Dealing with bureaucracy

My visit to Simon Hughes, Senior Housing Officer, South Lakes Housing left me totally drained, which is probably why so few people want to get involved.

Unlike when talking with a neighbour, you find that you are dealing with a total stranger who doesn't appear to share the same values as yourself.

There were a lot of evasive answers. The problem of course is that the officer is there to represent the system put in place by elected councillors.

Who is to 'blame'?

Has it become a way of life for these civil 'servants' who are in the public eye? Perhaps it's the system behind them that is at fault?

Many people are too frightened to even ask because they believe they will get blacklisted.

Are we always trying to 'suck up' to them in order to get what we want?

I have two issues: MUGA consultation and pets on sheltered housing. The first is a shambles the second more straightforward - or is it!

The simplest issue first:

Cats and pets in sheltered housing.

When someone wants to accept an offer of sheltered housing they have to sign an agreement.

In this agreement is the statement that they are allowed to bring a pet with them and keep it until it dies.

However then they are not allowed to have another.

My reaction to this is that yes they will sign whatever it takes to get in as they don't have a viable alternative. Furthermore, it wasn't long ago that the state ran poorhouses where they created the rules and you fitted in - or you were out.

We still have this mentality.

In order to run these 'institutions' the bureaucrats come up with policies which managers are expected to follow without any leniency for interpretation. These policies are a very crude method of controlling what happens. They allow for no individual interpretation by an immediate manager on the individual circumstances.

The result is that the individual feels powerless and against the system which appears to be totally without feeling.

Jail door at Chateau d'If - shelter for the weary?

I have a very strong feeling of wanting to be in charge of my life and not having others telling me what I can and cannot do. I am ruled by reason and as long as my values are intact I can be as bolshi as hell.

Thus if I am being a responsible human and caring for myself and for those around me I question anyone interfering.

I was in Christie's hospital in 1978 for cancer treatment .

Without being asked, I had my clothes taken away from me on the first day.

That night I felt trapped, I was no longer 'free', so I got up at about 3 am, put on my dressing gown and started to roam the empty corridors. There was no one to question me!

I started a search of the ground floor outside doors that could be opened from the inside and looked out of each one. Eventually I found the one that looked across a car park and there was my car. I had my keys and should I want to, I could do a runner. This might have seemed strange had I stopped for petrol as I would have still been in my dressing gown!

With the knowledge of an escape route, should I need it, I went back to bed comforted.

I was back in control!

In our society there are too many cases where people feel imprisoned. This has a great toll on our mental health. The bureaucrats often believe that if they take care of our bodies then they are doing their jobs.

This is not good enough.

Our spirits and mental state is far more important.

Conclusion: every responsible person should have recourse to another human being who knows them and can make decisions with them in mind.

If we were living in a boarding house you would find that a good landlady was making individual decisions to suit our individual circumstances. Some would be allowed pets and others not.

In the case of South Lakes Housing it seems that there has to be a mindless blanket policy for everyone . This they feel is then 'fair' because you signed up for it when you came and your immediate manager isn't allowed to think for themselves but has to (or is supposed to) follow the rules. One with a bit of 'get up and go' will choose to look the other way and ignore the rules on your behalf - thank God for a bit of humanity and readiness to put their own jobs on the line.

Simon Hughes felt positive for the future however.

The (dreaded) system was under review. Three months ago someone decided that the pet issue should be reviewed. In a month's time a committee will get together to decide how to instigate this review by conducting a survey and eventually in the autumn arriving at a new policy. Which will still be as painful as the first. You can't legislate for individual circumstances.

What is needed is to hand back to individual managers a policy-free situation where they can make their own decisions about what is appropriate.

The new policy is to have no policy.

Meanwhile the wheels of bureaucracy turn extremely slowly. Something that could be decided in a day in a normal situation has to go through convoluted procedures and take 300 times as long.

Meanwhile the petless old person has given up the will to live . . .

Can't someone build a secret cupboard and provide a cat that pops into it at the sound of a hiss.