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According to Manchester United footballer Patrice Evra you can make a racist remark and not be a racist. Was he just saying that the opponent who he accused of repeatedly racially abusing him was not racist to appease his fellow professionals? Did he mean look this guy is not a wicked person just ignorant and insensitive? I can understand the reluctance to call someone a racist, it is after all one of the worst things you can say about someone in our society. Presumably that is why no one ever admits to being a racist even those who use racist language and hold racist views. Being a racist is without dispute a very bad thing.

If a racist is not someone who uses racially abusive language what then does a racist do that makes them a racist? To be a racist do you have not only to abuse someone because of the colour of their skin but hold views that some people are inferior due to the colour of their skin and therefore do not deserve to be treated the same as the rest of us? So if you only meet part of this criteria does that mean you are not racist? If you call someone a black so and so that is useing racist language but if you claim at the same time to believe in treating everyone fairly and not discriminating on the grounds of colour does that mean you are not a racist?

I know it sounds like we are just playing with words but what people say and how they say it is important as is what we assume when they use this type of language. I belive that most people I have come across through work or socially are not racist but I have heard racist language used at work and in social gatherings. I explain this by the fact that people are often ignorant of other people’s culture, circumstances and feelings. That people are constantly feed negative stereotypes about Muslims, Asians or black people and so they often speak without thinking or realising the impact their words will have. But if an individual repeatedly makes these remarks despite being told if is offensive, hurtful and racist then clearly this is not ignorance but a true reflection of the way they think.

But does this view that using racist language, especially due to ignorance or insensitivity, does not make the individual a racist then result in people claiming that there is no racism in football or in this office with the implication that nothing needs to be done?

Blair McPherson author of An Elephant in the Room –an equality and diversity training manual published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

In the current harsh financial climate voluntary organisations are finding it very difficult to get grants. Local Authorities are cutting or removing funding from voluntary groups in order to achieve their budget savings. The NHS has in the past been a source of local funding for voluntary groups but now they to are saying they can’t afford it. Voluntary organisations are looking to other sources of funding like lottery grants. Wherever they seek funding from the competition for grants has never been tougher. Why do some applications fail whilst others succeed and why does one organisation win over another when they offer almost identical services? Is it down to the quality of the bid? Is it the ability to evidence the impact the service has had on individuals and communities? Is it the ability to demonstrate more “bangs for bucks”? Is it about networking, getting the right people to support your bid? Is it about reputation having a track record, being established and trusted? Is it about credibility having people with expertise on board? Does it help if your treasure is an ex bank manager, your chair a former director of social services and your committee members include current local authority councillors?

Small to medium sized local voluntary organisations are the most vulnerable because Local Authorities tend to cut the small grants first and whilst they may only require a relatively small grant, anything from five thousand pounds to a hundred thousand pounds they often have no alternative sources of income and very few paid staff so little scope for cutting back.  

 In the fight for funding all the above factors will have some part to play. The commissioners of services will tell you that successful bids are the ones that can evidence effectiveness, or have in place a way of measuring out comes. In other words not just how many people will be helped but how these individuals lives will be improved. It also helps if they are cheaper.

 In my experience the factor that distinguishes the successful from the unsuccessful bid is none of these things. Bids from small to medium voluntary groups fail not because they are not good at what they do, or not good at evidencing what they do or not good at talking to the right people. They fail because what they do isn’t what the funders want them to do.

Local Authorities can’t afford to provide the level and range of services they provided in the past they must cut and prioritise. This means targeting help and funds. This means restricting help to the most vulnerable individuals and to the most vulnerable groups. This usually means children and older people because these are the groups the public most identify with. So it doesn’t matter how necessary and how effective your voluntary group is in working with homeless people it is not a priority and therefore is unlikely to be funded. Likewise your voluntary group may be doing excellent  innovative work in helping older people use the internet or be extremely popular for providing a gardening service but if your clients are not the very frail elderly people that the local authority has prioritised you won’t get the funding.

 Prioritises change next year it might be people with a learning disability or ethnic minority groups. May be the new priority with be localities and all voluntary groups working with in identified deprived neighbourhoods will get grants at the expense of those who don’t.

The message is if you want funding then change what you do to fit in with the funder’s priorities. Understandably many local voluntary organisations don’t want to ditch what they are good at and what they were set up to do. But if you want to win that grant bend your remit and make sure your application reflects the funders current priorities.

Blair McPherson is author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

2011 was the year for stating the bleeding obvious. Public sector managers tried hard but seriously did anyone ever believe that you could do more with less, that the quality of services would not be affected by budget cuts or that light touch inspections would stop abuse? So is any one surprised at a report that hospitals provide crap care for people with dementia?

Dementia is characterised by short term memory loss which frequently makes the individual anxious, agitated and confused. Suffers feel lost and easily become disorientated their restless behaviour means they rarely sit still or stay in bed. They are best cared for in an environment they are familiar with like their own home, provided they lived their prior to the onset of dementia or a specialist care home where the staff are trained in managing the behaviour of people with dementia, the design of the building helps orientate the individual and provides a safe environment for “wandering”. A hospital ward is not such an environment. Dementia suffers don’t make cooperative patients. Staffing levels on general wards don’t allow for the constant reassurance and attention these patients need.  

Imagine an elderly person with a short term memory problem who has a broken leg as a result of a fall, is recovering from surgery of has a severe chest infection. They forget why they are in hospital, they forget they are in hospital; they keep getting out of bed and trying to leave the ward. They become distressed when prevented from leaving and their behaviour wakes and upsets the other patients. On top of this two thirds of staff told the survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ centre for Quality Improvement that they felt under trained to deal with this type of behaviour.

This would be a worrying situation if ward staff only occasionally encountered a patient with dementia. Presumably if this was a rare occurrence some additional support and expertise could be drafted- in in the short term. But this is not an occasional problem it is an everyday problem. The Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Society Jeremy Hughes states that a quarter of hospital beds are occupied by people suffering from dementia.

So would you be surprised to learn that hospitals lack the skills and resources to cope with dementia patients. And would you be surprised that given the high proportion of dementia patients on wards that the majority of Hospitals have so far failed to address the problem. I would be surprised if you were surprised.

Blair McPherson writer and commentator on the public sector also  author of Equipping mangers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

When I think of a whistle blower I imagine some fairly anonymous member of staff who publicly exposes the wrong doing of an organisation despite the fact that this might cost them their job. The member of staff is acting out of a moral conviction .If we want people to expose bad practise or high level corruption whether its shady practises in the awarding of large contracts or covering up the abuse of patients/residents we need to give them the promise of protection and the confidence that their allegation will be treated seriously.

The initial reaction to a whistle blower is frequently to question their motives. Is this a disgruntled member of staff, does the individual have a personal agenda? Some in the organisation will view any public criticism as disloyal but the only real issue is whether there is any truth to the allegations.

I was concerned but not surprised at the findings of a recent Royal College of Nursing survey which found 80% of the 3000 nurses surveyed had raised concerns about issues on an NHS ward. Perhaps it is not surprising that at a time of sever budget pressure nurses would highlight the impact on the ward and patient care. As managers seek to save money with skeleton staffing levels not just on bank holidays but weekends and evening it’s not surprising that nurses  complain nor is it surprising that managers  ignore these complaints. It is the same covering for vacant posts or staff absences management will impose a blanket ban on the use of agency staff and overtime because of pressure on the budget and nursing staff will identify the impact on patient care-no time to ensure elderly patients drink, no time to help an elderly patient eat their meals, being unable to take a patient to the toilet when they first ask and having to leave them in soiled or wet sheets until they are less busy. The result is the now well documented and alarmingly frequent reports of dehydrated, malnourished and neglected elderly patients.

There is another type of whilst blower frequently a new member of staff or someone who has been brought in as temporary cover for staff holidays. They are experienced staff and are clear on good practice and what they see as passing for routine care is not good practise. They quickly realise that there is little point raising their concerns with the manager or officer in charge as these practises have either been sanctioned or are ignored for the smooth running of the home. I have in mind the “liquid cosh” where residents who “wander” are over medicated so that they stay put in their chair, using the bed sheets tucked in tight to stop someone getting out of bed in the night, putting those who need assistance to bed straight after tea so they are all in bed when the night staff come on duty who in return will ensure everyone is up and dressed when the day staff come on duty, even if this means some people will be got up at 5am! This of course is fairly mild stuff but a culture where everything is run to the convenience of staff rather than the needs of residents is one where indifference can soon become bullying and verbal even physical abuse. In such a climate imagine how a resident who inconveniences staff by soling themselves is treated.

In such circumstances we need staff to resist peer pressure and have the courage to speak out without fear of reprisals.   

Blair McPherson author of People management in a harsh financial climate and Equipping managers for an uncertain future both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

They call it spinning out local authority services. It is supposed to sound more attractive than outsourcing and more acceptable than privatising. But it is just another example of inventing a new phrase to disguise the same old rhetoric.

Spinning out of the public sector is just another way of saying taking public sector services and placing them in the private or not for profit sector. The difference is that the management take the staff with them. Free of local authority bureaucracy such organisation can be more entrepreneurial, they can also change working practises, pay and conditions including holiday entitlement and sickness pay. Naturally this makes them more competitive. 

Claiming that such organisations can have a social value ethos is simply an attempt to make them more acceptable. Be honest what we are really talking about is providing services on the cheap usually at the expense of low paid workers and to the detriment of those in recite of the service.

Having taken jobs out of the public sector insult is added to injury by attempting to steal our clothes because to claim that these new organisations can have a social values ethos the same as the public sector ethos is an attempt to look like us by stealing our clothes.

 Public sector values are about prompting the interest of the wider community, they are about services for all not just those who can afford them. The public sector ethos is that the state has a duty to help and protect the poor, the vulnerable and the disadvantaged. These are the values that underpin the NHS and local authority social services, housing and schools.

Claiming to have social values is easy look at all those organisations that put grand sounding equal opportunity statements in their glossy brochures. Once the contact is won it is business as usual and the values turn out to be mere aspirations.

To those who say that the not for profit sector is not chasseing the money so can claim to be interested in the good of the wider community, to put staff welfare head of profit and look beyond service users as customers I say, accountability. If a voluntary or not for profit organisation finds it can’t afford to upgrade a home or centre’s facilities in line with new standards , undertake essential repairs or attract sufficient income to run the services it will simply take a business decision to close. A not for profit organisation is not accountable to local people only to its broad and the boards overriding responsibility is to ensure the organisation remains financially viable.  Unlike local authority run services those making the decisions are not accountable to local people.  Whereas local authority councillors are very sensitive to public opinion fearing a loss of votes the board of a not for profit organisation is not. If the local radio and press pick up on a campaign to keep a library, day centre or home open councillors can be forced to consult the community, to take account of the outcome, show that other options have been considered and why they are not viable. The board of a not for profit organisation has no such obligations.

In other words even a not for profit organisation that expounds social values cannot be held accountable if it decides its community commitments must come second to its financial viability. Don’t be fooled dressing up an organisation with public sector social values does not make it like the public sector.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

About a £100k according to a proposal being considered by Leicester City council. The council is considering the recommendations of an independent pay review panel to increase the salary of the directly elected mayor to £100k a year. The reasoning behind this is that being a directly elected mayor is a fulltime job responsible for running a large complex organization with thousands of staff and a budget of millions. It is not unreasonable to pay a salary that reflects this level of responsibility. Except someone else is already paid to do this. The council pays their chief executive considerably more than £100k to run the councils services.

 How can two people both be responsible for running the same council? Isn’t this expensive duplication in these austere times? Why have a chief executive if you are paying a directly elected mayor a salary of £100k a year to run the council? Does the local government minister, Eric Pickles, have a point when he asks what do they do and why do they need them?

 It was all very straightforward before. The chief executive managed the officers and was responsible for the day to day running of council services. The leader of the council managed the politicians, agreed the policies and determined budget priorities. Of course I am over simplifying it was never as neat as this. In some place councilors took a very hands on approach and got involved in operational day to day issues often to the frustration of officers. In other places the chief executive was allowed to get on with it and in some places the leader of the council and the chief executive fell out.

 The introduction of directly elected mayors has challenged the relationship between officers and members. Directly elected mayors are modeled on their New York and London counterparts. The idea is to have a high profile, highly visible person that local people can see is in charge of their council and whom they can hold directly accountable. They are typically from the business world with a background in local politics. Unlike chief executives they probably have no experience of running a large complex organization nor are they as likely to have a professional background in local government services.

 So if a directly elected mayor has more responsibility does a chief executive have less responsibility? If the directly elected mayor is paid to run the council then should the post of chief executive be replaced by an officer with the title deputy mayor to more accurately reflect the status and responsibility?

 Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

When things go wrong and things do go wrong do you look for someone to blame or do you analyse the complex interrelationship of events, people and money ? Politicians look for someone to blame and the tabloids call for their head. Very convenient since politicians don’t want awkward questions asked about the contribution of their policies, the impact of budget cuts or the unintended consequences of a reliance on targets. And public executions in the press have always sold news papers.

You would however expect some sections of the media to spot the potential for exposing a few government myths like cutting staff does not affect quality, more can be done with less and targets don’t distort practise. The public enquiry into the Mid Staffs Hospital deaths is just such an opportunity pity then that the Guardian seen content to call for the head of Cynthia Bower chief executive of the Care Quality Commission. Strange also since she was not head of the regulator at the time of the scandal nor was she chief executive of the hospital. So why has the Guardian used the public inquiry into the scandal at Mid Staffs Hospital to call for the head of Ms Bower? The answer appears to be Ms Bower can and should be personally held accountable for the failings at Mid Staff because as chief executive of the supervising Heath Authority she failed to spot and stop the neglect of patients. Further evidence of her supposed unsuitability and incompetence is the subsequent failure by her inspectors to stop the abuse of residents at a home for people with learning disabilities in her new job as chief executive of the CQC. Well if that is to be the logic we would expect Directors of social services to be losing their heads on very regular bases.

If heads are to roll why not the one who appointed Cynthia Bower as Chief Executive of the CQC at a time when the scandal at Mid Staffs had already broken? If this is about accountability the chief executive of an NHS Trust is accountable to their board and the chair and most of the board appear to have supported the actions of the chief executive. Logically if the board, who are ultimately responsible to the minister, got it so badly wrong either they should go or the minister should acknowledge that this was a failure of the system and not a failure of one individual.

Blair McPherson author of Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

 L.A’s are only too aware that their budget are being cut by up to 30% over 5 years and that this will restrict the services that are offered in the future and result in a greatly reduced work force as authorities struggle to live within their means. LA’s have been closing libraries, swimming pools and day centres as they try to make ends meet. Most LA’s have already exhausted the possibilities of allowing staff to go on early retirements and voluntary redundancies. There is little scope for redeployment as all departments  try to reduce their head count. Compulsory redundancies are inevitable. Most LA’s have been working throughout the summer to identify how they will deliver these budget cuts from April so it seems a little late in the day for the Audit Commission to becoming up with their rudimentary advise such as reduce over time , delay filling vacancies and cut back on agency staff.

 I suspect the real reason the Audit Commission and Local Government have published Work in progress: meeting local needs with lower workforce costs                         is a parting shot to highlight to Government that their targeting of the public sector and Local government in particular has the potential to seriously damage local economies. The report highlights that LA’s are the largest employers in most localities so significant job losses and pay freezes will impact on the local economy, stall any recovery and deepening the recession where the private sector cannot create jobs to replace those lost. And it not just the number of people directly employed. The local authority social service department I worked for had contacts with over 800 small to medium size business providing residential care or home care services to elderly and disabled people. The sever budget restrictions on LA’s are already seeing contract prices frozen or even reduced and lack of funds leading to fewer placement the result in more  business like Southern Cross going bust in the new year . Giving yet another twist to the down ward spiral of the local economy. The affluent south may create jobs to replace those lost but the rest of the country won’t.

Blair McPherson author and commentator on management and the public sector www.blairmcpherson.co.uk  see also Equipping managers for an uncertain future and People management in a harsh financial climate both published by www.russellhouse.co.uk

The third sector and social enterprises are just pale imitators of the real thing.  The Government has been promoting the role of the voluntary, community and faith sector in health and social care and championing social enterprises as an alternative to the Public Sector.  Voluntary, community and faith – referred to as the third sector is attractive because such organisations are not motivated by profit and so the Government escapes the accusation of privatisation.  The trouble is, by their nature, such organisations are small, operate on the good will of volunteers and are not businesslike.  Or they are like housing associations – big, professional and not-for-profit but operating like private sector organisations not accountable to local people and frequently not recognising trade unions.

Social enterprises are seen as offering the best of both worlds: the businesslike approach and professionalism of the not-for-profit sector coupled with the commitment to local communities and the social motivation of the voluntary, community and faith sector.  A social enterprise operates like a business but employs local people including a high proportion of people with a disability or people who have been long-term unemployed.  Employees have a say in how the business operates and this is reflected in the management style and there is a genuine commitment as oppose to a PR exercise to help improve the local community.

But isn’t that exactly what the Public Sector was all about before it was told to get competitive and adopt private sector ways and the private sector language of the customers choice and performance.  Local authority public services have always been accountable to local people; there has always been a commitment to supporting local communities; there has always been a desire to be a model employer and the motivation has always been to benefit local people.

The restrictive working practices, services run for the convenience of staff, the take it or leave it attitude and bolshy trade unionism that once characterised the Public Sector is a thing of the distant past.  It’s time to rediscover the Public Sector ethos rather than promote pale imitators.

Blair McPherson author and commentator on management and the public sector www.blairmcpherson.co.uk