Disrespectful, Officious behaviour by HM Government

April 26, 2020

After watching the debaukel that is the EXPO centre aka “NHS Knightingale” where they have spent millions without considering how they were going to staff it, making it feel like a PR stunt, it came to my attention yesterday that an older chap wanted to de-register for food parcels but this requires an “extremely vulnerable” person to jump through hoops!!!!

It does make me cross that so many things are not thought through… they just do things on a purely PR or administrative level and forget the reality of how this will play out, the real human impact on lives… has nobody taught them how to P?

Piss Poor Planning Promotes Piss Poor Performance.

Like does someone who is “extremely vulnerable” know how to use the chuffing internet to de-register for something they didn’t want in the first place?

So the Government has decided that it needs to feed SOME people at this time, those where the PR points are highest… others will have to fight tooth and nail, especially SME businesses that have made this country what it is but those they have defined as “extremely vulnerable” will be handed things on a plate. Have they not read the airline instructions about ensuring the adults put their masks on first?

Hop online, fill in a form, it’s easy… it probably is for those who are IT literate but my guess, is if someone is “extremely vulnerable” they are also likely to be IT illiterate… so asking them to fill in a form online is bloody stupid… why not simply offer a local phone number for them to call and allow councils, who have been tasked to deliver the food anyway, to process them easily?

I recall, when we had our first online council meeting that the distribution of these parcels was brought up and it was being managed by the RBWM. Government had sent a list of people, 600 rings a bell but 200+, when phoned up to determine their dietary needs had said they didn’t need / want the support.

The way I see it there are generally 3 groups of people, evenly balanced:

Give me, give me, give me, it’s my right, you have to do it for me
I guess I need to accept, how else am I going to find a solution
Never, not while I have a breathe in my body will I accept charity

Sadly, the Government makes no allowance for the 3rd group and so those people are currently forced to go online to decline the support when they never asked for it in the first place!

Disgraceful… I have been advised the RBWM Hub will happily help those who need support in completing the forms to do so… although that wasn’t initially apparent by the response to the question by one other the more administratively focused members of the Hub team!

Two weeks ago I asked Andrew Johnson the Tory Leader of the Council to discuss how our local MPs might help speed up the funding to SMEs. He tells me he mentioned it in his meeting last week… I do hope they have some influence.

Expecting SMEs and sole traders to stop earning money in March and get the first payment of government support in June is, to my mind, also disgraceful. Small businesses make up 60% of all the businesses in the UK and around 10% of the population… they pay something like 50% of all the tax receipts into the government and they are the one’s left out in the cold… it really isn’t right.

The technology is there to find out who has paid what in seconds and they should have approached this from the other direction. Pay out and then claim back through taxation would minimise the hardship on those who will actually be finding ways to dig this country out of the shit the Government is creating. As to whether they will be so willing to pay the same level of tax if they are not going to get the support when they need it, that’s a different matter.

This Government needs to get its proverbial together and start looking after people properly and stop looking for sound bite, Churchillian moments… please take a leaf out of Jacinda Ardern’s book, Prime Minister of New Zealand, as she appears to know what to do.

covidtest

You really can’t make this stuff up… checked my Councillor email after writing this blog and had an invitation to have a covid test… well I think they meant to send it to me but who knows! Obviously my default response is FO, FO 😉 They can’t get anything right… testing me they would probably give me ‘kin Covid-19… forget it, I’m good thanks!

Thank you.

Jon

Photo by Ilya Pavlov on Unsplash

Jon Davey

2 responses to “Disrespectful, Officious behaviour by HM Government”

Nigel Statham-Lee

April 26, 2020 at 10:57 am

Hi Jon, an interesting read, but the other point you missed concerning the SMEs is the farce over the promised £350 billion promised in loans to businesses to see them through the crises and help keep the economy from total collapse, thwarted by the banks who despite the Government securing 80% of the loan still refused to lend it. I wonder why?
As you know we are a small business struggling to survive in these unusual times. We did go through the motions of applying for the loan, but never heard back from the bank, probably because we were on the ‘at risk’ register. Our biggest problem is not the lack of footfall in the shop as people stay at home but our online sales have increased significantly, over 300% overnight. Well that’s good I hear you say, but, and there is always a but, our suppliers have either withdrawn our credit (insisting we pay all outstanding payments, whether they were due or not) cut our deliveries or reduced the amount we can spend, probably because like the banks they think we could all die from the virus leaving them out of pocket. It not personal as they have applied these new rules to all their customers, and not just in our industry.
This is where the Covid-19 relief loan would have helped pay the upfront costs for stock.
So with increased internet sales meaning we have to work 24/7 just to stand still, if we wanted to keep going we had to fund the supplies up front which put an extra burden on us, our stress levels sky rocketing, personal credit cards being maxed out and all because the banks refused to play ball.
We could have shut the shop, furloughed the staff and waited this out sitting in the garden claiming immunity from any and all debts whilst enjoying the sunshine.
The government could have done a lot more to support the SMEs, they could of lent the money, via the banks if necessary, through the payroll system and have it payed back via increased monthly tax and NI contributions as they are the employers still paying employees and not sat on their backsides expecting the government to pay their payroll for them.
When this is all over I wonder if someone will ask the question to the government “Why didn’t you support the SMEs trying to keep the economy afloat and not just look after large business owned by very rich people to live in the style they have come to expect?”
How many SMEs will survive, who knows, I expect very few if they keep ignoring us and that will of course put an extra burden on the economy and RBWM through increased housing and benefits if these business owners loose everything by trying to keep their companies going with little or no help.
Sorry about the rant

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1. Jonathan L Davey
  
  April 26, 2020 at 12:58 pm
  
  Not a rant… real life impact on an SME looking to support their staff while being shafted by those who should be supporting youf efforts… some might be thinking this is the plan but obviously they would be mad conspiracy theorists!
  
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