Have you noticed that whenever problems are uncovered in public service organisations we are assured that “lessons have been learned” ? The implication being that we don’t need to worry our silly little heads, we should move along and that our hard earned cash is secure with them. These lessons are never cheap and the latest one has cost us a cool £110m:

The ambitious redevelopment of Broadcasting House in central London cost the BBC more than £100m extra than it had originally planned.

[..}

It means a total extra overspend of £110m resulting from delays and complications on the redevelopment of the 78-year-old building.

Note that the BBC is saying £100m on their news bulletins and making the claim about lessons being learned.

Now I’m not daft enough to believe that mistakes are never made and that on a project as long and complex as this changes have to be made which inevitably means more money; that’s why we always budget for contingencies. So I’m going to assume that this £110m is over and above normal contingency budgeting, because I can’t be arsed to read the report and because that is how it should be read in the real world.

In this case the lessons learned argument isn’t good enough and heads should roll. The time to learn lessons is when we are junior managers and our mistakes aren’t that costly. As we make these mistakes we build up what we call experience. As we increase our experience we move up the management ladder and apply that experience to make sure that big mistakes don’t happen. We do that by supervising our juniors and making sure their cumulative mistakes don’t get out of hand and by not fucking up our selves.

The way we are prevented from making big mistakes is by having  reporting mechanisms so that project boards and finance teams can keep a constant eye on project costs and timescales. This way there is always a chance to either nip problems in the bud, sign off on any new requirements or sack the project manager(s) and bring in someone with more experience and discipline.

So, someone, somewhere screwed up big time. Either in the original appointments of the senior project teams of in supervising them. Either way that someone should be singled out and fired, however I suspect they are long gone and hiding in some other dark corner of our public service organisations.

The only lesson that has ever been learned is that public bodies are incapable of conceiving and implementing grand projects, but that doesn’t stop them happening.

Perhaps a clue to why these lessons are never headed is given by the way the BBC has put this in its entertainment section.

The BBC has been a major supporter of the AGW and greenie positions for so long that it was difficult to get any serious debate. Just recently it appears to have had a rethink and is now taking a much more open position. At first I thought it was just me but then Longrider I was alerted to this vicious anti BBC article by Sunny Hundal, a well known AGW proponent and greenie:

After watching last night’s Newsnight, I can only come to one conclusion: the BBC has become this country’s most pernicious climate-change-denying media outlet in the UK.

There is simple reasoning behind this grand statement. While the assorted commentators who regularly spout ill-informed propaganda across the media are usually taken with a pinch of salt, the BBC is broadly trusted as an impartial and trustworthy reporter of news. It sets the agenda. Which makes the rubbish it has been producing lately on climate change even more dangerous.

Let me start by saying I believe that man-made activity is the prime driver behind global warming. I don’t have time for tinfoil-hat-wearing conspiracy nuts who think it is one big plot by scientists across the world. I do believe CC deniers are no different to 9/11 Truthers. But that point is moot while we focus on the country’s biggest culprit.

So just because he believes it it seems that our BBC tax cannot be used to explore any other position, only he and his like minded travellers can decide what your BBC taxes are spent on. But what has prompted this outburst, one which appears to be akin to a woman scorned?

He points to a Newsnight programme on which well known skeptic Professor Roger Pelke  Jr was invited to offer opinions on some of the scandals inflicting the IPCC. Skeptic have been invited in the past but that was so that they could be sat in the corner and be poked fun at, a bit like the chimps at the tea party that zoos used to run. But this time it was different, he was there to be listened to respectfully. There was nobody else in the studio to shout him down. Kirsty Wark was almost deferential.

But that isn’t all. Well known warmist supporter and BBC correspondent Roger Harrabin has just approached another skeptic blog to ask for help:

Dear Mr Watts,

I am trying to talk to UK scientists in current academic posts who are sceptical about AGW.

I’m struggling to find anyone – but there may of course be a number of reasons for this. Please could you post my request on your website – and ask people to email roger.harrabin@bbc.co.uk

There’s a real bit of irony here. The BBC’s evironment correspondent doesn’t know any sketpic scientists? Could it be because if any raise there heads above the parapet they are immediately shot down as “denailist” (See Hundal’s Guardian piece referenced above as an example) a process that the BBC has been ambivalent towards if not actively complicit. It should be noted that the phrase denialist is used in the same way that Nick Griffin is referred to as a Holocaust denier.

But there is more, in his blog Roger tells us:

Sometimes I pity those scientists, politicians and climate sceptics who try to make their case on the airwaves. And I am more convinced than ever about the need for a new language of climate change, based not on scientific certainty but on uncertainty, risk and values.

Only sometimes, but it is a start.

There is something else that infuriates the likes of Hundal, the BBC now seems to have caught on to the way the AGW has been hijacked by hard line greenies who are more interested in controlling our lives than saving us from AGW. This is something that skeptics have been pointing out for a while because some of the things that greenies  do are actually worse for AGW ie opposing nuclear power stations. But even worse for Hunda,l they are exposed to some ridicule in this programme by Ethical Man, who is an AGW beleiver:

I’m used to my reports and blogs causing a stir but the Analysis programme I made this week for Radio 4 seems to have been even more incendiary than most.

It asks an admittedly deliberately provocative question – whether the green movement is bad for the environment.

But the actual programme is, I thought, more balanced and nuanced. It discusses whether some of the ideological baggage of the green movement can be a problem when campaigning on the climate issue.

Yet it led one contributor to the programme to describe me as dangerous. I’ve been called all sorts of things in my life, but that’s a new one on me.

In the first few minutes Ethical Man interviews a PR woman who specialises in sustainability. She tells a story of how she was presenting to 200 hard core greenies. She tells them she has a a magic wand that when she waves it the laws of physics will be suspended and AGW will go away. Temperatures will not increase above 2deg no matter how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere.

She then asks how many of her audience want her to wave it – 2 put their hand up. Ethical Man asks if she was surprised, she says angry, very angry.

Does this mean that the BBC has become AGW skeptic? No. What it means is that we might now start getting some open debate about a very complicated subject and that the BBC is less likely to uncritically trott out alarmist PR relaeses.

I’ve just posted this over at LPUK:

I am indebted to Mr E for introducing me to the BBC’s excellent Point Of View (yes, that is praise for the BBC, but with all that money even monkeys would get something right). I take it on podcast and when I first started listening it was written and narrated by Clive James. He hung up his pen and microphone at the end of the year and made way for Lisa Jardine.

Her first couple of attempts were a bit weak and I was just going to delete the iTunes entry when she came up with this post on gritting to show why markets are netter than central planning:

On the other hand, as the winter freeze has proved more serious and of longer duration than forecasters predicted, so the government and local authorities, who find themselves without sufficient supplies of salt and grit, have been roundly chastised for their lack of foresight.

This supposed inability to get essential commodities to where they are needed is considered unforgiveable in the highly developed consumer world in which we live.

The efficient movement of retail goods from point of supply to point of demand is one of the marvels of modern computerised planning, and we take it for granted.

It goes on to give a potted history of how the market deals with nightmarish logistical problems to route round problems and bring us goods that we want at ever cheaper prices:

Da Gama’s successful first voyage had an immediate impact on European pepper prices. In 1501 Girolamo Priuli, a Venetian nobleman, recorded in his diary:

“Now that this new route is found, the King of Portugal will bring all the spices to Lisbon. And there is no doubt that the Hungarians, Germans, Flemish and French, who formerly came to Venice to spend their money on spices, will all turn towards Lisbon, for it is nearer to them, and easier to reach.

“Furthermore [he went on], spices via this route will be better priced. The mark up for transit through the countries of the Sultan and Venice is so great that whatever the spices cost in Calicut in ducats, the price in Venice has to be multiplied sixty or a hundred times.”

Five centuries on, supermarket chains in a highly competitive market know that getting the goods consumers want into the right location at the right time is still the way to maximize profit.

I liked this bit which might have be described as summing up I, Pencil in a single paragraph.

It seems that logistics is more powerful at accurately predicting needs when its strategies are based upon large numbers of individual consumer transactions, so that the data can give a better statistical model.

She then goes to solving the problem in an almost libertarian way:

Perhaps if Britain – like the United States and much of Europe – had a law requiring householders to clear the pavement outside their property of snow and ice, customers would demand an adequate supply of materials, logistics would anticipate that seasonal demand, and supermarkets would stock rock salt and grit in winter.

Supply and demand has also, as it happens, controlled the distribution of swine flu vaccine in America. There you purchase your H1N1 shots from your local pharmacy.

OK, so there’s a bit of compulsion, but we can’t have everything. I’m sure that if this was proposed we’d have the usual Guardianistas screaming about the elderly and infirm (and lazy), but they get round this problem in Europe so I’m sure we will. How long would it take for neighbours or charities to step in an help? That’s what happened when we were snowed in last week, we all helped those who couldn’t, including going shopping. And how long would it take the market to step in with people clearing snow for a couple of pounds? Not long I bet.

Either get the podcast or go and read the whole thing, it really is worth the investment of some time.

I caught part of the interview with Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust in response to this speech from Ben Bradshaw:

The culture secretary, Ben Bradshaw, has issued a strongly-worded attack on the BBC Trust, the corporation’s regulatory and governance body, telling an audience of TV executives that “I don’t think it’s a sustainable model” and hinting that he would like to see it disbanded.

In his first major speech since his appointment, Bradshaw, a former BBC journalist, also told the Royal Television Society Cambridge Convention today that “the BBC probably has reached the limits of reasonable expansion.”

As you would expect Sir Michael defended the Trust and the BBC. His argument was that the Trust is like a Board of a PLC and has the best interests of the shareholders as its mandate. This is arrant nonsense and typical of the soft thinking that goes on in the public sector. Every shareholder of a PLC is a voluntary subscriber and the share price, a reflection of the true value and worth of the business,  is in the public domain for all to see. If the business starts to fail either through hubris or just because the world has changed the market will send a signal via that share price. This will be accompanied by a severe reduction in working capital caused  by reduced sales revenue and dearer borrowing.

The Board will then be driven to either make changes in the hope of turning round the business, including: sell all or part of itself, close unprofitable parts, make swingeing cost savings  because if it doesn’t it will die a slow death. In the broadcasting sector look no further than ITV.

The BBC gets its its revenue from a tax on all TV’s, whether people want to watch their programs or not.  No market signals here as people choose to spend their money on other products, just straight forward extortion. Yes, they do carry out a lot of public consultations but as economists often point out: watch what people do, not what they say.  While people might say that they like the BBC and that they would happily pay the telly tax, they have no choice and so aren’t giving honest responses. To my mind its a bit like the polls on increased taxes  – they should have read that 80% (or whatever it is) of those asked are happy for someone else to pay higher taxes.

So what’s the best solution? I would give the BBC 5 years to decide what it wants to be in each of those 5 years there would be a 20%* reduction in the telly tax and the BBC could top this up from voluntary donations, advertising and sales or program and merchandise or it could just shrink until it disappears if nobody wants it.

And what of Sir Michael Lyons, he who makes those vapid statements? Is he the man to lead the BBC and bring in fresh air at any time, let alone undermy proposed changes:

Sir Michael Lyons knows a thing or two about red tape. A former councillor, council chief executive, and involved in local politics for twenty years, he understands the meaning of governance and scrutiny more than most.

He also knows quite a bit about economics: a subject the BBC is going to have to focus on very hard following the lower-than-expected licence fee settlement earlier this year. After studying a masters degree in the subject at the University of London, Sir Michael worked as a lecturer in economics at London’s Wallbrook College and the University of Nottingham. As well as a full-time economist, he also became a Labour councillor for Birmingham City Council in the early 1980s. His political career continued, becoming chief executive of Wolverhampton Borough Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and Birmingham City Council, before he was knighted in January 2000 for his services to local government.

As another member of the public sector Cosa Nostra I think not.

*That’s 20% at today’s rates so that it eventually falls to zero and not a 20% year on year reduction which would never fall to zero.

Listening to Nick Griffin on Today it struck me that nobody bothers to ask him the obvious question on what qualifies people to call them selves indigenous.

He made some valid points about the Black Police Officers’ Associations and the like being racist, in the purist sense,  and complained that we couldn’t set up white police officers’ associations. In his rants he often used the word indigenous to mean white when asked about non whites joining the BNP.

This got me thinking about what makes someone indigenous to this country. If I look up the definition of indigenous:

–adjective

If someone is born does that qualify them? If not how many generations are required to become indigenous?

Perhaps it is the “characteristic” thing that makes them indigenous. If so what percentage of a population needs to change before we we redefine the characteristic of an area? Parts of Bradford, for example, are predominantly Asian and have been for 4 of 5 generations, or even more. Does this now make Asians indigenous and whites the foreigners? If so, that buggers up Nick Griffin’s arguments.

Perhaps someone in the BBC could ask him about is definition next time they deign to interview him.

I’ve been distracted this week with work and a project to install and learn MySQL* for a new website for the Great Wiseone but I still h time to catch the news and the Carol Thatcher affair left me somewhat bemused and irritated.What on earth was she thinking about?

Firstly, she’s working for the BBC, that well known organ of all that is politically correct. When she took the job she must have known that she would be expected to be on her best behaviour and that they don’t put up with any behaviour outside the proscribe norms.

Secondly, she is working on a programme with presenters that embody  the BBC at its worst, shallow and campaigning for the righteous.

Thirdly, she was in a room with a right bunch of  the po faced:

They included presenter Adrian Chiles, show guest Jo Brand, a senior Comic Relief charity worker and some journalists, she said

Finally, given her mother she must have know that  anything she says or does will be seased upon by those who want to stick it to her mother and that is likely to include most of the BBC.

So, whilst I think the case has been blown out of proportion, I have little sympathy for her.

*Four hours lost rying to install MyphpAdmin. Gave up and bought a commercial programme!!