Whilst I'm generally in favour of reducing duplication - the Police Scotland megamerger was a disaster waiting to happen with turf wars, different policing strategies in different areas, different cultures, different relationships with locals and on and on and on.
It's a huge blob and only second to the Met in terms of size - beforehand it was 8 tiddly/middling forces all doing their own thing.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
More understandable if that had been the only call they had received, since nothing would be pointing to that particular stretch of road. Yet someone actually phoned up and said a car had gone down that embankment, and nothing was done.
Kendall comes out against the Inheritance Tax Cut, well that has finally killed her, when 54% of the public back it she has now turned off floating voters and Tories as well as socialists!
Kendall comes out against the Inheritance Tax Cut, well that has finally killed her, when 54% of the public back it she has now turned off floating voters and Tories as well as socialists!
I wasn't aware 'floating voters and Tories' would be voting in the Labour leadership contest?
Whilst I'm generally in favour of reducing duplication - the Police Scotland megamerger was a disaster waiting to happen with turf wars, different policing strategies in different areas, different cultures, different relationships with locals and on and on and on.
It's a huge blob and only second to the Met in terms of size - beforehand it was 8 tiddly/middling forces all doing their own thing.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
More understandable if that had been the only call they had received, since nothing would be pointing to that particular stretch of road. Yet someone actually phoned up and said a car had gone down that embankment, and nothing was done.
I have friends in the force, they were all concerned that it would just become the Greater Strathclyde Police Force. As it turns out, they were bang on the money.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
Kendall comes out against the Inheritance Tax Cut, well that has finally killed her, when 54% of the public back it she has now turned off floating voters and Tories as well as socialists!
I wasn't aware 'floating voters and Tories' would be voting in the Labour leadership contest?
Kendall comes out against the Inheritance Tax Cut, well that has finally killed her, when 54% of the public back it she has now turned off floating voters and Tories as well as socialists!
I wasn't aware 'floating voters and Tories' would be voting in the Labour leadership contest?
They will in the general election and when she has come out against one of the most popular budget proposals she is less likely to win any of them back, while also risking losing Labour voters to the Greens and LDs
I think Scott Walker is increasingly becoming the Dems/Hillary's favourite top-tier GOP candidate. He's well to the right of the centre ground, and in a general election I think he'd struggle to carry his own state let alone other swing states like Colorado.
Short of Cruz and Trump, probably right
Cruz is probably a tier-2 candidate, solid base but not much beyond that. Trump is the Herman Cain of 2016 in some ways, if he's in that first FOX debate it'll be interesting viewing to say the least!
Maybe, but Cruz and Trump are least feared by Hillary
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
Whilst I'm generally in favour of reducing duplication - the Police Scotland megamerger was a disaster waiting to happen with turf wars, different policing strategies in different areas, different cultures, different relationships with locals and on and on and on.
It's a huge blob and only second to the Met in terms of size - beforehand it was 8 tiddly/middling forces all doing their own thing.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
More understandable if that had been the only call they had received, since nothing would be pointing to that particular stretch of road. Yet someone actually phoned up and said a car had gone down that embankment, and nothing was done.
Hi Plato,
Kenneth Roy in the Scottish Review has some interesting points, and has some questions that I think, well worth a listen to. (The URL is shortened due to being large)
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
I read that they called the non-emergency number (101). I doubt that would be an answerphone!
Kendall comes out against the Inheritance Tax Cut, well that has finally killed her, when 54% of the public back it she has now turned off floating voters and Tories as well as socialists!
I wasn't aware 'floating voters and Tories' would be voting in the Labour leadership contest?
Fabrizio Goria @FGoria 2m2 minutes ago EU commission to recommend to EU fin mins using efsm fund for bridge financing for Greece despite British, Czech objections - officials
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
Whatever happened to that other bloke who thought he was billy big bollocks when it came to standing up to the Sun?
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
I read that they called the non-emergency number (101). I doubt that would be an answerphone!
There was an itnerview yesterday with the (anonymous) person who made the first call. He said that it was answered by a person, and he felt confident from what was said that it would be dealt with.
It would have been a horrid way for the poor woman to die.
I think Scott Walker is increasingly becoming the Dems/Hillary's favourite top-tier GOP candidate. He's well to the right of the centre ground, and in a general election I think he'd struggle to carry his own state let alone other swing states like Colorado.
If Walker wins the nom then bet the house on the turnip with the democrat rosette.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have. It is a tragic case and quite peculiar since almost all of Scotland's police force spend their time going after motorists rather than, say, burglars, but I am not really sure how much more can be said about it or learned from it.
The inevitable Inquiries seem to be rattling down the road of ever more bureaucratic recording and registration requirements. This is almost certainly a very bad thing and will reduce the abysmal effectiveness of the Scottish force even further. But the SNP seem to believe that there is not a problem in the world that can't be fixed by having the right form so more paperwork is inevitable.
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
Whatever happened to that other bloke who thought he was billy big bollocks when it came to standing up to the Sun?
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
That is a very simplistic, and very unproductive, approach to finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. If investigations focus on assigning blame, they will invariably not uncover the truth. And most cock ups are not the result of one or two people doing something wrong. Unless someone willfully did not act on the information, human error is an un-useful determination of cause. People go to work to do the right thing, not to cock up. If they cock up, there is usually a systemic weakness that a change in environment has exposed. Most accidents happen not because someone did something wrong or even different from 'normal' - they happen because the environment has changed and normal now leads to an accident.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
Burnham told Shadow Cabinet this morning that they needed to amend budget saying they support principle of benefit cap with lots of caveats https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes?lang=en-gb
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
I thought Sun journalists were supposed to be hard as nails!
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
I read that they called the non-emergency number (101). I doubt that would be an answerphone!
There was an itnerview yesterday with the (anonymous) person who made the first call. He said that it was answered by a person, and he felt confident from what was said that it would be dealt with.
It would have been a horrid way for the poor woman to die.
She didn't die, not until after she got to the hospital three days later. Hopefully we'll find out what happened soon.
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
That is a very simplistic, and very unproductive, approach to finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. If investigations focus on assigning blame, they will invariably not uncover the truth. And most cock ups are not the result of one or two people doing something wrong. Unless someone willfully did not act on the information, human error is an un-useful determination of cause. People go to work to do the right thing, not to cock up. If they cock up, there is usually a systemic weakness that a change in environment has exposed. Most accidents happen not because someone did something wrong or even different from 'normal' - they happen because the environment has changed and normal now leads to an accident.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
I read that they called the non-emergency number (101). I doubt that would be an answerphone!
There was an itnerview yesterday with the (anonymous) person who made the first call. He said that it was answered by a person, and he felt confident from what was said that it would be dealt with.
It would have been a horrid way for the poor woman to die.
She didn't die, not until after she got to the hospital three days later. Hopefully we'll find out what happened soon.
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
That is a very simplistic, and very unproductive, approach to finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. If investigations focus on assigning blame, they will invariably not uncover the truth. And most cock ups are not the result of one or two people doing something wrong. Unless someone willfully did not act on the information, human error is an un-useful determination of cause. People go to work to do the right thing, not to cock up. If they cock up, there is usually a systemic weakness that a change in environment has exposed. Most accidents happen not because someone did something wrong or even different from 'normal' - they happen because the environment has changed and normal now leads to an accident.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
What I don't understand is how the person who took the call failed to record it - surely the first thing they would have done would have opened a computer screen and followed the prompts to ensure they collected all the necessary information?
Or do they just scribble notes to each other on post-its?
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
Yet Kendall has just opposed the IHT tax cut, so if she wins IHT would be paid at 40% on all estates over £325,000. Burnham's levy is to fund social care I believe, though personally I would prefer greater use of annuities
I think Scott Walker is increasingly becoming the Dems/Hillary's favourite top-tier GOP candidate. He's well to the right of the centre ground, and in a general election I think he'd struggle to carry his own state let alone other swing states like Colorado.
Short of Cruz and Trump, probably right
Cruz is probably a tier-2 candidate, solid base but not much beyond that. Trump is the Herman Cain of 2016 in some ways, if he's in that first FOX debate it'll be interesting viewing to say the least!
Maybe, but Cruz and Trump are least feared by Hillary
That is a very simplistic, and very unproductive, approach to finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. If investigations focus on assigning blame, they will invariably not uncover the truth. And most cock ups are not the result of one or two people doing something wrong. Unless someone willfully did not act on the information, human error is an un-useful determination of cause. People go to work to do the right thing, not to cock up. If they cock up, there is usually a systemic weakness that a change in environment has exposed. Most accidents happen not because someone did something wrong or even different from 'normal' - they happen because the environment has changed and normal now leads to an accident.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
Nonsense. Although it is highly unlikely the police owed a legal duty of care in private law to the deceased, it is still possible to assign blame, and it may yet have to be done if the deceased's family sue the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Scotland for damages under section 8 of the Human Rights Act 1998. The basic question to be asked is whether or not a given agent or agents of the Chief Constable exercised such care as was reasonable in the circumstances. That is a possible and sensible question to ask. One should not fail to ask necessary questions because they may be difficult to answer, or produce uncomfortable answers. At the end of the day, it is fair and just that individuals are held accountable for their negligence, and that is an exercise that involves assigning blame.
That is a very simplistic, and very unproductive, approach to finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. If investigations focus on assigning blame, they will invariably not uncover the truth. And most cock ups are not the result of one or two people doing something wrong. Unless someone willfully did not act on the information, human error is an un-useful determination of cause. People go to work to do the right thing, not to cock up. If they cock up, there is usually a systemic weakness that a change in environment has exposed. Most accidents happen not because someone did something wrong or even different from 'normal' - they happen because the environment has changed and normal now leads to an accident.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
I disagree. The first thing you need to do in any investigation - and I do this professionally - is find out what happened and who was responsible. If someone has erred then you need to consider and, if necessary, take appropriate action - which may involve disciplinary proceedings. Or it may be training. Then you need to review whether or not there are other matters which have gone wrong or could be improved e.g. missing or unclear procedures, no process for escalation, unclear reporting lines, incompetent handover etc. And you need to have a process for implementing such changes and checking that the changes have been made, everyone who needs to understands them and they are working.
It is not a question of apportioning blame but understanding the facts. And one fact we do know here is that a call was made. That call was received by someone and it is imperative to find out who received it and what they did or did not do.
I have investigated cock ups in the banking industry for 29 years now and I can say that in every case - at the heart of what went wrong - was someone doing the wrong thing or not doing the right thing. And for far too long, people in this industry (and not only this one) have talked about processes and procedures and environments changing and all the rest of it and have ignored the fact that people make mistakes (and worse) and need to take responsibility when they do make mistakes. That applies to the police just as much as it does to banking, more so given that someone died - alone and in pain - as a result.
The failure of people from top to bottom in organisations to take responsibility is one reason why we keep on having such problems.
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
That is a very simplistic, and very unproductive, approach to finding out what went wrong and how to fix it. If investigations focus on assigning blame, they will invariably not uncover the truth. And most cock ups are not the result of one or two people doing something wrong. Unless someone willfully did not act on the information, human error is an un-useful determination of cause. People go to work to do the right thing, not to cock up. If they cock up, there is usually a systemic weakness that a change in environment has exposed. Most accidents happen not because someone did something wrong or even different from 'normal' - they happen because the environment has changed and normal now leads to an accident.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
What I don't understand is how the person who took the call failed to record it - surely the first thing they would have done would have opened a computer screen and followed the prompts to ensure they collected all the necessary information?
Or do they just scribble notes to each other on post-its?
I don't know, and an investigation should most certainly seek to ascertain answers to that and other questions. It could be as simple as a record was taken, but the person failed to push save before getting distracted by something requiring immediate attention, and so on. I don't know, but for the purposes of designing an investigation that has any chance of uncovering the truth, that in itself is irrelevant.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have. It is a tragic case and quite peculiar since almost all of Scotland's police force spend their time going after motorists rather than, say, burglars, but I am not really sure how much more can be said about it or learned from it.
The inevitable Inquiries seem to be rattling down the road of ever more bureaucratic recording and registration requirements. This is almost certainly a very bad thing and will reduce the abysmal effectiveness of the Scottish force even further. But the SNP seem to believe that there is not a problem in the world that can't be fixed by having the right form so more paperwork is inevitable.
Kendall comes out against the Inheritance Tax Cut, well that has finally killed her, when 54% of the public back it she has now turned off floating voters and Tories as well as socialists!
I wasn't aware 'floating voters and Tories' would be voting in the Labour leadership contest?
If they've paid their £3.....
Got my welcome email from Iain McNichol this week.
Will be voting in the interests of the country.
Shall be asking my Lab MP why Unions where fewer than half the members vote Labour are allowed to affiliate to only one party under Lab rules, since they always say they represent all their members.
BBC using phrase 'Asian women' in report on honour killings.
I'm not normally a fan of Yasmin Alibhai Brown but there is a very good (and harrowing) article by her in this weekend's Sunday Times magazine on the abuse suffered by girls and some me (principally gay men) in the Asian community. She writes about how she has tried to help some individuals.
So-called "honour" killings are the least of it, frankly.
All those who think that one should make allowances for other people's "culture" should read it.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
I read that they called the non-emergency number (101). I doubt that would be an answerphone!
There was an itnerview yesterday with the (anonymous) person who made the first call. He said that it was answered by a person, and he felt confident from what was said that it would be dealt with.
It would have been a horrid way for the poor woman to die.
She didn't die, not until after she got to the hospital three days later. Hopefully we'll find out what happened soon.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
What I find oddest about the case is that this was on the M9 deep in the central belt. If it had been the A9 north of Inverness you might understand it better but literally tens of thousands of vehicles would have driven past this scene before the police found them including, no doubt, dozens of police cars. The M9 is one of the busier roads in Scotland (outside Glasgow).
The conclusion for me is that this a freakish tragedy and that it would be unwise to overgeneralise the response.
I think Scott Walker is increasingly becoming the Dems/Hillary's favourite top-tier GOP candidate. He's well to the right of the centre ground, and in a general election I think he'd struggle to carry his own state let alone other swing states like Colorado.
Short of Cruz and Trump, probably right
Cruz is probably a tier-2 candidate, solid base but not much beyond that. Trump is the Herman Cain of 2016 in some ways, if he's in that first FOX debate it'll be interesting viewing to say the least!
Maybe, but Cruz and Trump are least feared by Hillary
Hillary's Your Undoubted Favourite Democrat!
Well that is true, if Sanders wins the nomination I will be cheering for Jeb!
I disagree. The first thing you need to do in any investigation - and I do this professionally - is find out what happened and who was responsible. If someone has erred then you need to consider and, if necessary, take appropriate action - which may involve disciplinary proceedings. Or it may be training. Then you need to review whether or not there are other matters which have gone wrong or could be improved e.g. missing or unclear procedures, no process for escalation, unclear reporting lines, incompetent handover etc. And you need to have a process for implementing such changes and checking that the changes have been made, everyone who needs to understands them and they are working.
It is not a question of apportioning blame but understanding the facts. And one fact we do know here is that a call was made. That call was received by someone and it is imperative to find out who received it and what they did or did not do.
I have investigated cock ups in the banking industry for 29 years now and I can say that in every case - at the heart of what went wrong - was someone doing the wrong thing or not doing the right thing. And for far too long, people in this industry (and not only this one) have talked about processes and procedures and environments changing and all the rest of it and have ignored the fact that people make mistakes (and worse) and need to take responsibility when they do make mistakes. That applies to the police just as much as it does to banking, more so given that someone died - alone and in pain - as a result.
The failure of people from top to bottom in organisations to take responsibility is one reason why we keep on having such problems.
If that is the case, Cyclefree, I am very glad you ply your trade in banking, where it is not life and death, rather than in a high consequence industry, such as nuclear power, pathogens, air travel, off-shore oil, wildfire fighting, aircraft carrier operations, etc... I suggest you find some materials on high reliability organizations to read, and also dig out something more recent than you seem to be operating on on accident theory.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
What I find oddest about the case is that this was on the M9 deep in the central belt. If it had been the A9 north of Inverness you might understand it better but literally tens of thousands of vehicles would have driven past this scene before the police found them including, no doubt, dozens of police cars. The M9 is one of the busier roads in Scotland (outside Glasgow).
The conclusion for me is that this a freakish tragedy and that it would be unwise to overgeneralise the response.
But there are probably good lessons to be learned about the system and how to improve it in this failure.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
My understanding is that someone who wasn't trained to use the computer system took the call, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and gave it to a colleague who forgot to input it.
But worse was the statement by the police spokesman saying it wasn't their fault because they were struggling with the replacement of officers with civilians in the call centres, forced on them by the eevil Turies budget cuts. That was low.
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
Yet Kendall has just opposed the IHT tax cut, so if she wins IHT would be paid at 40% on all estates over £325,000. Burnham's levy is to fund social care I believe, though personally I would prefer greater use of annuities
Possibly, but I doubt that any party will seek to specifically go back on the IHT change by 2020. It'll just be left at £1m and time allowed to degrade it, in the same way the £325K has rarely been uprated. Unless, as you say, it is part of some wider scheme on social care.
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
so he'd going to cheat and attempt to physically assault opponents in a friendly match?
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
That assumes that it was error and not culpable negligence or malice, not an assumption that can be made all cases.
For the avoidance of doubt I am not saying this was the case in the incident in question, but to dismiss everything as a systemic failure seems short sighted.
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
Whatever happened to that other bloke who thought he was billy big bollocks when it came to standing up to the Sun?
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
The conclusion for me is that this a freakish tragedy and that it would be unwise to overgeneralise the response.
Freakish tragedies and coincidences occur with surprising regularity however. To allow a police control system as ramshackle as that outlined in the Courier is negligent and guarantees that freakish coincidences will cause problems. There must have been plenty of other 'lost' police calls, even if none of them resulted in death.
I believe the 2013 data has been given out before.
Team Sky has given French newspaper L'Equipe and respected French physiologist Frederic Grappe access to two years of Chris Froome's power data, with Grappe saying that the Tour de France leader's power data indicates that his performances are consistent.
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
Yet Kendall has just opposed the IHT tax cut, so if she wins IHT would be paid at 40% on all estates over £325,000. Burnham's levy is to fund social care I believe, though personally I would prefer greater use of annuities
Possibly, but I doubt that any party will seek to specifically go back on the IHT change by 2020. It'll just be left at £1m and time allowed to degrade it, in the same way the £325K has rarely been uprated. Unless, as you say, it is part of some wider scheme on social care.
We shall see, although if IHT was largely replaced by a social care fund that would at least make more sense, though personally, as I said, I would prefer measures to encourage annuities to fund care
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
so he'd going to cheat and attempt to physically assault opponents in a friendly match?
Asshat is too kind.
Typical unintelligent Labour thug, resorting to threats of violence.
I see Burnham's back tracking on his Hillsborough accusations; presumably worried that those he's slagging off, might come out fighting.
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
I agree that people have to take responsibility. You can't have an High Reliability Organization without each person taking responsibility at every moment of every working day to avoid things going wrong, and communicating effectively with everyone else in the team - up and down communications.
But investigations that are set up to apportion blame and force someone to say mea culpa are very ineffective. And if someone has not done what they should have, it's way more important in my view to find out why they didn't (lack of training, lack of clarity in procedure, too much leeway of what it acceptable performance, steady erosion of controls and standards over time as nothing has gone wrong, etc...) and address that, than to get them to take the blame.
Where we agree is that mistakes offer way more chance for learning and improving than successes. But that is only the case if there is a 'learning culture and environment', which a blame-apportioning approach precludes.
I have investigated cock ups in the banking industry for 29 years now and I can say that in every case - at the heart of what went wrong - was someone doing the wrong thing or not doing the right thing. And for far too long, people in this industry (and not only this one) have talked about processes and procedures and environments changing and all the rest of it and have ignored the fact that people make mistakes (and worse) and need to take responsibility when they do make mistakes. That applies to the police just as much as it does to banking, more so given that someone died - alone and in pain - as a result.
The failure of people from top to bottom in organisations to take responsibility is one reason why we keep on having such problems.
If that is the case, Cyclefree, I am very glad you ply your trade in banking, where it is not life and death, rather than in a high consequence industry, such as nuclear power, pathogens, air travel, off-shore oil, wildfire fighting, aircraft carrier operations, etc... I suggest you find some materials on high reliability organizations to read, and also dig out something more recent than you seem to be operating on on accident theory.
I wouldn't dream of suggesting how nuclear power accidents should be investigated or indeed accidents in the other industries you mention. They will have their own expert investigators. You can only sensibly investigate an industry you understand.
That said, I do regularly attend conferences where experts from companies like BP do share their expertise and I am struck by how many similarities there are in human behaviour in relation both to the original problems and, even more so, in the responses.
It has always struck me that the banking industry could usefully adopt the airline experience which, as I understand it, shares the results of accident reports so that all airlines can improve their processes, training etc. More of this ought to happen in banking IMO.
At any event, I don't operate on theories but on practical experience. In my experience, in banking, there are very few "accidents" but lots of people claiming that it wasn't their fault that they did what they did. People claim to be geniuses when the money is being doled out and blind, deaf and dumb when it comes to responsibility for things going wrong. I
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
Yet Kendall has just opposed the IHT tax cut, so if she wins IHT would be paid at 40% on all estates over £325,000. Burnham's levy is to fund social care I believe, though personally I would prefer greater use of annuities
Possibly, but I doubt that any party will seek to specifically go back on the IHT change by 2020. It'll just be left at £1m and time allowed to degrade it, in the same way the £325K has rarely been uprated. Unless, as you say, it is part of some wider scheme on social care.
We shall see, although if IHT was largely replaced by a social care fund that would at least make more sense, though personally, as I said, I would prefer measures to encourage annuities to fund care
IHT is a terrible tax - makework for lawyers and accountants; and avoided by people with large fortunes anyway.
Wonder if many Greens have joined Lab Supporters to vote Corbyn: they are an anti-austerity party of the far left whonhave no prospect of serious power for a looooooong time.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
I find myself agreeing with both of you. You are right that a major problem with modern systems is that we do not hold people responsible for their actions and failures. If we were all held to account we might all be a bit more careful.
OTOH MTimT is right that systems need to be designed to cope with individual mistakes and pick them up where they occur, hopefully before too much damage is done.
It is where both are missing (eg Barings bank or the current LIBOR scandal) that things go really wrong. Leeson was a crook and was dishonest but it was the lack of competent systems that killed the bank.
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
There is a very basic question, the answer to which the family of Lamara Bell are entitled.
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or (2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or (3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
That assumes that it was error and not culpable negligence or malice, not an assumption that can be made all cases.
For the avoidance of doubt I am not saying this was the case in the incident in question, but to dismiss everything as a systemic failure seems short sighted.
I addressed willful actions in my first post. I do not dismiss everything as systemic failure. My point of departure was "if not willful, then ..."
I stand by my human error statement above though, as willful actions are not error.
Why is it "Police Scotland", instead of, say, the Scottish Police Service? Sounds like a verb
Have you ever heard a Scottish person to try and speak English?
Hoping that they use the correct grammar is beyond unreasonable.
Yebbut I've seen you use "you and I" as the object (as opposed to subject) of a sentence a few times
Irony dear boy.
Remember when I speak the English language it sounds so elegant plus I'm multi lingual so I have like six or seven languages in my head.
A man of seven tongues ?
Mrs Eagles is spoilt.
English, French, German, Latin, Greek, Urdu and Punjabi.
I'm learning to speak Spanish at the moment.
So I'm quite the cunning linguist with my talented tongue.
My uncle speaks English, French, German, Italian, Greek, Russian and Romansh*
* The last being because he had a crush on a lovely young Swiss lady and wanted to invite her to stay in the appropriate manner
I speak English, as well as French and German (learnt those two at school), as well as my mother tongue Malayalam (the language of Kerala in southern India).
As a kid, I also taught myself how to read Greek (via an interest in astronomy), and Russian (via an interest in Soviet ships and aircraft).
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
I agree that people have to take responsibility. You can't have an High Reliability Organization without each person taking responsibility at every moment of every working day to avoid things going wrong, and communicating effectively with everyone else in the team - up and down communications.
But investigations that are set up to apportion blame and force someone to say mea culpa are very ineffective. And if someone has not done what they should have, it's way more important in my view to find out why they didn't (lack of training, lack of clarity in procedure, too much leeway of what it acceptable performance, steady erosion of controls and standards over time as nothing has gone wrong, etc...) and address that, than to get them to take the blame.
Where we agree is that mistakes offer way more chance for learning and improving than successes. But that is only the case if there is a 'learning culture and environment', which a blame-apportioning approach precludes.
I broadly agree with all that, especially your last sentence.
Apportioning responsibility/blame is, however, important in banking because the failure to do in recent years has been so corrosive of the trust necessary for banking to work effectively. At least IMO. I appreciate that I have a particular perspective. I spend too much time with the bad guys!!
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
There is a reason why accident reports in safety-critical organisations do not generally name individuals. It is vital to get to the cause: appropriate action can be taken later by the relevant authorities.
Perhaps this attitudinal difference is because, in your industry, problems are often deliberately caused. In other industries it is much more common for problems to be non-deliberate (even when including incompetence).
@Cyclefree One thing that strikes me in banking is how there has never been a rogue trader in the style of Kerviel/Leeson who has ever been caught whilst making a supernormal profit.
It is where both are missing (eg Barings bank or the current LIBOR scandal) that things go really wrong. Leeson was a crook and was dishonest but it was the lack of competent systems that killed the bank.
On the other hand it takes a pervasive and usually highly intrusive system to stop an inside expert from abusing the systems that are there within an inch of their life. In my (IT Security) experience trying to stop experts with access from doing naughty things usually makes the system almost unusable by everyone else, and even then with the best security systems in the world, supposedly, we get Snowden.
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
so he'd going to cheat and attempt to physically assault opponents in a friendly match?
Asshat is too kind.
Typical unintelligent Labour thug, resorting to threats of violence.
I see Burnham's back tracking on his Hillsborough accusations; presumably worried that those he's slagging off, might come out fighting.
Oh for goodness sake, Boris told a taxi driver to 'F off and die', it was a comment made in jest not a threat to murder half the Sun's journalism team! Burnham also went to Cambridge
Bonkers to think they were left for three days despite someone calling it in!
The police have confirmed that they got the message, they have named the officer spoken to and they have admitted that he failed to put it on the system as he should have.
Any critical safety system should be robust enough to account for some level of human error. In the area I work, we simply wouldn't be able to use 'human error' as an excuse for why a critical event occurred. I would wonder how many other messages to the police have not been properly logged on the system.
Absolutely. Human error is a symptom of an underlying systemic cause, not the ultimate cause itself. Focusing solely on proximate causes is not a way to improve operations, be it for safety, reliability or excellence.
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
There is a reason why accident reports in safety-critical organisations do not generally name individuals. It is vital to get to the cause: appropriate action can be taken later by the relevant authorities.
Perhaps this attitudinal difference is because, in your industry, problems are often deliberately caused. In other industries it is much more common for problems to be non-deliberate (even when including incompetence).
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
Yet Kendall has just opposed the IHT tax cut, so if she wins IHT would be paid at 40% on all estates over £325,000. Burnham's levy is to fund social care I believe, though personally I would prefer greater use of annuities
Possibly, but I doubt that any party will seek to specifically go back on the IHT change by 2020. It'll just be left at £1m and time allowed to degrade it, in the same way the £325K has rarely been uprated. Unless, as you say, it is part of some wider scheme on social care.
We shall see, although if IHT was largely replaced by a social care fund that would at least make more sense, though personally, as I said, I would prefer measures to encourage annuities to fund care
IHT is a terrible tax - makework for lawyers and accountants; and avoided by people with large fortunes anyway.
Indeed, but you can only avoid it if you give away your estate 7 years before death, and of course it only applies going forward to the richest estates anyway
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
so he'd going to cheat and attempt to physically assault opponents in a friendly match?
Asshat is too kind.
Typical unintelligent Labour thug, resorting to threats of violence.
I see Burnham's back tracking on his Hillsborough accusations; presumably worried that those he's slagging off, might come out fighting.
I always liked the Asimov quote from the Mayor in Foundation:
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
Unfortunately in today's world it all too often seem the first.
@faisalislam: Sturgeon tells me: "Labour asked us to vote on fox hunting & we're agreeing. My invitation to Labour is dont sit on fence on tax credits"
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
so he'd going to cheat and attempt to physically assault opponents in a friendly match?
Asshat is too kind.
Typical unintelligent Labour thug, resorting to threats of violence.
I see Burnham's back tracking on his Hillsborough accusations; presumably worried that those he's slagging off, might come out fighting.
Oh for goodness sake, Boris told a taxi driver to 'F off and die', it was a comment made in jest not a threat to murder half the Sun's journalism team! Burnham also went to Cambridge
Boris's comments were made when he was harangued by a taxi driver. If I were on a bike and a car driver made comments towards me out if his window, I might use some choice words.
@faisalislam: Sturgeon tells me: "Labour asked us to vote on fox hunting & we're agreeing. My invitation to Labour is dont sit on fence on tax credits"
The Order of the Wooden Spoon is awarded to.....
The fun is Scotland might yet just kill off the Labour Party.
Kendall's decision to oppose the IHT tax cut, one of the most popular proposals in the Budget, a big error on her part, on this she may even be left of Burnham, who has said the Mansion Tax was a mistake (although he has backed a levy to pay for social care). It us unlikely to win her many more leftwingers but will turn off floating voters
Andy Burnham says Labour should embrace a system where a person pays as much as 15% on every estates following a death. - I'd have thought that far more objectionable to the electorate than IH which only kicks in at £I million.
Yet Kendall has just opposed the IHT tax cut, so if she wins IHT would be paid at 40% on all estates over £325,000. Burnham's levy is to fund social care I believe, though personally I would prefer greater use of annuities
Possibly, but I doubt that any party will seek to specifically go back on the IHT change by 2020. It'll just be left at £1m and time allowed to degrade it, in the same way the £325K has rarely been uprated. Unless, as you say, it is part of some wider scheme on social care.
We shall see, although if IHT was largely replaced by a social care fund that would at least make more sense, though personally, as I said, I would prefer measures to encourage annuities to fund care
IHT is a terrible tax - makework for lawyers and accountants; and avoided by people with large fortunes anyway.
Indeed, but you can only avoid it if you give away your estate 7 years before death, and of course it only applies going forward to the richest estates anyway
I love this comment: John R says: July 14, 2015 at 1:48 pm Andy ‘He’ll do I suppose’ Burnham is the most inspiring Labour leadership slogan I have yet heard.
It's not either / or. You have to understand both the proximate cause and any other underlying or contributory causes.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
I agree that people have to take responsibility. You can't have an High Reliability Organization without each person taking responsibility at every moment of every working day to avoid things going wrong, and communicating effectively with everyone else in the team - up and down communications.
But investigations that are set up to apportion blame and force someone to say mea culpa are very ineffective. And if someone has not done what they should have, it's way more important in my view to find out why they didn't (lack of training, lack of clarity in procedure, too much leeway of what it acceptable performance, steady erosion of controls and standards over time as nothing has gone wrong, etc...) and address that, than to get them to take the blame.
Where we agree is that mistakes offer way more chance for learning and improving than successes. But that is only the case if there is a 'learning culture and environment', which a blame-apportioning approach precludes.
I broadly agree with all that, especially your last sentence.
Apportioning responsibility/blame is, however, important in banking because the failure to do in recent years has been so corrosive of the trust necessary for banking to work effectively. At least IMO. I appreciate that I have a particular perspective. I spend too much time with the bad guys!!
Anyway, thanks for the debate.
Likewise re the debate, and my particularly bent probably comes from working safety and security in the biological, chemical and nuclear areas. There, with the very rare exception of the insider threat, the key is to keeping highly qualified good people working safely. So I guess the focus is different.
We find that many accidents in the safety-critical industries are often due to complacency and people making their own short cuts instead of following longer but safer procedures.
There is a reason why accident reports in safety-critical organisations do not generally name individuals. It is vital to get to the cause: appropriate action can be taken later by the relevant authorities.
Perhaps this attitudinal difference is because, in your industry, problems are often deliberately caused. In other industries it is much more common for problems to be non-deliberate (even when including incompetence).
Have you noticed Mr Jessop that when the police cock up it is never anyone's fault? leave aside the Scottish case for a moment, we also have the gangster who was shot six times but the police didn't notice and said it was natural causes (and that in a Force that gave us the Bamber case - when they also didn't notice a murder). Then we have the South Wales police force who forgot to investigate the fact that a child was being raped - no one's fault "lessons have been learned". South Yorks Police threaten a sex abuse victim and get her not to proceed - no crime committed, no arrests made. It just goes on and on.
Not naming individuals may be a good idea in some cases, not holding people to account for their actions isn't and never will be, unless you want more incidents of the same type in the future.
Comments
It's a huge blob and only second to the Met in terms of size - beforehand it was 8 tiddly/middling forces all doing their own thing.
I am put in mind of hard drinking, taciturn, middle aged men a la Rebus.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/liz-kendall/inheritance-tax_b_7790798.html?1436862476&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000067
https://yougov.co.uk/news/categories/politics/
"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-31856341
"Alexander Blood, from Saltford in Somerset, was given a community payback order after admitting acting in a racially aggravated manner.
Blood swore at police officers and called them "Jock"."
A call was made to the police: that call was either:-
(1) received by an individual or
(2) by an answerphone, which either failed to record it; or
(3) by an answerphone which was subsequently listened to.
Assuming that 2 does not apply, who was the individual who listened to the call and failed to record it or escalate it? Why have they not been suspended pending an internal investigation? After all, would you want that person listening to and ignoring other calls?
If the call was escalated to someone else, who was that person? Why have they not been suspended?
All the talk of procedures and accountability is diversionary. At the heart of this (as in all cock-ups) is someone who did the wrong thing or failed to do the right thing and that person and, if necessary, that person's boss or bosses need to take responsibility.
@paulwaugh: .@andyburnhammp on journo/MPs football match: "I've got a msg for anyone from the Sun who's thinking of playing: don't forget your shinpads"
Kenneth Roy in the Scottish Review has some interesting points, and has some
questions that I think, well worth a listen to. (The URL is shortened due to being large)
http://goo.gl/cID2XC
Fabrizio Goria @FGoria 2m2 minutes ago
EU commission to recommend to EU fin mins using efsm fund for bridge financing for Greece despite British, Czech objections - officials
It would have been a horrid way for the poor woman to die.
The inevitable Inquiries seem to be rattling down the road of ever more bureaucratic recording and registration requirements. This is almost certainly a very bad thing and will reduce the abysmal effectiveness of the Scottish force even further. But the SNP seem to believe that there is not a problem in the world that can't be fixed by having the right form so more paperwork is inevitable.
I would bet that at the bottom of this there is an unclear procedure, a change of shift, misunderstandings during a hand-off or the like. Finding someone to blame is the least likely way to avoid it happening again.
https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes?lang=en-gb
What I don't understand is how the person who took the call failed to record it - surely the first thing they would have done would have opened a computer screen and followed the prompts to ensure they collected all the necessary information?
Or do they just scribble notes to each other on post-its?
It is not a question of apportioning blame but understanding the facts. And one fact we do know here is that a call was made. That call was received by someone and it is imperative to find out who received it and what they did or did not do.
I have investigated cock ups in the banking industry for 29 years now and I can say that in every case - at the heart of what went wrong - was someone doing the wrong thing or not doing the right thing. And for far too long, people in this industry (and not only this one) have talked about processes and procedures and environments changing and all the rest of it and have ignored the fact that people make mistakes (and worse) and need to take responsibility when they do make mistakes. That applies to the police just as much as it does to banking, more so given that someone died - alone and in pain - as a result.
The failure of people from top to bottom in organisations to take responsibility is one reason why we keep on having such problems.
This is Australia's version of Trott realising he couldn't handle Johnson on bouncy pitches.
Will be voting in the interests of the country.
Shall be asking my Lab MP why Unions where fewer than half the members vote Labour are allowed to affiliate to only one party under Lab rules, since they always say they represent all their members.
Hoping that they use the correct grammar is beyond unreasonable.
What I find oddest about the case is that this was on the M9 deep in the central belt. If it had been the A9 north of Inverness you might understand it better but literally tens of thousands of vehicles would have driven past this scene before the police found them including, no doubt, dozens of police cars. The M9 is one of the busier roads in Scotland (outside Glasgow).
The conclusion for me is that this a freakish tragedy and that it would be unwise to overgeneralise the response.
Remember when I speak the English language it sounds so elegant plus I'm multi lingual so I have like six or seven languages in my head.
@GuidoFawkes: Burnham refuses to name names on which papers and which new Lab politicians are to blame for Hillsborough cover up. Rowing back now.
Is 'the little Cranky lady' Nicola Sturgeon the biggest turncoat since Judas, @SunNation asks? http://www.sunnation.co.uk/is-little-cranky-sturgeon-the-the-modern-judas/ …
This time.
Far too often, though, people focus on the latter and forget or downplay the former And sometimes human error is not caused by something else but happens because the person just did not do their job well enough. Always trying to shift responsibility onto something else really does not help because - too often - it allows people to avoid facing up to their own personal responsibility. I see this all the time in banking: there were no procedures/they didn't say I couldn't do this etc etc and it's evasion.
It would be refreshing if people who make mistakes said so, apologised and then the person concerned and the rest of us could learn from those mistakes. (I accept that this may have happened here but this is something that applies to lots of organisations.) We learn far more from our mistakes (and those of other people) than we ever do from our successes.
But worse was the statement by the police spokesman saying it wasn't their fault because they were struggling with the replacement of officers with civilians in the call centres, forced on them by the eevil Turies budget cuts. That was low.
Asshat is too kind.
It shows that he
i) Is extraordinarily fit (Well we knew this anyway)
ii) Most likely has a very low maximum heart rate.
The information is gold dust for the other teams.
https://twitter.com/Spitinthesoup/status/620925772614770689
For the avoidance of doubt I am not saying this was the case in the incident in question, but to dismiss everything as a systemic failure seems short sighted.
Mrs Eagles is spoilt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VLYpKGVBUg
Remember, I'm from Yorkshire, to my ears everyone else's accents sound funny to me.
Team Sky has given French newspaper L'Equipe and respected French physiologist Frederic Grappe access to two years of Chris Froome's power data, with Grappe saying that the Tour de France leader's power data indicates that his performances are consistent.
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/team-sky-releases-froomes-power-data/
I'm learning to speak Spanish at the moment.
So I'm quite the cunning linguist with my talented tongue.
I see Burnham's back tracking on his Hillsborough accusations; presumably worried that those he's slagging off, might come out fighting.
But investigations that are set up to apportion blame and force someone to say mea culpa are very ineffective. And if someone has not done what they should have, it's way more important in my view to find out why they didn't (lack of training, lack of clarity in procedure, too much leeway of what it acceptable performance, steady erosion of controls and standards over time as nothing has gone wrong, etc...) and address that, than to get them to take the blame.
Where we agree is that mistakes offer way more chance for learning and improving than successes. But that is only the case if there is a 'learning culture and environment', which a blame-apportioning approach precludes.
That said, I do regularly attend conferences where experts from companies like BP do share their expertise and I am struck by how many similarities there are in human behaviour in relation both to the original problems and, even more so, in the responses.
It has always struck me that the banking industry could usefully adopt the airline experience which, as I understand it, shares the results of accident reports so that all airlines can improve their processes, training etc. More of this ought to happen in banking IMO.
At any event, I don't operate on theories but on practical experience. In my experience, in banking, there are very few "accidents" but lots of people claiming that it wasn't their fault that they did what they did. People claim to be geniuses when the money is being doled out and blind, deaf and dumb when it comes to responsibility for things going wrong.
I
* The last being because he had a crush on a lovely young Swiss lady and wanted to invite her to stay in the appropriate manner
Wonder if many Greens have joined Lab Supporters to vote Corbyn: they are an anti-austerity party of the far left whonhave no prospect of serious power for a looooooong time.
OTOH MTimT is right that systems need to be designed to cope with individual mistakes and pick them up where they occur, hopefully before too much damage is done.
It is where both are missing (eg Barings bank or the current LIBOR scandal) that things go really wrong. Leeson was a crook and was dishonest but it was the lack of competent systems that killed the bank.
I stand by my human error statement above though, as willful actions are not error.
As a kid, I also taught myself how to read Greek (via an interest in astronomy), and Russian (via an interest in Soviet ships and aircraft).
Apportioning responsibility/blame is, however, important in banking because the failure to do in recent years has been so corrosive of the trust necessary for banking to work effectively. At least IMO. I appreciate that I have a particular perspective. I spend too much time with the bad guys!!
Anyway, thanks for the debate.
Perhaps this attitudinal difference is because, in your industry, problems are often deliberately caused. In other industries it is much more common for problems to be non-deliberate (even when including incompetence).
It simply must have happened.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
Unfortunately in today's world it all too often seem the first.
The Order of the Wooden Spoon is awarded to.....
And I'm usually very mild-mannered.
Lovely !
John R says:
July 14, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Andy ‘He’ll do I suppose’ Burnham is the most inspiring Labour leadership slogan I have yet heard.
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2015/07/14/look-at-syriza-look-at-greece-thats-what-jeremy-corbyn-would-do-for-labour-and-britain/#more-20010
Not naming individuals may be a good idea in some cases, not holding people to account for their actions isn't and never will be, unless you want more incidents of the same type in the future.