Network Rail fine

[servodude]

Unless you have a different definition of "just", it isn't. If I am high in the DoT and looking at relative performance across the number of operators it is a useful metric to know which are fined more, which have more accidents per mile etc. Similarly if I am responsible for management within such an operator and I know my remuneration, my budget, my likelihood of winning (or renewing) contracts is partly based on a safety record, the fines incurred etc. then I am incentivised to adopt practices and behaviours reflecting such.

I have few issues with public bodies having some of the incentive mechanisms adjusted and reflected to be more like that of the private sector. This shouldn't be about "just" financial circularity.

In this case we are talking about National Rail which is a sole operator with no competition. In these circumstances, the fine of however much is just a token and in reality just means that things do not get done that should get done. I cannot believe that they are sitting a on a spare £6.5 million (as I quoted, although reports say £6.7 million before you pull me up on that) without some effect on their ability to finance maintenance and so on.

Dod

I think we're looking at it the same way.

It feels to me like part of the goverment fining a different part of the government an amount that they must pay to the govenment.. meanwhile the govenment has commitments to spending
- which seems to descend in to Pythonesque terrirory if we are to believe THAT is an incentive to improve performance....
" If I don't get THIS right I'll have to punish myself and I'll be really disappointed in me"
cut to annimated monks chanting Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem and hitting themselves on the head with a wooden board

I do get the point that fines are a punishment, and punishments improve compliance... but applying that logic in this circumstance is a bit dogmatic rather than practical

If you mark your own work and find yourself failing does giving yourself a punishemnt exercise make you any better? or just a bit weird?

[servodude]

I had not proposed that.. but if it saved unnecessary cost and paperwork I can see the sense in it.

What I can't see the sense in is a fine that's little more than a performative sherricking. If it isn't actually punitive (and from the description Dod gave it's not) it's not an incentive - it's just the public blob moving funds internally and virtue signalling at the same time

Unless you have a different definition of "just", it isn't. If I am high in the DoT and looking at relative performance across the number of operators it is a useful metric to know which are fined more, which have more accidents per mile etc. Similarly if I am responsible for management within such an operator and I know my remuneration, my budget, my likelihood of winning (or renewing) contracts is partly based on a safety record, the fines incurred etc. then I am incentivised to adopt practices and behaviours reflecting such.

I have few issues with public bodies having some of the incentive mechanisms adjusted and reflected to be more like that of the private sector. This shouldn't be about "just" financial circularity.

I take your point that it is a metric but I don't think it is a good one in that regard
- I think it is a specious application of a fiscal punishment which is at best superficial (and leans towards the disingenuous - "Oh! we've fined ourselves for not doing what we should have --- nothing to see here!")

I like measuring things and doing useful stuff with those measures - this kind of fluff isn't very practical

[Spet0789]

Completely agree with this.

Really? The rest of your post makes a lot of sense. But you think the there isn't much evidence the NHS does report accidents etc.? It is literally a daily occurrence at ward level, let along hospital, or NHS Trust levels.

Where can I go online and read (anonymised) reports of NHS accidents? I can (and as a private pilot, do) go onto the AAIB website and do the same. Until we are at that point, I will maintain that the NHS needs to change its culture.

The general rule seems to be to try and keep mistakes quiet.

[Hallucigenia]

It feels to me like part of the goverment fining a different part of the government an amount that they must pay to the govenment.. meanwhile the govenment has commitments to spending
- which seems to descend in to Pythonesque terrirory if we are to believe THAT is an incentive to improve performance....
" If I don't get THIS right I'll have to punish myself and I'll be really disappointed in me" ....If you mark your own work and find yourself failing does giving yourself a punishemnt exercise make you any better? or just a bit weird?

You're assuming that government is some single monolith with a single budget - but there's been a big effort since the 1980s to devolve budgets (and hence accountability) down into discrete autonomous units. Having been involved with several of them, I can assure you that it doesn't feel like "punishing yourself" if £££ gets paid to another part of government, it's a direct hit to that unit.

[servodude]

It feels to me like part of the goverment fining a different part of the government an amount that they must pay to the govenment.. meanwhile the govenment has commitments to spending
- which seems to descend in to Pythonesque terrirory if we are to believe THAT is an incentive to improve performance....
" If I don't get THIS right I'll have to punish myself and I'll be really disappointed in me" ....If you mark your own work and find yourself failing does giving yourself a punishemnt exercise make you any better? or just a bit weird?

You're assuming that government is some single monolith with a single budget - but there's been a big effort since the 1980s to devolve budgets (and hence accountability) down into discrete autonomous units. Having been involved with several of them, I can assure you that it doesn't feel like "punishing yourself" if £££ gets paid to another part of government, it's a direct hit to that unit.

True.
But just because some guy is getting paid to hit the budgie under the wallpaper with a hammer doesn't mean the bulge is any less unsightly now it's somewhere else - even if he feels like he's done a decent job...

[dealtn]

Really? The rest of your post makes a lot of sense. But you think the there isn't much evidence the NHS does report accidents etc.? It is literally a daily occurrence at ward level, let along hospital, or NHS Trust levels.

Where can I go online and read (anonymised) reports of NHS accidents? I can (and as a private pilot, do) go onto the AAIB website and do the same. Until we are at that point, I will maintain that the NHS needs to change its culture.

The general rule seems to be to try and keep mistakes quiet.

I have no disagreement with you the NHS needs to change its culture. I broadly agree with everything you have said. However the NHS, and other parts of government, do record their "mistakes" . As you would expect these are of most use internally by management in learning and improving, and frankly (rightly) trying to ensure an area you might be responsible for is less error prone than others.

I would imagine if you googled drug errors, for instance, you could find various measures and reports by the Care Commission, or NHS Resolution, that assess that and provide relative rankings of NHS regions and Trusts. Finding an example of where that outcome is poor, or extreme, such as Beverley Allitt, doesn't prove the general case. That's not how logical argument works.

[Hallucigenia]

You're assuming that government is some single monolith with a single budget - but there's been a big effort since the 1980s to devolve budgets (and hence accountability) down into discrete autonomous units. Having been involved with several of them, I can assure you that it doesn't feel like "punishing yourself" if £££ gets paid to another part of government, it's a direct hit to that unit.

True.
But just because some guy is getting paid to hit the budgie under the wallpaper with a hammer doesn't mean the bulge is any less unsightly now it's somewhere else - even if he feels like he's done a decent job...

If he's responsible for a budgie farm on this side of the wallpaper, then moving it to someone else's side of the wallpaper is not good for business, and he is incentivised not to do it.

But your argument of "there's no net change" could be applied to the private sector - if Amazon buys £10m of diesel for their vans from Shell, and Shell buys £10m of server services from Amazon, 10m budgies have been moved from one side of the private sector to the other and back again. But you can bet that there are people in purchasing on both sides who are highly incentivised to get a better deal on diesel or cloud services from BP or Microsoft or whoever.

I can't speak for what happens within departments proper, but certainly at the executive agency and public body level, the budgets are ring-fenced and autonomous, and the accountability as a unit feels pretty real. If anything, you could argue that they go too far the other way, and can descend into counter-productive penny-pinching where even a purchase of say £20 needs to have two signatures to approve it.

Obviously you have to be wary of Goodhart's Law, but in general there's sufficient autonomy that it if you choose a meaningful target, units of government are generally pretty well incentivised to try to hit those targets, it doesn't feel like just pushing money around any more than that's true for Shell and Amazon.

[mc2fool]

But just because some guy is getting paid to hit the budgie under the wallpaper with a hammer doesn't mean the bulge is any less unsightly now it's somewhere else ...

Um, I must admit I'm struggling with the meaning let alone the visualisation of that metaphor. Should we call the RSPB?

[Nimrod103]

But getting back to Network Rail, I can’t really see why the corporate body should be fined, if the mistakes were made on a personal level. This Stonehaven culvert design was not fit for purpose, its construction and inspection was inferior, so it didn’t work. This was all due to personnel not performing up to spec or making mistakes for whatever reasons. In such cases, how far up the management/shareholder tree should the blame go? I can’t help but feel our blame culture requires a monetary payment, and anyone or any entity who has a bit of money is made to pay up, no matter how responsible they are.

It is the one thing preventing me from putting my name forward to be on the managing board of a voluntary organisation I am involved in. I could find myself culpable for something way down the organisation over which I have no control.

[didds]

[quote="Dod101"
My point is though that I cannot see that depriving a public body of the resources to carry out its job is helpful as punishment, since for instance it is not hurting or punishing the directors/managers who are supposed to be directing and managing the operation.[/quote]

Indeed - and as you mention earlier its effectively one Govt Department paying the fine to another anyway! ie the public purse doesnt even gain overall!

[servodude]

But just because some guy is getting paid to hit the budgie under the wallpaper with a hammer doesn't mean the bulge is any less unsightly now it's somewhere else ...

Um, I must admit I'm struggling with the meaning let alone the visualisation of that metaphor. Should we call the RSPB?

I thought it was a pretty common metaphor
- but you know what... google finds no hits? none!? It just gives me pictures to use as my computer wallpaper (perhaps that's the language changing in real time)

Anyways the point is (and I have no idea where I first heard it) that if your budgie is about while you are wallpapering you can end up with an unsightly bulge should you accidentally cover it..... and that's where you try and remedy things with a hammer - which results in simply relocting the problem (or it does in the cartoon world where the incident must have first arisen - realistically I imagine hitting a budgie actually has more of a "messy spread" result)

Not to be confused with any lyrics by The Clash