However, just now I should like to leave you with a quotation from the oral evidence given by Lord Sassoon, Commercial Secretary to the Treasury, a man who appears reasonably regularly in this blog.
In response to an admittedly fairly silly question from Lord Dear about who was and who was not consulted in the drafting of the UK National Reform Programme a.k.a. NRP (hands up those who knew we had one of those), Lord Sassoon said or, one assumes, read out what his talented civil servants concocted for him:
What I've described is essentially a top-down process, yes, that has gone bottom-up, as I've described so far, across official levels at Departments very widely. Now we have to make sure that nothing has fallen between the cracks in the stakeholder engagement process, but I think this issue of top-level Government buy-in to it is very important. I see it as a feature of the way that the new Government goes about its business. The approach of Cabinet Committees, with Ministers taking them very seriously, officials being energised by the fact that Committees will come back, rather than the Committee process being in any sense a formality, is something that in a lot of processes, not just relevant to the NRP, is galvanising much better across Government co-ordination in a very productive way. I think this applies to the NRP, as to lots of other things.Quite so, Minister.
I do hope you know what he means, I am reasonably well read but it made little sense after two readings, a bit like the Vogon Leader's poetry on his mission to destroy the earth. I fear for the sanity of people, supposedly well educqted who spout such nonsense.
ReplyDeleteWell, no, Derek, since you ask, I don't know what it means. I am not even sure Lord Sassoon knows.
ReplyDeleteI too wondered what the hell was he talking about. If this is the best Commercial Secretary to the Treasury we can come up with, we are all doomed.
ReplyDeleteI don't think we are doomed because the Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (what is best in those circumstances?) mouths meaningless verbiage, undoubtedly written by some official in order not to answer what the Committee is trying to find out. Normal practice for politicians and civil servants and Lord Dear should have pursued it.
ReplyDelete"Lord Sassoon's evidence was interrupted at this point by a shout of "Bingo!" from the gallery, followed by a chorus of groans and expletives from the spectators and MPs.".
ReplyDeleteAh yes, I know that one, Staghounds. We definitely have a winner here. :)
ReplyDeleteDefinitely a winner there, Staghounds.:)
ReplyDelete