Those responsible for burdening us all with this monstrous mountain of bumpf.
We are due a visit from it shortly. We had the early years person round to check all was in order. She looked through it all, nodded her approval, paused. “But you haven\’t,” she said, “got a Going Out For a Walk Policy.” No kidding.
Gibbets to the fore lads, hempen to hand.
I do think the way to stop this Soviet nonsense is to look at how the workers reacted, and take a leaf out of their books. In the drive to meet rules, they used to take the piss in response. E.g. taking components from stock, roll them back through the factory and pretend they were newly manufactured.
To this end, I suggest using google to write this crap. Search for the phase “e.g. going for a walk policy”, take the top hit, run the first paragraph into French, then back into English, then paste in to the policy document. Continue until questionnaire/document/survey done.
When the inspector comes to read it, he/she won’t be able to understand, but on the basis that it’s now wrong to criticise writing standards, they won’t say “this is nonsense” or “I can’t understand this rubbish”. In the unlikely event they do, you just say “I’m dyslexic, and you’re undermining my self-confidence. You’re creating an inappropriate hostile atmosphere.” You can threaten an official complaint, and if you go that far you can easily find some crap to write: see Polly’s columns passim.
If something later happens (e.g. kid falls over) then the document will be scanned by the lawyers, but they won’t be able to make head nor tail of it either, and then you go into spin mode. Copy the Government press tactics. Talk about “the policy is under constant review”. Say that “we don’t comment on specific cases”. As the heat turns up (unlikely, because most will have backed off by now) say that “lessons will be learned” (i.e. re-google and paste more nonsense in, proving that you have been a “reactive” and “listening” organization).
Rachel Oxley did a brilliant off-the-cuff speec on all this at the UKIP conference.
“speech”, obviously.
My dear Kay Tie:
Magnificently, inventively cynical.
You have done your good deed for the day.
There is a tiny flaw with this approach. If you do indeed google for “going for a walk policy” (remember the quotes) you’ll see what I mean..
I like Kay Tie – here and elsewhere.
I’m an engineer. I do a lot of my work in complicated CAD programs. I once was gigged on some silly-ass diversity-teamwork-sunshine-and-puppies ‘assessment’ because I was ‘not inclusive enough of others in my design decisions’.
So I installed a ‘guest mouse’ on my workstation – a second mouse, with its own pad. And anytime anyone came to see me about some aspect of my design, I always made sure to point out that there was a guest mouse for their use, and that they were welcome to join me in my labours if they felt they needed to.
That lasted about 3 weeks. Some PO’ed manager complained to my manager that I was ‘making a mockery’ of the teamwork-sunshine-and-puppies process. Damn right, I was.
llater,
llamas
I hate to break up the good fun here but school teachers are reported to be increasingly reluctant to volunteer to organise or supervise school trips for fear of being sued in the event that any accidents befall their charges during the trip.
“The teachers’ union under attack for advising members not to take school trips said today it would change its policy only when more safeguards were in place. . . ”
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schooltrips/story/0,,1409858,00.html
With the rising cost of insurance cover for school trips, the reported reluctance of teachers is surely understandable. In that context, the need for playgroup leaders to have a “Going Out For a Walk Policy” makes much sense.
For a start, the question in the assessment was a prudent reminder to the playgroup leader to not only see whether the playgroup has adequate insurance cover to deal with accidents if the playgroup goes on a walkabout beyond the playgroup premises but also to read the fine print of the policy and, perhaps, take advice on the exclusion clauses.
We are becoming an increasingly litigious society and bureaucratic consequences flow from that.
Bob B, it is up to the parents and teachers/carers to sort this out.
If my kid is invited on a school trip and the form says “There will be twenty kids and five adults, we are going on a bus to XYZ attraction, give your child a packed lunch and £5 spending money and sign on dotted line if you consent” then that is all the regulation we need. Either I sign or I don’t.
Similarly, the school/nursery has to haggle out with the insurance company what the deal is. The insurance company should be the one going round making sure the climbing equipment is safe, that the minibuses have got MOT and so on, the safer the school, the better it is for all concerned.
And finally, unfortunately kids will die on school trips. But it’s pretty shit advertising for the school, so once all schools are privately run and funded with vouchers, they’ll be bloody careful not to lose too many kids or their intake will plummet.
Ah … free market/private contractual solutions…
Bloody hell, Mark , “Either I sign or I don’t.” Where’s your outreach to the illiterate? Er, the diversely abled scholarshipwise.
They can wet a paw in the ink bottle.
UKL, Dearieme makes a fair point, the fact that we have a parent’s thumbprint doesn’t prove he has read and understood it.
Damn …*scratches head* … *has brainwave* .. but selective schools (and all schools would be selective) would be able to make the parents do an entrance exam, if they can’t read and write then that bodes badly for the kids anyway. The schools that end up with the kids of illiterate parents just won’t be too keen on going on school trips. Which’ll piss off those poor kids, and motivate the parents to learn to read and write and speak English properly.
Trebles all round!
Mark,
But you have just proved that your school has a “going on bus trips policy”, which some jobsworth insisted should be written.
So only a short step, pun intended, tp having a going out for a walk policy. It never ends.