Well a thick fog might be clouding our views from our flat – but it hasn’t stopped the auditing firm Deloittes from taking a fine tooth comb to the state of Bergen council’s finances and services!
Their end of year report makes for gloomy reading. It appears that the town is failing on several fronts – again! It is not the first time departments within the council such as IT, buildings maintenance or mental health care have been reported on negatively, but this time Bergens Tidende (our local newspaper) needs to do some serious investigative journalism and start pointing fingers of blame. In the UK heads would roll if this came to light there! Ah well, time will tell! Apologies if you sense a hint of sarcasm in this post – investigative journalism is a town in China as far as Norway is concerned, they really need something or someone to come and shake off the complacency!
Anyway these are some of the points from the auditors’ report. Don’t forget that this is a town of 250,000 or so people so not that big and there is a lot of oil money around. If they can’t get it right what chance do large cities in other countries have with budgets pared to the bone and long queues at the social services office?
- Papers are not being filed correctly. This means that if you ask for information about a case you will not get the full information you are entitled to (planning applications, disability support cases, etc.). Also means that your personal information can float around various offices for quite some time as no-one knows what to do with it!
- Because there is no internal communication between departments the left hand has no idea about what the right hand is doing. Not unusual I suppose in the public sector. Unfortunately though if you feel something is really wrong whistleblowing is actively discouraged within the council as it is seen as being disloyal to the consensus already established. So unusual or unacceptable conditions are swept under the carpet and risk analyses (if performed) are often perfunctory and biased affecting the quality and delivery of services.
- There are the usual problems of procurement by a state body, as no-one has responsibility and the system is ridiculously complicated! As a result the value and quality of goods procured is not checked and is often way more expensive than it should be.
- Budgets are not kept and projects consistently fail to materialise within agreed timescales.
- Lack of IT security around personal information in all areas
- Buildings maintenance is poorly managed, and many public buildings (schools and hospitals) have areas which are unfit for public use. The council is breaking the law in some areas.
- Although there is an increased demand for social housing and help for those with mental health issues, there is a lack of control in this area. Coordination between departments is non-existent and no responsibility is taken. The legal rights of clients are compromised on a daily basis. Family welfare and child protection are suffering.
- Planning permission – lack of internal control and possible bias
- Support to sport and culture is not going to the areas that need it and there is a possible link to personal bias in grant allocations
- Time off for sick leave has increased for staff in council run kindergardens, schools and homes for the elderly but manager’s do not have a budget post to employ supply teachers or assistants. Since ratios are ‘advisory’ it doesn’t seem to matter.
- Increase in special educational needs support is not being met due to lack of budget.
- Lack of resources to follow up on patients discharged from hospital.
- Child protection services are affected by a post code lottery.
- Foster care has been increasing, but there is a lack of follow up in the foster homes after placement and little support for the children once placed
- Homes for the elderly have a very lose set of rules to keep to. Lack of inspection and control
Interesting reading! We might, in the UK complain about the checks and balances applied to schools, nurseries, hospitals etc., but at least there are some, and generally people are not afraid of saying something if the system is failing. Hopefully, something positive will come out of this and changes will start to happen.
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