools in the world!!
Posted by Wayne Zandbergen | July 13, 2007 3:48 PM
Posted on July 13, 2007 15:48
Such a very appropriate home for Mr. Blair !
Posted by Jon Husband | July 13, 2007 10:16 PM
Posted on July 13, 2007 22:16