'BUSINESS AS USUAL' OBSTRUCTS PROGRESS
15:00 - 08 November 2007
A Couple of weeks ago, I wrote in this column about a pedestrian crossing at Winterbourne Abbas that the Highways Agency said would cost about £114,000.The reaction to that column has been instructive.
The Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and The Sun all reported the £114,000 figure in terms that suggested they were as surprised as I was about it. A number of radio and TV interviewers have asked me questions that suggested they, too, were more than a little surprised a pedestrian crossing should cost this sort of money.
I have also received a number of letters and e-mails from people who have particular experiences of their own; extravagant amounts of money being made by contractors putting up road signs, or the Highways Agency agreeing to new specifications that progressively increase the cost of equipment. I am most grateful for these, they will be used for a case I am preparing to put to the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office.
But the most interesting reaction has been from the other side. Two sets of people were not in any way surprised by the figure.
The first was the Highways Agency itself. Aside from pointing out the crossing in question would not technically be a "zebra", since it is a "controlled crossing", it said the figures mount up when you think of all the things involved.
The second was a construction magazine, which rang me and gave me a considerable lecture about how reasonable £114,000 was for a crossing if, unlike us poor laymen, you really understood what was involved.
The more I think about it, the more interesting I find this contrast between the "professional" view and the "amateur" view.
Many think in terms of comparison. You look at a pedestrian crossing and wonder how on earth the Highways Agency make them cost as much as a small house. If you are a professional, you know about the going rate for the various jobs involved, the rules and regulations, and the way these things have been done for years, and you lose sight of the big picture.
I felt this most strongly when talking to the reporter from the construction magazine. He seemed to be a nice man and I think he was genuinely puzzled by my view that the price was over the top. From his professional bubble, he could not see the world the way the rest of us see it.
This made me realise that "business as usual" is probably one of the great enemies of progress when it comes to public services like running the highways.
It is not that someone sits down and says to themselves they have an urgent desire to create a pedestrian crossing for a ludicrous amount of money. What happens is that a way of doing pedestrian crossings and lots of other things gradually establishes itself and a whole little world grows up, within which £114,000 comes to be seen as normal. From that point on, every time someone with a clipboard does a professional cost-effectiveness study they find that, within the terms of this little world, all the things going on are, indeed, normal.
This little world can carry on business as usual until someone from outside asks idiot questions about how it compares with what is going on in a bigger world.
And asking questions like that, of course, is one of the things that MPs and councillors are there to do.
A Couple of weeks ago, I wrote in this column about a pedestrian crossing at Winterbourne Abbas that the Highways Agency said would cost about £114,000.The reaction to that column has been instructive.
The Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph and The Sun all reported the £114,000 figure in terms that suggested they were as surprised as I was about it. A number of radio and TV interviewers have asked me questions that suggested they, too, were more than a little surprised a pedestrian crossing should cost this sort of money.
I have also received a number of letters and e-mails from people who have particular experiences of their own; extravagant amounts of money being made by contractors putting up road signs, or the Highways Agency agreeing to new specifications that progressively increase the cost of equipment. I am most grateful for these, they will be used for a case I am preparing to put to the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office.
But the most interesting reaction has been from the other side. Two sets of people were not in any way surprised by the figure.
The first was the Highways Agency itself. Aside from pointing out the crossing in question would not technically be a "zebra", since it is a "controlled crossing", it said the figures mount up when you think of all the things involved.
The second was a construction magazine, which rang me and gave me a considerable lecture about how reasonable £114,000 was for a crossing if, unlike us poor laymen, you really understood what was involved.
The more I think about it, the more interesting I find this contrast between the "professional" view and the "amateur" view.
Many think in terms of comparison. You look at a pedestrian crossing and wonder how on earth the Highways Agency make them cost as much as a small house. If you are a professional, you know about the going rate for the various jobs involved, the rules and regulations, and the way these things have been done for years, and you lose sight of the big picture.
I felt this most strongly when talking to the reporter from the construction magazine. He seemed to be a nice man and I think he was genuinely puzzled by my view that the price was over the top. From his professional bubble, he could not see the world the way the rest of us see it.
This made me realise that "business as usual" is probably one of the great enemies of progress when it comes to public services like running the highways.
It is not that someone sits down and says to themselves they have an urgent desire to create a pedestrian crossing for a ludicrous amount of money. What happens is that a way of doing pedestrian crossings and lots of other things gradually establishes itself and a whole little world grows up, within which £114,000 comes to be seen as normal. From that point on, every time someone with a clipboard does a professional cost-effectiveness study they find that, within the terms of this little world, all the things going on are, indeed, normal.
This little world can carry on business as usual until someone from outside asks idiot questions about how it compares with what is going on in a bigger world.
And asking questions like that, of course, is one of the things that MPs and councillors are there to do.
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