15:00 - 15 November 2007

Credit where credit is due or, rather, banknotes where banknotes are due.A little while ago, as habitual readers of this column will recall, I reported on my encounter with a group of residents in Puddletown in which I suddenly became aware of widespread concern about the current lack of £5 notes in circulation.

I wrote to the Chancellor the Exchequer but, since that time in mid-September, he has had one or two things on his plate, so I quite forgive him for taking a little while to respond to my letter.

Last week, a letter did indeed arrive from the Economic Secretary to the Treasury. I have to admit that I had expected to receive some epistle concocted by officials which would tell me little or nothing, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my pessimism was unfounded.

The letter from the Treasury begins with a clear assertion: "The Treasury is aware of the shortage of £5 notes in circulation." It continues, in equally robust fashion, to state that "the quality and quantity of £5 notes in circulation are the most difficult problems that the Bank of England faces in managing its note issue".

At this point, the letter moves from frank admissions to a positively interesting and illuminating explanation. Did you know that the poor old Bank of England has a huge pile of new £5 notes ready to enter circulation if only the commercial banks and the Post Office were willing to take them instead of demanding £10 and £20 notes? Apparently, when the banks cash Treasury bills or take loans from the Bank of England and receive banknotes, what they want to put in their cash machines are £10 and £20 notes, and that is why we cannot get hold of £5 notes.

There is, apparently, around £1B of £5 notes in circulation but, since this is 2.5 per cent of the total note circulation of around £40B, it is not difficult to see why fivers are few and far between.

So, is anyone doing anything about this situation? Amazingly, the answer appears to be yes. The Bank of England seems to be thinking about providing incentives for commercial banks and the Post Office to take £5 notes off their hands. I gather it is also working on improving durability of £5 notes, so stand by for the plastic, leather or even the titanium fiver.

The most surprising news of all is contained in the last paragraph of the letter from the Economic Secretary. Instead of the usual waffle, suggesting that everyone is very sorry but that nothing immediate can be done, the letter ends by telling us: "There is no reason why any high-street bank should not be able to supply £5 notes to its customers, and your constituents should be robust in reminding their banks that all denominations of bank notes should be available on demand and of a good quality."

So there you have it. If you have not got enough £5 notes to suit your spending pattern, march into your bank with a chequebook or credit card or £10 notes and "be robust" in reminding staff that they are meant to be able to give you £5 notes.

If they look quizzical, tell them that this is a message direct from the Economic Secretary to the Treasury.

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.

15:00 - 01 November 2007

Do you have a First Great Western story? If so, I'd like to hear it.For the past few months, I have been receiving letters from constituents about their experiences on the Weymouth to Bristol line that passes through Dorchester West and other West Dorset stations. There has been a steady stream of complaints: trains being cancelled without notice, trains passing unexpectedly through the station without stopping, and passengers being treated rather brusquely.

So, in addition to writing to the chief executive about specific incidents, I started a dossier. Then, as luck would have it, I had an experience of my own to add to the dossier.

My wife, children and dog were on their way down by train from Waterloo to Crewkerne. I mention the dog in mitigation of what follows, since this explains why my wife and children had their hands fairly full. No doubt as a result of attending to the dog rather than the luggage, they left my daughter's suitcase on the train.

The train operator in this case was South West Trains which is, of course, wholly blameless. It is not the operator's fault if there are absent-minded or dog-obsessed passengers. Indeed, as subsequent events will show, the company appears to have a very efficient system of sweeping trains for stray suitcases at the end of the journey.

But how did First Great Western get into the act? It transpires that First Great Western runs Exeter St David's station, which is the terminus for the Waterloo-Crewkerne train. So, when we realised the suitcase was missing, we rang the First Great Western customer-service line.

Would it be possible to find out whether the suitcase had been handed in? No.

When would it be possible? On the following Monday evening.

Where would this be possible? At Bristol.

Why Bristol? That is where the case would be taken to, if found.

Could we ring Bristol? No.

But wouldn't the case have been collected at Exeter St David's in the meanwhile? Yes.

So could we ring Exeter to find out whether it had been found, and then pick it up? No. Why not? No phone numbers for stations are given out by First Great Western to members of the general public.

By this time, my wife, who is one of the sweetest natured and most reasonable people on earth, was spitting blood at the so-called customer-service line.

The story, I am glad to say, ends happily. We journeyed from Thorncombe to Exeter on the off-chance that the people at the station would have the suitcase and would yield it up. They did, and they did.

But, as a result of our experience with the ludicrously misnamed "customer-service line", I now have a vivid sense of what my constituents mean when they say that First Great Western does not seem to be providing them with a very customer-friendly service.

So, as I say, if you have a similar story to add, please let me know. The more examples I can provide, the more likely I am to get First Great Western to raise its game

15:00 - 25 October 2007

This week's shocker relates to Winterbourne Abbas.It is not a tale of rural promiscuity or civil war, it is about the zebra crossing. Or, rather, it is about the zebra crossing that I have not yet been able to persuade the Highways Agency to build there.

The children need a place to cross the A35 safely at the western end of the village. Successive headteachers have requested this, so has the parish council, hence my prolonged correspondence with the Highways Agency.

At one stage, it occurred to me that we might be able to get somewhere if we split up the costs between various bodies, so I asked what the costs were.

Now ask yourself: how much do you think it costs the Highways Agency to put up a zebra crossing?

There are the two poles each end - a hundred pounds each?

The electric bits on top and connecting them to the mains - another few hundred?

The need to drop kerbs, build the little island with its lights and, of course, marking the road.

Throw in traffic management during construction as well as road signs warning of the crossing, and one might think of £5,000, or even, at a stretch, £10,000? If you are tempted down this line of thought, you will have to adjust your sights somewhat.

It costs the Highways Agency £114,000 to put in the average zebra crossing, and that is before making any allowance for paying compensation to anyone whose front garden is affected.

If you find this impossible to believe, so did I, until I got it in writing from the agency itself.

How does the Highways Agency get to this incredible figure? Well, to start with, there is £11,000 for detailed design work. Given the striking similarity between one crossing and another, you would have thought you could have a standard design stored on the computer and just tweak it slightly. But this could not possibly cost more than a few pounds, so there must be a fresh design team, lovingly creating each crossing anew.

Next, we have "equipment" - the two poles, the electrics on top, the lights in the middle, a few road signs and wires, and the price is £16,000. It is probably worth remembering that this is enough to buy about 32 decent laptop computers or about 500 garden lights. Clearly, the poles for the zebras are made of titanium and the lights must come from NASA's space programme.

Then we come to what the Highways Agency calls "construction civils". This means the labour involved, and comes in at £87,000. A little thought-experiment is useful here. If the pay rate of the labourers is, say, £20 per hour, then the crossing must take 4,350 man-hours to make. That is more than 100 man-weeks, or 50 people working for two weeks, but I cannot work out what they would all be doing there for a fortnight unless, of course, 40 of them are supervising the other ten.

I am not sure the pyramids would have been constructed by now if the pharaohs had proceeded in this way.

All in all, I worry about a Britain where Highways Agency zebra crossings cost £114,000 each.

15:00 - 18 October 2007

Buried deep in West Dorset there is an organisation founded and sustained by a remarkable individual, which goes by the name of the Bridport and Lyme Bay Health Alliance.The alliance is one of those volunteer bodies that looks after our interests unseen and unrewarded. I met its founder last week, and he explained to me how it helps people using the health service locally to influence the way it is constructed.

The alliance operates through continuous discussion with a network of other voluntary bodies, so it gets a feel for what features of the local NHS are worrying pensioners, those with particular disabilities, and so on.

It then works with the people responsible for planning various aspects of the NHS to ensure that, as far as possible, the services match the requirements of those who are using them.

As I sat there listening to this explanation, it struck me how subtle and useful a role such intermediation between a vast bureaucracy and its patients is.

Of course, it all depends on the intelligence and sensitivity with which the task is carried out. It needs to be done by someone who is alive to the way that bureaucracies work and who has a huge knowledge of the NHS.

If you advertised a post with those attributes you would probably have to pay a lot of money, if, indeed, you could find anybody with the relevant qualities and experience.

But here was somebody doing it for the love of it, a genuine social entrepreneur.

So you will imagine that the next part of my story is the pleasant tale of how the efforts of this admirable group are now to be recognised, how we are to replicate this splendid pattern in other parts of Dorset and the rest of Britain, and how a grateful nation has bestowed accolades on the unsung hero and his colleagues.

Alas, the story does not have this happy ending.

Instead, a new national scheme has been invented. In place of such local effort, there is to be a county-wide arrangement.

Committees have been established. Working groups are working. Talking shops are talking.

I have no doubt there either is or shortly will be a significant bureaucracy established purely for the purpose of promoting this new "links" scheme.

I am equally sure that, in due course, you and I will be called upon to pay some considerable amount to fund the replacement of the little, voluntary, local effort by this national scheme.

So it is, by slow degrees, that things which spring up naturally, are costless, human in scale, and do genuinely good work, are replaced by things which are more remote, potentially costly, more bureaucratic and, I fear, all too likely to be less effective.

If one did not laugh, one would have to cry

LOCAL ISSUES MORE URGENT THAN PARTY CONFERENCE FRENZY

15:00 - 11 October 2007

The last few weeks have been a roller coaster for those involved in British politics.The opinion polls have gyrated wildly. Reputations have been made and lost and made again.

All those of us compelled to participate in the party conference season - from whatever party - must have shared the sense of this dizzying ride with its unexpected ascents and falls.

But, in the midst of all of the great debates that occupy the national media, it is a useful corrective to remember what really matters to people here in West Dorset.

This week, I will not be attending a party conference. I will not be surrounded by huge packs of journalists, probing detail and seeking scoops. Instead, I will be standing at the crossroads of Kings Road and Prince of Wales Road in Dorchester, together with local councillors and a group of local parents.

This has come about because two of the parents visited me at one of my advice surgeries recently and quickly persuaded me that they had a real problem on their hands - one which deserved not only attention but speedy action.

The issue that concerns these parents is not a great ideological struggle. It is the very simple - but very important - matter of whether they can get their children safely to school each day.

They are worried that the way the traffic system works exposes their children to unnecessary danger.

One doesn't really need to ask why these parents are so concerned. One just has to be a parent to know how much this matters. If your son or daughter is at daily risk, there isn't anything that could matter more than finding a way of keeping them safe. Any of us who have had the experience of seeing the child of a friend die can feel, rather than merely observe, the intensity of the passion which the thought of such a possibility inevitably arouses.

So, in the end, it is these simple things that matter most - something that it is all too easy to forget in the clash of political armies and the huge excitements of national politics.

I very much hope that the effect of the stand that I and others are taking will be to achieve a real improvement in the safety of these roads for the children of these parents. And I also hope that politicians all over the country, of whatever political persuasion, will keep on coming back to these plain but crucial matters which are the threads out of which the fabric of our real lives, (as opposed to the frenzy of media politics) is woven