How to Run a Government by Michael Barber

Author:Michael Barber
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780141979595
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2015-02-15T16:00:00+00:00

DILIGENCE

After standards comes diligence. Chambers Dictionary defines ‘diligent’ as ‘steady and earnest in application’ and ‘diligence’ as ‘steady application; industriousness’. Diligence matters because however the standards are set, the key is that they are steadily applied on every occasion. For some government programmes this is not just desirable but essential. Eliminating hospital-acquired infections, for example, depends on everyone washing their hands every time. Eliminating polio, the same attention to detail applies. Many health and safety procedures, ditto. When it comes to children learning to read, the issue may not immediately put lives at risk, but diligence there matters too. Or policing – the recording of a crime or taking down a witness statement; done shoddily it can lead later to the collapse of a case.

Diligence and reliability go together. Reliability isn’t very exciting, but it is really important if you are to succeed. Too often, public officials contrast reliability with creativity or imagination. They imply reliability is somehow beneath them; what’s needed is an act of brilliance instead. This is self-deception. The opposite of ‘diligent’ is not ‘creative’, it is ‘shoddy’. The opposite of ‘reliable’ is not ‘brilliant’, it is ‘unreliable’. And standards, once set, change the lives of citizens only if they are diligently applied. This requires a cultural shift in the professions, as set out in Table 12. In its school system, Singapore comes close to illustrating what this shift looks like.

Atul Gawande, the wonderful writer on largely medical issues, puts it this way:

The Required Cultural Shift

Table 12

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