Government...

A couple of examples from John Stossel at Reason:

But New York City's bureaucrats are unapologetic about their $2 million toilet. The Parks Department even put out a statement saying, "Our current estimate to build a new comfort station with minimal site work is $3 million."

"$3 million?!" I said to New York City Parks Commissioner Mitchell Silver, ingcredulously.

"New York City is the most expensive place to build," he replied. As a result, "$2 million was a good deal."

I pointed out that entire homes sell for less. He said, "We built these comfort stations to last... Look at the material we use compared to that of a home. These are very, very durable materials."

They have to be, he says, because the bathroom gets so much use. "We're going to expect thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of visitors... So we have to build it to last."

Yet not far away, Bryant Park has a bathroom that gets much more use. That bathroom cost just $300,000. Why the difference?

Bryant Park is privately managed.

Or in Canada:

Toronto's government estimated that a tiny staircase for a park would cost $65,000-$150,000.

So a local citizen installed a staircase himself.

Cost? $550.

Did the bureaucrats thank him? No. They say they will tear his staircase down. Can't have private citizens doing things for themselves. (Update: The private stairs have been torn down, and the city says it will replace them for $10,000.)

Most places, most of the time, government is rubbish at everything.

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You see folks, CCTV really is useless...

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Via the excellent JuliaM:

Amanda Wright, who runs Wright's Family Bakers in Walton on the Naze, Essex asked for the images after mindless vandals smashed the shop's front window.


But the baker was left gobsmacked when Tendring District Council bosses refused the request, saying it would be too expensive to retrieve footage.

 
And why exactly does the Council install CCTV? Clearly - and I could have told you that -  not for the purpose of catching criminals.
 
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So what do NHS Trust boards actually do then?

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Not very much it seems:

Researchers from the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators analysed the agendas of every NHS trust in England between January and March this year. They found the vast majority of items had no action attached to them, with a tiny fraction explicitly marked “for decision”, ranging from 0.2 per cent in care trusts to 2.1 per cent in primary care trusts.

We spend a great deal of money on these boards - providing administration, paying non-executive directors and publishing worthy documents. However, I seems that we could probably do without them, couldn't we?

And boards are supposed to be strategic are they not?

For example, while 81 per cent of respondents believed their board achieved the appropriate split between strategic and operational issues – in line with governance guidance suggesting 60 per cent of time should be spent on strategic issues – in reality only 10 per cent of agenda items looked at strategic issues.

Seems to me that these board members - expensively recruited non-executive chairs and so on included - simply aren't up to the job.

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On the uselessness of CCTV

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A young man is violently attacked in a well lit city centre which – the Council and local police boast – has one of the country’s most sophisticated and comprehensive CCTV systems. Indeed, while authorities are quick to release images in the interests of suppressing legitimate protest, but when it’s an ordinary, harmless young man clubbed over the head while going about his wholly innocent business the images aren’t good enough to identify the unpleasant little thugs who committed the crime.

And it would seem that this is the end of it. Having failed to identify the culprits with the cameras, the police have put the crime in the pile labelled ‘pending’ and gone onto more important things like hounding harmless motorists, attending “partners and communities together” meetings (don’t ask) and refusing to help passing strangers with simple questions. It isn’t just that the CCTV is useless as an effective system for identifying criminals (and it would seem that they know this), it has become an excuse for the police to stop doing their job effectively. No pictures means no arrests.

And the excuse?

“There are…some occasions when the pictures are grainy or unclear which can be down to the lighting or the fact that we are relying on some of the older cameras or even the UTC cameras.”

The presence of cameras does not make for better crime prevention, more effective policing or safer city centres. It just makes the police lazy.

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